Writing poetry is the most pretentious thing in the world

​

I sit at my desk and dip my quill 
in the blood of a Kardashian 
to remind the world that when you're famous,
haters exist only to tear you apart
and spread you across the internet
for a small subscription and a lasting
erection.  I tried for the Royal Family,
but their blood is weak and pale.

I sit at my desk because a mobile device 
is Plebeian, and my fingers are not 
designed for jabbing bluntly. Every stab
I make must penetrate, if only my page, if only
enraging the old writers upon whose backs I lean,
strokes scoring their leather as they hide
beneath their filthy verse.  A few curses escape,
but Larkin was never Laureate, so nobody cares.

From time to time I think I should 
do something to highlight my non-conformity, 
so i drop all my capital letters and punctuation and joinsomewordstogetherand

space



things 




out
because there's nothing worse than a cliche,
as the saying goes.  Phenomenal.

I don't do it for the glory, though glory
would surely be mine if only people weren't 
so ignorant, so eager to follow the trends
of the time.  Rhyme is for jingles and 
saving the jungles and yes, perhaps my 
metaphor is denser than most but I am dark
and deeper too.  I have things to say that you
should hear, that you should fear, that some
have said before but never quite as well as I, 
for I am not some college bore -- no!  I have 
lived and seen things, done things, eaten lunch
and ridden trains and broken vases,
I've been places.  I've run out of ink.

My nib is wearing down and I 
blunted my pen knife long ago
on a publisher's heart.  Even pointless,
it is enough to open a vein, but no-one
is here but myself.  

There is no blood, no ink,
just air.