a poetry lesson

to be a poet, he said, you have to be
comfortable with a microphone
to get up there
and really lay it down

that creating poetry
was only 15
percent
of the process

the other 85 belonging
to research and
submissions

and that the only
way you’d
make it
if at all
was to be
able to wallpaper
your walls with rejections

well, I’ve wrestled
the microphone
have created
have processed
have wallpapered
the walls of my house
and of my mind

and the only way
I’m making it
these days
is with
a handful of
Vaseline and a kind view

it’s not so bad
when you consider
all the artists out there
still retaining hope
that someday
they’ll be discovered
as a rare and precious
thing

meanwhile
those of us
who write because
we must
will simply
go on doing
just that

frying eggs
pumping gasoline
battling women

imagining still-life
if for only
a moment       moving