A Call to Poets

Poets unite
Forget about a career
In poetry
And concentrate on the
Poem
Quit turning out
Factory assembly
Line poems
Quit trying to imitate
Bukowski.

Poets unite
Listen to your brothers
And sisters
Quit being the first poet
To read and the first to leave
Quit using words
As preaching tools
When all over the world
People are starving
Dying and committing genocide
As we stand on stage well fed
Begging for applause
Playing to the audience
Telling our most intimate secrets
Pretending to be knowledgeable
When we know so little

Rams out fucking sheep
Poets playing trick-or-treat
Politicians beating their meat
Whores making it under the sheets
Predators lined-up with elbow grease
Landlords waiting to cancel your lease
It’s gotten so bad
You can’t tell the real
From the elite
Everyone has become a carbon copy
Of themselves

Take a number
Step up on stage
Rattle the cage
Let loose your rage
Be sure to wear your page
(The call you miss may be from God).
As we rival Ringling Brothers
Standing tall standing proud
Working the crowd
Like a carnie hustler

I call for all poets
To put down their poems
For 72 hours
Give up “my space” for a week
Take a Kaufman vow of silence
Help an old woman across the street
Serve a holiday meal at Saint Anthony’s
Quit sending out manuscripts for a month
And spend the saved postage
Helping the homeless
Sell your signed copies of Bukowski
And Ginsberg and give the proceeds
To war victims in Iraq
Pay homage at Malcolm
X’s grave
Hoist one for Robert Kennedy
Ride a boxcar for
Woody Guthrie
Say twelve Hail Mary’s for Ali
Sing a song for Selena
Say a prayer for Allen
Take the Eskimo out
Of Eskimo pie
Scalp Ted Turner with the
Atlanta Braves’ own tomahawk
Rename “Hooters” Bar
“Testicles”
And hire Male waiters
To serve in jockey shorts
Legalize prostitution
Campaign to have cops arrested
For disturbing the peace
Tell the Pope that
You’re giving up drugs and the church
To worship at the
Altar of Walt Whitman
Make Kenneth Patchen required reading
Visit an animal shelter
Save a pet from its owner
Volunteer for meals on wheels
Deliver food to the disabled
Give up center stage ego driven mania
For a trip to the park at dusk
Invest in yourself instead
Of interest bearing bank accounts
Meditate instead of masturbate
Make love instead of fuck
Set fire to Naropa
To prove you’re more than
A poet junkie
Sign a petition to replace Bush
With Bob Dylan
And give America a real high
Take a bookstore owner to dinner
Talk child talk
Translate gibberish
Put ego aside
Quit ingratiating yourself with one poet
At the expense of another poet
Do a soul dance for James Brown
Remember that life is but
A warm-up for the dance to come
Quit visiting the graves
Of Kerouac and Bukowski
Return to the world
Of the living
Put the poet back
Into poetry
Make me want to believe
In you again