I just posted a comment to the slam list suggesting that Maya Angelou isn’t a great poet.

I am taking bets on how long it will be before I am called a “hater”.

Who’s in?

Starting a poem
at midnight is
a goddamn awful idea –

sitting straight up in bed
just because a spider crossed
your face
and now
you’re awake

what good is
thinking about writing now
get some sleep

anyway
once you dust off a shit idea for a poem
(and don’t they all seem so good until you
actually
think them through?)
you’ll just head off to bed most nights
anyway

I mean
hell
if you’re smart
you’ll opt for more pocket change
or for getting laid
instead of bending over to kiss that spider
hoping it’s the same fairy tale spider
that miss muffet damn near sat herself
upon

(thinking miss m was a wuss
when it came to
arachnids and
it’s a sin
all that poison going to waste
just because ) but

what the hell
any poem worth writing will cost you
and when all you need to do to pay up
is bend to it
rub your eyes
suck that spider in and let it
roll around on your tongue
then
simple enough
poet
you ought to do that
let the pen flow where it may even if
the words escape like eight legs skittering
like pens on glass where the ink wipes clean
as soon as it leaves the nib

fuck miss muffet and sleep alike
there’s work to be done