Thirteen thousand lady poets,
Poe said,
gave all their verse away —
no wonder he starved!
Too many poets,
that’s the problem!
too many living
poets,
not enough glory fodder
to feed us!
What’s a poet to do?
Become a Dead Poet!
It’s a guaranteed path
to glory, fame and im-
mortality!
There’s the Memorial Reading.
Your friends will come.
Writers who barely knew you
pen verse in your honor.
Then, finally, you appear
in the best anthologies —
something about closed brackets
around your years
seems to appeal to editors.
Critics discover you
(they never feed on anything living)
repeat your words
and have their way with your meaning —
no one cries rape
when words are ravished.
It matters little that your neighbors
have forgotten you —
already the next tenant
shops for oven cleaner,
new tools in the garage.
Oblivious traffic hums on the bridge
you leapt from.
It does not count
that everyone you slept with
is bedding down
with the worst surviving haiku-ists,
that even your best beloved
has put your books in the cellar —
what’s temporal fame
when someone can write
a doctoral thesis
on your use of caesura,
your bittersweet alliteration?
So do it quick —
perish and publish!
When the last petal
on the only wreath
that graced your grave
is borne away
on a winter wind,
your time will come!
— Revised 2026
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