Modern Poetry is Bullshit

I have been reading
poetry of the modern masters
and have come to realize
that most of it is complete bullshit.

For example,
to make up for
their indecipherable passages
they do things with form like

                                    hang sentences out in the middle of nowhere

to make you feel stupid
if you were to admit
you didn't understand why they did that
while everyone else shouts "Brilliant!"


Bullshit.


And it seems
that if you are in a drunken stupor
and write a famous poem
that makes no sense to you or anyone else

when you sober up
they will still publish
anything you do in perpetuity
while shouting "Brilliant!"


Also bullshit,


because sometimes
if we are lucky we make art
but most times we are just
drunkards at life's banquet with our heads
                                             in the soup.


(See what I mean?)


-written in a drunken stupor @ 12:30a.m.


Ken Owen   Van Niddy Press   

June 2014