A Poem Of Despair Poem by Sajal Ahmed

1.
Perhaps;
my poems—
like sparks,
ready to scatter everywhere;
the presses tremble in fear.

Whatever people swallow becomes poetry.
The definition of poetry
is essentially press-dependent;
pages devour fragments of love
and imagery of wild vines and leaves.
Bravo! How perfectly grammatical!
Twenty-two copies sold;
a few naïve displaced souls,
within editors' metaphors—
this innate grammar
fits half-dead poems
in the pile of poets;
in the verses of the owl,
canonical literary methods
are neatly found.

2.
To become a poet in the afterlife—
I tore apart your editorial page.
I was not born
to write poetry by rules,
oh bureaucratic hypocrite.
O grammar-obsessed editor,
my poems intend to cross this world,
they journey through the heavens;
let your press remain filled
with flowers, vines, and leaves.

3.
Now I sit as Time itself,
facing God;
page and pen in hand.

Watching the form of God,
I want to write something;
without wine this pen is useless,
yet God has forbidden that too.