Green Peas at Stake

Sacrificial Lamb

Oh, you the pathetic one,
the empty tankard with the unhinged lid,
the lowliest of the teentsy writers!
You’re the slipper the dog
has chewed on.

Though your vocation remains the same
with no wages and no days off,
you tantalize
one subject after another, as if a slave
changing masters, and
while others write tomes
of fancy words,
you check into a dictionary
--bigger than your size—
for not-yet-discovered phrases,
to find yourself tearjerker chores,
mixing experiment with anti-form,
and keeping a close watch
on a few tawdry lines.

Then, during your ridiculous tenure,
to humor the muse,
you call yourself a poet
on a burning impulse,
like a sacrificial lamb
with resignation.