Daniel Northcutt Poems

So, I wanted to be the next great poet.
I wanted to encapsulate the American zeitgeist.
Hell, the world's zeitgeist
And I wanted to do it with savoir faire and elegance.
...

They tell me my poetry lacks classicism.
This is for that eternally ambiguous "they."

Tonight in the heat
...

Dear God why O' why must you die?
I'm not ready to see you fade from shelves.
Will not the world let out a cry?
A cry for art and for themselves.
...

When I was a boy we never had a tin metal roof;
The rain never sang to us.
But she had a tin metal roof,
And she loved to listen to the tumultuous songs of the rain on that corrugated tin.
...

Think you that there is no savagery amongst our kind
We are born of the snows
We sprang like wraiths from the coldest north
And made our fires to keep warm
...

I won't pretend to talk about how time slips away.
I never called you.
I never talked to you.
Because I never had anything to say to you,
...

I had this job once.
I was so young.
I could still look forward.
Not like now,
...