Read your Dante
and your Shelley.
and your Shelley.
Memorize whole stanzas
of approved verse
or even long poems
to recite
whenever someone
might be around
to listen.
Dress erratically.
Drink only imported tea
unless a decent red wine
is available.
Wear your hair
as though you live
inside a hurricane.
Eat dainty biscuits
and pine for praise
from the worthies.
Love only women
who are out of reach.
Read your Wordsworth
and your Byron.
Memorize an obscure
passage from Lamb
and mutter it
while sitting on the toilet.
Tell people that nature
is your church.
Bathe once a week
and don’t overdo it
with the soap.
Read your Proust
and your Joyce.
Look down your nose
at the commonplace.
Tell yourself that this is how it’s done.
Say to new acquaintances that you are a poet.
Believe in your heart
that the ancient gods
are your patrons.
Die someday
and have one or two people
wonder for an hour
what became of you.
Decompose in silence.
This is the destiny
of your breed.
of your breed.
This is the glory
which awaits you
your Valhalla
the best forever
you, Great Titan,
can ever hope to find.
Jeff Weddle is a poet and writer living in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He won the 2007 Welty Prize for Bohemian New Orleans: The Story of the Outsider and Loujon Press, and has also received honors for his fiction and poetry. Jeff teaches in the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Alabama.
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