METAPOETICS II/VI
by Will de Kypia


For E.A.P.

The Source:
One Poet's Dream

No one knows where a poem comes from.
—Philip Levine, PBS News Hour
August 10, 2011

Do you know where a poem
comes from? Me neither.

I know where babies come from.
How they're made is notorious while
a poem's origin is more mysterious.

I am a poet, a working poet.
Most of my poems simply
drop in unannounced.

Sometimes twice.

I wake up, roll out of bed,
head towards the kitchen to
brew me a pot of coffee.

Bumbling downstairs, I reach my man
cave, the private retreat and personal
scriptorium nobody is allowed to enter.

Nobody except me.

The cave door is open wide,
scraps of paper litter my lair.

Poems cover the desk and the chair, the
bookcase, the mini-fridge and the wine rack.

Words, lines, stanzas, whole pages glare at
me when I haven't had a single sip of java.

The poems are ghastly specimens of the
worst sort of greeting card bromide.

Glaring back at the intruders I snarl—

Who are you? Why are here?
How the hell did you get in?

I'm not fit for company till
I've had my ration of coffee.

One member of this gaggle of
uninvited guests snidely retorts—

Well, apparently daddy-o has forgotten
his kids! We're poems you yourself wrote
then calmly — no, then coldly rejected.

You created us, and we blossomed in
your garden of verses for a season.

One hideous day you kicked us all out
and you did not even give us a reason!

How could anyone, especially a poet,
treat his own dear children that way?

We're angry because we were evicted,
angrier still because we do not merit one
single mention in your slick résumé.

It is time q forgetful father and his
pissed off progeny were reconnected.

Oh — We got in here Saint Nick
style by sliding down the chimney,

But we're not bearing gifts
for you, we seek an appropriate
compensation for ourselves.

We'll decide what we want
after we examine your abode
to inventory its contents.

Meanwhile you should offer
us a taste of coffee at least, you
cruel offspring abusing beast!

They start to roam around the cave,
looking at the bottles and the books, the
inexpensive artwork, my seldom-used
secondhand home exercise set.

I have no recollection of these
hapless dregs of the art of poesy
and hate to think they are mine.

Responding to them politely
(if not precisely forthrightly)
I enumerate three points:

First, there is no coffee.
Second, I am not your daddy.
Third, you slid the wrong chimney.
🏠
Tell me the street number you're looking
for so I may direct you to the right one.

Instead of answering they leer like
they're pondering a paternity suit,
will force me to take a DNA test.

I can't afford to hire a lawyer.
We working poets are usually
scrabblers or scroungers.

Until I am somehow able to
dump these deplorable discards
again I must distract them.

Whoever you are, I am glad
you're here for we play the same
game, i.e., the poetry game.

Perhaps you youngsters can
help me finish a poem I have been
working on for aeons of ages.

I'm trying to compose an ending
that is both witty and wise and also
appealing to cute poetical chicks.
🐥

The poem I require advice on
is this very one we are currently
in so do please try to be quick.

The interlopers ignore me as they
continue to investigate my sanctum.

Appraising my stuff, figuring out
how much they'll demand to settle
the bogus lawsuit they intend to
lodge against their father, me.

They'll find you can't extract
blood from a stone, a turnip, or a
perennially impecunious poet.

The true name of the game
rhymesters play is the poverty
game and we knuckleheads know it.

I could use a double espresso right now
to collect my wits to maybe avoid being
caught in a unpleasant authorship row.

Ordinary folk might forgive me for
siring this caterwauling cacophony.

However, poetry cognoscenti will view me
as a perpetrator of vile acts of aggravated
poetastery. Which to the lords and ladies
of the literary world is a serious felony.

Making me absolutely anathema
to those cute poetical chicks.

Suddenly I remember the pep pills
stashed in the pocket of my robe.

I pop one, two, I pop quite a few.
Espresso in a pill is a surreal thrill.

💊💊💊💊

My sleep-addled brain unaddles,
assesses the doggerel invasion situation,
concocts a plan for their relocation.

With well-concealed scorn I address
the jerks who assert they're my works
thereby having a claim to my name:

Sorry, for a moment I kinda spaced out.
Your aging papa's fading memory
is nothing he can brag about.

They are pathetic, opuscular fools
so without a smidgeon of shame
I loudly, faux-proudly exclaim

But I can, no I will brag about
you, for what marvelously metrical
little morsels I have begotten!

You kids are just amazing.
Lyrical, topical, and chock-full
of bold cogitations philosophical.

Do you hanker to become
web superstars blazing across
the shimmering cyber sky?

My skeptical children warily reply
Indeed, we do rather hanker.

May I bring you to a lit biz
honcho I happen to know who will
agree you are splendiferous!

My egotistical children merrily cry
Indeed, to him you may bring us!

He's a mighty media mogul who can
catapult you into the cultural pantheon
by posting you on his trendy website.

The entire wooly-headed flock bleats
Yes, zap us to him at warp speed!

I'm their shepherd.
They're my sheep.

This gentleman recognizes value.
I'm sure his site will welcome you.

Totally conned by my spiel they admit
We ache to attain great acclaim!

The Verba Volant Review will welcome
them for the owner is a greed head
whose measure of value is moolah.

💸
His selection process is what
the music biz used to call payola.

Guess I'll have to spend the
weekend at my usual side hustle as
a part-time ride-share driver.

We hop into a beat-up junker
too tatty for Uber and therefore
perfect for archrival Unter.

I lie to the greedy Gratia guy, say my poems
are old acquaintances new in town who desire a
prominent placement in his esteemed periodical.

To boost his website traffic the huck$ter will
attribute my rhymeslop to a notable author.

Possibly the fellow from Avon
or else a personal favorite, Mr. Anon.

I negotiate a spot in the next issue,
wish my poems and their publisher luck.

Heading home, I savor a latte
at Starbucks then return refueled
to my newly depopulated haven.

There I brood over the odds
of a fresh influx of word weeds
invading my garden of verses.

Did my poems sow their seed
to grow a bumper crop of blather
on the shag rug in the foyer?

Lay a clutch of their rotten eggs
in the hall closet’s darkest corner?

Or leave a gazillion spores to
sprout from the humongous heap of
dirty laundry in the basement?

No, I don't have worry about that,
my poems are never so clever.

🍷
I go to my man cave, pour me a
glass, and begin to write. I scribble
throughout the day, long into the night.

🕒
It is almost the witching hour when I
crawl back to bed where I remind myself
once more I ought to be brewing the
morning joe on the night before.

One day soon I expect to find a
beautiful poem I'm proud to declare
mine has dropped in unannounced.


We'll recognize each other of course,
then with a winsome smile she'll say

Good morning, Daddy dearest!
Brigit sends you her best. Is there
a little bit of the bean juice left?

My child will give me a big hug and I'll
offer her a brimming mug of cold coffee.

Tomorrow could be the day.
I can't wait to wake up.