The views expressed in this poem are not necessarily those of the management (.... but they might be).

A Motion Sends A Postcard Home

Poets are irrational people without many friends
though some are treasured for their writing.

Their poems cause the eyes to melt
and the body to shriek with pain.

I have always tried to avoid meeting them
but sometimes they shake your hand.

Alchohol is when the poet is too tired to write
and rests his knuckles on the ground:

his world is dim and bookish,
like being buried under tissue paper.

Brain is when the hangover subsides.
It has the property of making mornings painful.

Fame is when the poet is on television,
making programmes seem even longer.

Hype is a room with no talent inside -
quick, lock the door and throw away the key.

In books, a haunted apparatus sleeps,
that snores when you disturb it.

If the critic complains,
poets pretend not to have heard.

If the publisher calls they demand a drink,
if the photographer calls they remember

to bathe. An interview suggests they
might be important or famous.

Only the boring are allowed to publish openly.
Poets are encouraged to go to workshops

with freelance tutors and not bother to read.
The door is locked and they get the chance

to express themselves. No one is exempt
and everyone's lyrical pain becomes a poem.

At night, when the language dies,
they send their verses to small mags

and read about themselves in pamphlets,
with their ears and eyes tight shut.

© Rupert M Loydell, 2006

Comments

[David Belbin]

I like that, taking the Martian out of Raine - pretty accurate about poets tho' the snoring apparatus line defeated my intelligence. I'm afraid I haven't read enough poetry by Andrew Motion to know if this is a successful parody of the way he writes, but 'Only the boring are allowed to publish openly' would seem to apply to him...