Maybe somewhere there’s another planet
leaving aside for a moment the question of intelligent life,
where you can’t land without some poems
and a self addressed, stamped spaceship.
On Earth, they tell us of the triumph of Capital
which insists that everything is an economic exchange.
What I want to know is how it started.
Did somebody once say, “Hey.
I can sell this stuff!”
Around some ancient campfire
did a visiting wanderer pass out flyers
advertising a reading before the next buffalo hunt?
The Psalms, we know, were a big hit,
compiled, as they were, into the ultimate anthology.
Virgil got rich singing the Aeneid for Augustus
then died and toured the underworld with Dante
who entertained all the burghers of Florence, anxious to learn
the torments of their destined circles of hell.
Milton, that savvy marketer, figured out that
the Fall of Man always sells.
In the early days of the mass market economy
Whitman learned how to exploit the slogans,
“New and Revised”, “Now with more Poem Power.”
In the post Eliot Wasteland wasteland
poets from Bob Dylan to Leonard Cohen
figured out the real money’s in the music
and pretty soon all the rockers knew
the less poetry, the more money.
Still, itinerate poets roam the literary wildscape
now and then one even does a book tour
though it’s hard to believe even Greyhound tickets are that cheap.
Academics of course, do it for the Tenure Track
assigning their books to their students, who,
with visions of their immortality
can’t wait to loose money on their own books.
It’s not like poetry is worthless, hell
even I’ve been bought a beer or two.
The boys do it to get into the girls.
The girls do it to bitch about the boys.
I do it because nobody told me I’m allowed to,
being absolutely unlicensed and non-accredited,
a selfish, masturbatory rite
that at least gets a double take from the good ‘ole boys
who up to now figured I was just a regular guy.
Most poetry is bought by poets.
Most poetry is heard by poets.
So, here’s an idea:
Let’s get every poet in this bookish city
to gather at a big reading,
somewhere up on a mountain, perhaps,
where they all get to read one poem.
If we tell them it’s a benefit
for unfortunate souls struggling somewhere,
they’ll even pay to get in.
And when we’re all assembled
fussing with the microphone and sound system,
somebody lights the fuse
and we blast off for that planet I was talking about.
