we regret to inform you
We regret to inform you that,
Your poems have too much:
grit
broken words
your home
Death.
There’s too much about:
being poor
being tired
a broken heart.
It’s like we can smell the:
cigarette smoke
spilled whiskey
sweat soaked blue collars,
Blood.
We regret to inform you,
Your poems don’t have a voice.
That instead of singing,
They ramble with a broken voice,
the kind that belongs to a
three pack a day
five shots of whiskey
black lunged old man.
I don’t regret to inform you,
That my poems have a voice,
You just can’t hear it.
I found my voice,
heard clear and loud,
in the:
smoke filled bars,
sweltering garages,
dusty job sites,
the backwoods,
the back alley brawls
of this world.
I hear it call me from the
front porch and bonfires,
the late nights with the bottle,
miles and miles of lost and broken highways,
and I hear it ring in my friends laughter and in my lovers kiss.
I do regret to inform you however,
That our voice is one you’ll never hear,
And I pity you for that.
