I've Given Up Poetry Poem by Gordon R Menzies

I've given up poetry

no more pulled faces, long
as autumn grey shadows,
no hearts bled white, instead
I've marshaled my disenchanted
vocabulary, gleaned from street
tongue and forgotten text,
for a different task, let
me be employed naming paint
and the artistry of dull-witted
chefs, let my coin come
in noisy hardware warehouses
and steaming kitchens, let
me romance buxom clerks
in bright red aprons, with
price guns held like bouquets
and sweaty-faced salad girls
in food stained whites,
the first shaking cans of
evening flax yellow and
skylight blue as heavy as
their own, and the second
slicing wilderland forest
mushrooms and carnival red
village beets as red and
full as their waiting lips
aged cork caramel
drizzling fish scale silver
gooseberry shimmer cake
glazed a Martian orange
alpine morning frosted
Indian summer cake
blood moon berry wine
their eyes a neptune grey
tool girls and salad darlings

I've given up poetry