He said,
“God, I’m sick of
poets, of hanging with
poets — those cheesy
thieves, those fame-famished
greedheads, those little-loved
deluded souls
who think the world
owes them a little regard
just because
they can make music
out of talking.”
I mustered my courage,
gathered my strength,
and responded,
“Hey…
that was a great line.
You gonna use that?”
Who really cares about
sticks and stones?
Bandages and pain meds
handle those just fine;
but a name like that one?
It comes down
like a slab of whirlwind-flung
concrete.
It doesn’t matter
what the old proverb
insists upon. Names
carve and crush and
starve and slush you,
and then, there you are:
nothing but remains, and
no one knows
how to ask
after you,
no one knows how to reach
your next of kin.
to master the art of the one-off
do it once
and call it a day
a one-off show
a one-off album
a one-off lifetime
do it once
and never come back
leave everyone wanting
more
an artist of the one-off
bucks that tired reincarnation trend
of hogging time
of insisting on
do overs
continuing sagas
serial dramas
endless sequels
just because it seems
so hard to get it right
the first time through
the one-off artist
instead declares
that whatever happens is
because it happens
already
enough
Dark Matter 