Don't Blacklist Me For Disagreeing With You (or, How Awesome Can You Really Be?)

Y'know, I got to
thinking about
why I became
such a dismal
failure of a poet
when I had such
a great start,
and ended up
returning to
the same thought
I've had for a while:

They knew.

They knew straight
from the start
that even though
I seemed to be a
poet, I didn't think
the right way.

"The right way,"
in this instance,
meaning a particular
political view, which
even eight years,
even now, would mean
on the left end of
the spectrum.

What poets really love,
I've come to suspect,
is a ready sense of
community, so
for the two years
I spent being a
part of a community,
they were getting
ready to forget
I was ever there.

Not literally.

Jennifer Moxley,
she still remembers me,
at least, and I guess
favorably as much
as anything else.

But even then,
I didn't slide into
what the other kids
were doing. I didn't
jibe with their
thinking, what they
considered to be
their poetry scene.

It became really easy
to eject me, even
when I was clinging
to the last footholds
of that community.

They wanted me out.

I just didn't fit in
(anymore).

And since then?

I don't know,
maybe I'm just
cynical, but
I don't think
it's been too easy
trying to get
back in,
because
this time,
they know.

They know
I don't belong
in their community.

They don't want me,
no matter what
I could do
for them.

Ain't that swell?