Poetry Is Dead -Promote Yourself

There’s a place nearby.
A bar part way up a hill,
that hosts spoken word
nights. And you
can go there
and say your piece,
for one free beer,
and no one there to hear it.

Sometimes
on a good night
there’s the old man,
who smokes
his cigarette naturally,
and you feel it was never placed between his lips
by hands, or
devices of any kind.
It just grew
out one day from between
those cockled red, yellow slugs,
and glows there,
like a burst of daisies
from blackened cracks in a wall.
And you’re not so sure he hears
much else than
the wind,
and the bells
to call last,
the sound of women come
madly
in his memories.
And softly,
cracking and persistent below,
the horrid sound
of his initials being
etched
immovable into
the wood of the reaper’s sickle.

When he talks
it’s to himself,
but if you’re smart
You’ll listen.

Calmly

you’ll listen.

To how he’d steal roses
from cemeteries
to give to his sweetheart.
Of his grandfather who
died of a heart attack
making love to the maid
while his wife laboured downstairs,
working on tea.

Then to,
he has these un-closing,
smashed window
eyes
deep in, under sad brows,
a face like
a gravestone with no name.
All pissed on,
prayed for,
fucked.
With no flowers been set down.
Just that one daisy that’s grown.
And you can go there
and say your piece for
one free beer
and no one to hear,
while fools
say poetry is dead.

 by Zachary D’mitri