Poetry Is Not Dead, Only Sobering Up From A Century Of Heavy Drinking Poem by Ted Sheridan

“I don’t call myself a poet, because I don’t like that word. I call myself a trapeze artist.” —Bob Dylan


You and I seem to always disagree;
you see darkness where there is only light,
I see life where you claim there is but death.
Your words are the rigor mortis that stiffens poetry
While me I try to feel the freedom of its motion
Contrived and cliché’ I beg to differ
More like real and lifelike the way people speak
Not some classic era gussied up in proper attire
Guys like Poe who were not afraid of the dark
Penned prose that read like poems
And when read with a shot of C. Bukowski
The two of them could write as well as drink
any one of those other poetic stiffs
under
the table.

2008 © T Sheridan