I was listening to NPR a few weeks ago (I’m trying to seem cultured) and there was a story about a man who calls a Farmer’s Market in San Francisco his office.  He sits there with an old school typewriter and sells instant poems to tourists and other passerbys.  I think it’s brilliant.  The poems he read were great and I remembered what an art poetry is.  Good poetry.   Unfortunately a lot of it’s bad.  Really bad.

My writing has changed over the years, and I had my poetry phase.  It started when I was six and ended at about 30.  Not sure why, that’s just when some poets get started.  Anyhow, I liked my poetry, and would let my numbers read them and they’d get turned on.    Which was great.  But I had talent.  #50 did not.

It came in the mail, written on a page of a map.  He loved to travel and I thought it was very sweet.  And then I read what he wrote.  It was so syrupy, it was sticky.   Horrible.  He had just shit on an art form.  Granted, he was a business guy, managed bands, but know your place.   The closest he came to art was a signed Sarah McLaughlin CD Cover on his wall.    If you’re going to write me a poem, it better be good.   And this wasn’t.

So I told him.  I did.   I’m a bitch, I know.   He was hurt.  I didn’t care.

“I know you’re the poet, but I just, I felt this and had to write it down.”

I told him that he was better in bed than on paper and he should stick to that.    He wanted to know if I appreciated the effort.  I didn’t.  But I had done enough damage for one night.  I said, sure and took off my clothes.  When I went home the next morning, I wrote him a poem to show him how it was done.

Moral of the story, my standards for men aren’t as high as my standards for poetry.