PRIME TIME
What the Chairman Told Tom
By Basil Bunting
Poetry? It's a hobby.
I run model trains.
Mr Shaw there breeds pigeons.
It's not work. You dont sweat.
Nobody pays for it.
You could advertise soap.
Art, that's opera; or repertory-
The Desert Song.
Nancy was in the chorus.
But to ask for twelve pounds a week-
married, aren't you?-
you've got a nerve.
How could I look a bus conductor
in the face
if I paid you twelve pounds?
Who says it's poetry, anyhow?
My ten year old
can do it and rhyme.
I get three thousand and expenses,
a car, vouchers,
but I'm an accountant.
They do what I tell them,
my company.
What do you do?
Nasty little words, nasty long words,
it's unhealthy.
I want to wash when I meet a poet.
They're Reds, addicts,
all delinquents.
What you write is rot.
Mr Hines says so, and he's a schoolteacher,
he ought to know.
Go and find work.
I hate how I can't write about certain things because people will read it and bitch about it. And then if you delete them, they'll take offense. I'm getting really close to wanting to just delete people. I think releasing anger and frustration is more important than waiting for the consequences.
Wow. Today = long