All My Poetry 2 Poem by Tom Courtney

My poetry lies folded in the wrappers
marked for value sifted sorted folded filed
rejected accepted a line of strenuous dispositions
stretching from the keyboard to the kitchen counter top
And there the toaster pops up nouns
The pot bubbles with a verbal sauce
To my left some crusty prepositions browning nicely
I have some lightly steaming adjectives
mixed in with some adverbs for flavor
But a rattle heard a u tips over and pours out his contents
All over his neighbor poor l he stands up like a v
Next the i shoots his rocket pellet into outer space
and trenchant t tips over and stabs nubile n right in the head
And this letter goes and another comes
on this notion of mine
And the poetry comes and goes and flows across the room
from the kitchen to the eventual reward
placement into the new material file
And while the keyboard's still humming
and the waste paper basket 's filled with crumpled corn pops
Some crazy-wire insects crawl over the top
scrambling to regain their original designs
before they were so contorted
and pressed upon my page