METAPOETICS IV/VI
by Will de Kypia


For E.A.P.

Coffee With The Poet

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

Do you know where poems come from?
Me neither. Babies, yes, but poems, no.

Everyone knows where babies come from,
the glorious way they get made is notorious.
The origin of poems is more mysterious.

I'm a poet — a serious poet —
yet my poems simply seem
to drop in unannounced.

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

Bumbling downstairs, I reach
my man cave, a private sanctum
nobody is ever permitted to enter.

Nobody except me.

The cave door is open, and
piles of paper litter my lair.

Poems cover the desk, the chairs, the
bookshelves, the wine rack, and the floor.

Lines, stanzas, whole pages glare at me
before I've had a single sip of java.

Glaring back at them I bark—

"Who are you? What are you doing here?
And how the hell did you get in?"

I'm generally a tad testy till
I've had a taste of coffee.

My uninvited guests'
impertinent retort is—

Well, hello Daddy dilettante.
It's a delight to get reconnected.

We are poems you wrote and then
calmly — no, and then coldly rejected.

You created us, and we blossomed in
your garden of verses a season or two
until for no reason at all you evicted us.

How could you treat your
own children that way?

We've wondered why we were
cast out, why we don't merit
a mention in your résumé.

And so we decided to stop by
to have a friendly family chat.

Like Old Saint Nick we
came down the chimney.

However, we are not bringing
gifts for you, we're seeking
prezzies for ourselves.

We think even bad parents
owe something to their kids.

There'll be time to discuss that
after we check out your place.

Meanwhile you could offer
us a cup of hot coffee at least, you
[expletive] child-abusing beast."

They start to roam around the cave,
examining the bottles and the books,
the humdrum artwork, my little-used
home-gym exercise-equipment set.

I have no recollection of these
scribblings, these wretched
dregs of the art of poesy.

My hypercritical mind no doubt
judged them all deplorable failures
and remorselessly purged them.

Despite their harsh words
I respond to them politely, if
not exactly forthrightly—

"First, there isn't any coffee.
Second, I am not your daddy.
You've got the wrong house.
🏠
I'll point you to the right one
if you have a street address."

Instead of answering they leer like
they're pondering a paternity suit,
plan to make me get a DNA test.

I cannot afford to hire a lawyer.

We serious poets are usually
scrabblers and scroungers.

I must distract my visitors while
I figure out how to dump them.

To dump them again.

"Whoever you are, I am glad
you're here. We play the same
game, we play the poetry game.

Maybe you pawky youngsters
can help me complete a poem I have
been working on for aeons of ages.

My aim is to compose an ending
that is witty, and wise, and also highly
appealing to cute logophile chicks.

The poem I require some help with
is actually this very poem we are
in so do please try to be quick."

🐥

The interlopers ignore me as they
continue to poke around my sanctum.

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

They will discover you cannot get
blood from a stone, a turnip, or
a perennially impecunious poet.

I need a triple espresso now
to gather my wits to avoid being
embroiled in an authorship row.

Normal people won't abhor me for
siring this caterwauling cacophony.

The poetry cognoscenti will deem
me the willful perpetrator of a foul
act of aggravated rhyme-crime.

Which in the land of the lords
of the written word is a felony.

Meaning I will be anathema
to all those logophile chicks.

If only I'd had time to brew…

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

I pop one, two, I pop quite a few.
Espresso in a pill gives me a thrill.

💊💊💊

My sleep-addled brain swiftly unaddles,
assesses the doggerel invasion situation,
recalls how to organize a deportation.

With well-concealed scorn I regard
the jerks who assert they are my works
and thereby claim a right to my name.

They're pathetic opuscular fools
so without one smidgeon of shame
I loudly faux-proudly exclaim—

"What marvelous poetical
compositions I've begotten!

For a moment I kind of spaced out.
Your poor papa's fading memory
is nothing he can brag about.

You kids are absolutely amazing.
Lyrical and topical and full of
conundrums philosophical.

Pure powerful poetry, not prissy
pumped-up pedestrian prose.

Do you hanker to become web stars
blazing across the blue cyber sky?"

"Yes, we do indeed hanker."
they rather warily reply.

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

"Yes, you may bring us!"
they very merrily cry.

"He is a mighty media mogul who can
catapult you into the cultural pantheon
by publishing you on his artsy website.

This man will instantly perceive
your value and I believe he
is publishing tonight."

"Yes, take us to him and at warp speed,
we ache to attain great acclaim."
they sheepishly bleat.

I am their shepherd
and they are my meat.

The Ars Gratia Artis Review will certainly
accept them, it is run by a greedhead
whose definition of value is moolah.
Payola $hinola._💸

I guess I'll be spending the
weekend at my side hustle as
a part-time rideshare driver.

We hop into a battered junker
much too tatty for Uber so it's
perfect for archrival Unter.

I tell the Gratia guy my poems are old
friends new in town who wish a prominent
placement in his pre$tigiou$ publication.

And since I am still enrolled in the U.S.
witness protection program he can't use my
name, not the fake, of course not the true.

He will attribute the poems
to a famously prolific author.

Either the fellow from Avon
or else my personal favorite, Anon.

I negotiate a place in the next issue
(I lied, it won't be out for two weeks),
wish the poems and the publisher luck.

Savor a latte grande at Starbucks,
returning refueled to an empty house.

To brood about another infestation of
weeds besieging my garden of verse.

Another encounter with a plague
of lamentable lowlife word lice.

Perhaps they sowed the seed
for a fresh harvest of drivel on
the red shag rug in the foyer?

Laid a clutch of eggs in the
hall closet’s gloomiest corner?

Or spilled a billion spores to
sprout from the huge heap of
dirty laundry in the basement?

No, my poems are
never so clever.

🍷
I go up to my man cave, pour me
a glass, start to write. I write
all day and well into the dark.
🕑
It is long past midnight when I
get to bed where I remind myself
once more I should be brewing my
morning joe the evening before.

Someday soon I hope to wake up and
find that a lovely poem I am proud to
call mine has dropped in unannounced.

We will recognize each other right away
and with a smile she'll cheerfully say—

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

I will give my child a big hug and
a brimming cup of cold coffee.

Tomorrow could be the someday.
☕️