The trouble with poetry is what you think of it,
\nNot a manly art, not a practical art,
\nNot a good use of a grown man’s time,
\nEspecially in times of overcommission,
\nDebts of money and time and promises
\nStacking up against you,
\nBarking while you sleep,
\nSquatting outside the bathroom door
\nDemanding justification for time on the crapper.
\nIn times like this, you write?
\nIn times like these, you write those?<\/i>
\nYes,<\/i> I reply, I write these.<\/i>
\nIn times of chaos, reflection is needed,
\nA cool head in the midst of the destroyer’s storm,
\nAnd poetry is a manly art, not just when deployed
\nAs oratory from a President soothing savage fears
\nOr caged up on stages or in undersold volumes,
\nBut as therapy, but as strategy,
\nBut as coping mechanisms and respites,
\nTo gather the courage to step back into oneself
\nThrow obscene fingers at the wolves at the bedroom door,
\nTo say fuck off, I’m busy.<\/i>
\nWould it be different if I were Bono? Stipe? Byrne?
\nIf these lines weren’t presented in pixels or ink
\nBut accompanied by growling guitar chords or ambient noise?
\nIf they were performed live, before screaming crowds,
\nOr crooned from tiny earbud speakers straight into the ears
\nOf adolescents rocking back and forth in bedroom corners
\nStruggling to come to terms with teenaged revelations?
\nWould it be different if it had a chorus?
\nIf I repeated myself every other line, would that be fine,
\nWould it be different if it had a chorus?
\nIt could be worse,<\/i> I think, and shrug,
\nI could be doing lines off a hooker’s back,
\nI could be shacked up with a fourteen-year-old runaway,
\nI could be a derivatives trader.
\nInstead, I do this,
\nYes, I write those at times like these.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The trouble with poetry is what you think of it, Not a manly art, not a practical art, Not a good use of a grown man’s time, Especially in times of overcommission, Debts of money and time and promises Stacking up against you, Barking while you sleep, Squatting outside the bathroom door Demanding justification for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","category-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4e5QR-t0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1798\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}