A Normal Poet
sometimes I get anxious over the fact
that I am so ordinary
sometime somewhere I've written about it
I'm not worried but I am starting
to think that perhaps it is not
normal when a "poet" is not
a "phenomenon"
it's high time I craft my image as
someone wild, poetic, colorful
part schizophrenic part lover
but the pronlem is I love missionary style
I like taking walks
I am the husband of one wife
in accord with the dictates of the Apostle Paul
I get up at six in the morning
go to the bathroom
and so forth
I don't have a beard
or even a goatee
or curls
falling to my shoulders
for a moment I think about death
revise a poem
then dive into
life
in the evening I tear off
another page from the calendar
September 24, 2007
267th day of the year
sunrise 6:24 a.m.
sunset 6:31 p.m.
on the back of the page
is a recipe for cutlets
fry cutlets in
hot skillet (. . .)
brown on both sides
breading it first (. . .)
before falling asleep I read
a variety of art culture literary
monthlies bimonthlies
and quarterlies
and see (to my surprise)
that the poems of my fellow
poets male and female
slowly come to resemble
my poems
and my old poems
resemble
their new poems
_______________________________
TADEUSZ ROZEWICZ
Sobbing Superpower
translated by Joanna Trzeciak
Norton, 2011
