We Read Our Poets from Afar

While at the university,
a grey professor said to me,
"We read our poets from afar,
so we can drive our motorcars
between their drunken lines of wit
and still have room to weave a bit.
We like our poets highly bred,
but gaunt of limb and underfed;
most of all, we like them dead."
Every time I asked, "Why so?"
the old professor shook a no,
"We read our poets from afar..."


(1978)