First Drafts Poem by Adam Hoagland

The flaccid verses etched up on this screen,
The spawn of more productive days before,
'neath dust that seeks to stain the cathode's gleam
and dull the dried-up sentiment they store.
The Critic rants behind these eyeballs fixed
on lines that smolder on from fiery youth,
'It's garbage, ' he insists, 'It's trite! It's sick! ';
while corneas invert reflected truth.
As hands spin 'round and calendars are changed,
and vigor gets displaced by retrospect,
these poorly planned-out thoughts that I've arranged
will neither age nor entropy deflect.
These seeds sown forth from that dear time and place,
Their fate to be still-born as wasted space.

(ARH 9/24/08)