State Funded Poetry Poem by Robert Rorabeck

I read my own words like masturbating.
Sometimes I am disgusted with myself I
Do it so much,
And I can’t spell, and I seem to repeat
Myself, especially when a spikenard is trying
Its damnedest to shoot out my cheek,
And each line tends to be for one woman
So hung over and belching, that it isn’t
Even funny.... In fact, if pathetic had a whim,
You could find it secreted like a condiment
In most of my words, thick and runny ruining
More subtler textures,

But sometimes, I think too how sad it will
Be, if a few of my finer words should not find a way out
From the wood chipper’s maul, the sallow temperatures
Of mediocrity, the mildew and rime of disuse
Through multiplications of seasons,
Where the unpublished sit without fingerprints in
The half-eaten book stacks,

Rather, let them out as they should be,
Not the roomy flume saccharine to greeting cards,
But chiseled on the convict’s tomb,
State funded poetry, or etchings on the park bench
From the work a day arsonist,
Or lovers who have long since abated, their names
Tattooed in the flesh of a scotch pine they once picnicked
Under, like in the fingernail paint and lipstick,
In the booth at the pizza parlor in Gainesville, FL,
Where we once went to down from the apartment,
Seven years ago before you were married and took a hyphenated
Last name, and your government position.