We are very different writers, he & I.
He uses the point of a nail clipper
to etch his angular letters where they’ll reach
the broadest possible audience. Paper
is what you wipe with, says he.
Me, I revere the dirt beneath my nails
as if it were the dust of my ancestors,
which it might well be. Nature abhors
a pit, say I. We are all connected.
The shithouse poet only gets the urge to write
when he gets the urge. Sometimes his muse
is loosened by 24-hour news-mongering
on the fear channel. Squatting over the void,
hole to hole, he vents in rhyme.
Me, I make my own buzz,
rub my forefeet together for warmth.
If you didn’t know any different,
you might think I was praying.
You might take this windowless house for a hermit’s cell.