To the Critic I Admire

[Jolly McJollyso]

Does it frustrate you
that no one will remember your name?

Does it worry you like it worries me?

After turnstile grade-factories finish
pumping students
through tangling, text-book ventricles,
you become

a slipshod citation in a piss-poor paper
written at six a.m.

Do you congratulate yourself
on your anonymity?

Or find solace in a student’s misinterpretation
of your hard work?

Lightning in your fingertips,
you stood on heaps of dead giants,
hacking at the monolith
with a two-inch ball-peen hammer.

I bet you thought we'd all stand amazed.

God knows I did.

I hung on your words,
in awe of their bravery,
and let your Times New Roman discourse
drip
onto my eyes—

reverent.

I yearned to be like you:

the twentieth-century, typewriter Sisyphus
shouting on a shelf
in the back of the library.

Shh.

You were like a god
at infinity's doorstep,
handing me the key,

and even I can barely remember

what the **** your name was.

[dyingflame]

great!! :) i'll write more later cuz right now i'm half asleep and dead tired from work

[blp]

It's good, yes. A little overwritten in places, perhaps. Watch that alliteration, a useful technique, but cloying like too much cake icing in large doses. Still, some nice stuff here.

[kandaurov]

I really liked the lyrical subject's tone. blp's got a point. Two points actually. Three. Whatever, good comment, blp. You see, critics can be good at what they do too ;) I'm peculiar about the kind of poetry I like reading, and yours fits the mould. Jolly, my hat is off to you, good job :thumbs_up

[Pendragon]

I liked this one! I must admit I once fired one at an editor who insisted that I change a poem twice and then rejected it anyway. I called it "Letter to the Editor" and if I ever find it, I'll post it. Way to go! http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l108/AbsalomKane/Smilies/Appaluse.gif