Professional Human Being

… or metacommentary.

I don’t consider this a great poem in my modest oeuvre, but fun.  A simple conceit, if you will. I remember it was one of the poems I  read at my first open poetry reading, I believe at the Catholic Student Center in Austin, early ’70s.  It was then I met some of my first poet friends.  Jeff Woodruff in particular, said he like my poems, which was enough encouragement to get me going.

When Dow Jones announces
“Poetry—up 10″
a cash register jingles
jangles up my poems
like sawbucks
my button eyes flash 4 holes each,
twinkle on their sclerotic bone rims.
I, an orphan hobo under the ties
go to Wall Street chafing books
scratch my sig in crotch colophons
hundreds of times,
the readers sigh
and a mutter-blubbering fool
grins in reply,
“Jazz—up 6.2
Suicide down .5
Demonic Possession—up 3
Love up 7
And God is up in his heaven
Poetry—up 10
The Son of God down 2
If you invest in me, then I’ll invest in you.”