The only good poet

Tonight the Art Bar is presenting its annual Dead Poets Society Night. I was invited some months ago to participate, but a couple of weeks ago I withdrew after getting a snipey little insult from one of the event's organizers. And after I withdrew, he barraged me with further, and far less subtle, insults.

It was more fallout from my post-Small Press Book Fair blog entry — after which I was repeatedly personally attacked by one of the fair organizers for offering criticism of the job they did and inquiring about their "advertising campaign."

So, for now, here are a couple of poems by the New Jersey poet whose work I had hoped to expose people to tonight, Alfred Starr Hamilton. I'm pretty sure I've blogged about him before.



LIQUID'LL

That's a pint of red daisies
That has been sent to your florist
That he has become your drunkard



MORESO

Are you whistling
At the back of the dark hallway?
All I do know about dark life
About three rickety flights upstairs.
Are you barked at tonight
By a puppy? that would if he could
Have fed you all the dog biscuits
You wanted, or ever could have –




ANYTHING REMEMBERED

One cloud, one day,
Came as a shadow in my life,
And then left, and came back again; and stayed



I think those might have been among the best poems ever uttered at the Art Bar.

Over and out.