I thought of burnimg my bookstore dowm,
and I'm not a Nazi.
There were volumes of verse
          thin,
but thicker volumes of biography
presumably by someone who knew
         explaining 
this and that about what that poet was
          supposed
to have said and done.
The end result ..you don't have to think
of what the poet meant
          because
someone thought they knew
and told of his life
his mistakes, infidelities, drunkeness as
they try to explain the poet
and haven't written themselves.

So I left that shop
         thinking
I'll burn it down.
Poets write from life
          critics
don't.
         So I went to the next section
and brought a book on
         quantum physics

 

 

 

(c) JJ