AT THE GENERAL MEETING OF POETS

Bill Bradd eats oranges and Oreos for breakfast
while Cindy Frank holds up a half moon of watermelon.
We are poets trying to fit into the guidelines.
Jack Grapes asks if all funding were eliminated
what would happen to us? What would survive us?
Mary Körte has the floor and presents laurels to John Simon.
Someone shouts think duck. Duck?
devorah major says, I’m not going to think duck.
I’m thinking 13 ducks. I have no idea what she means.
We talk about suicide, getting stuck in the old ways,
and what the children are writing. Why we do this.
Holocaust, abuse. Don’t carry the burden so far.
This is the renewal thing, the being with each other thing.
Don’t hurt people with guns. Do it with words.
The reality is that we are all poets.

CPITS meeting, Camp Cazadero, 1983? 84?