Fresh Air: Twenty-First Century Edition
Michael Ceraolo
After months as an observer at The Internet Poetry Society
I finally typed in to say
Why do you all use the three-beat line and write
in a pseudo-confessional mode on subjects of pseudo-significance?
Why do you talk of your engagement with language,
confusing the use of the tool with the finished product;
don’t you realize that using your tool is masturbation
and that no one wants to see your verbal jism all over the page?
Have you not heard that lame rhyme is dead?
Have any of you ever worked a real job,
or have all of you done nothing but teach?
Can you train your gaze any place other than your navel?