Three Stars Poem by Philip Nikolayev

To be attractive and engaging,
can't be confessional or raging,
bad enough you're a poet,
have to be non-categorizing,
problematizing all that "I" zing,
but crow it, throw it.

And also don't forget to mention
your abnegation of intention,
personal drama,
for literature is slyly worded,
at its best when a tad retarded
and a misnomer.

Attract like vogue, engage like cricket,
but in the end toujours critique it,
dig it but dick it,
self-deconstructing thus techniques,
the social animals are pleased,
it's truly wicked.

Efface the lyric self to bits,
focus your wits' obtruding fits
in precious precincts
that absolutely show you where
your talents zoom beyond compare,
what am I missing?

Discarding all constrictive fetters,
direct those mental metalworks
to screech crescendo,
for anything that ever matters
is this, the basis of poetics,
the innuendo.