Poem a Day December #18

Oops, I didn’t again...post that is. Tsk tsk, shame on me. What kind of a writer do I think I am, anyway? Oh, that’s right...this kind.

Billy Collins’s Poems Are All

such well behaved children

sitting in perfect rows behind

their desks, pencils freshly sharpened

notebooks open, eager to learn

something new about themselves

or the greater world at large.

Products of their Jesuit upbringing

they just say no to drugs, rarely drink,

never mention sex in mixed company—

and when was the last time

you heard one of them let loose

with the F-bomb?

No, these are clearly the A-students,

intent on bettering themselves,

on making good on their promises,

on leaving this world a better place

when they are finished with it

than when they entered it.

Meanwhile, my poems are more like

Jimmy Dinesfeld, Duncefeld as we,

the rotten kids, so cruelly named him,