It was those thousand years of poetry
before “cocksucker” appeared in print, back

when Free Verse was the bad boy with acne
and brylcreem. When simply writing, “sick,” “smack,”

“junk,” “cunt,” made you historic. Those twee times,
niminy-piminy with dead white dollops

and all that rot. Poems should work like lines
of pure cocaine. If they don’t fuck you up

then its crap. I want verse that you must rinse
in blood to understand, cut all the rust

of your tum to open. Write lines demanding
guts. Yours. Spilled like great art. But I’m crap since

I can’t figure out how to do that just
now you’ll have to settle for this warning.