Poetry Conference

Here as we sit in a collective group caught

In the process of stilled mitosis,

Listening to former gods of words

Who twisted sentences into goose bumps

And those around me hanging on

Verbs, adjectives, nouns that sell shivers,

Minds’ mouths gulping down knowledge

Passing up teeth to take in poetry

In chugging sentences,

While the fluorescent glints off baldness—

A commentary on the audience’s mean.

Reflecting the translations of the past

We lose ourselves in wordy antiquity

That colors the cloudy blue sky with desire 
So we burst away afterward, 
Making poems ride down on our imaginations.

Let us, we pray, die with words

Burnt on our mute tongue

That sing of our desire to

Make life poems and poems life.