Rossini was challenged
to prove his youthful talent
Six sonatas
he later called horrible
Jacqueline Rochester
a southwestern painter
had a clearance sale
in a previous
north central community
where true success
was impossible
said a painting
of a Mexican Indian woman
should be destroyed
but needed the forty dollars
anyway
Any halfway decent poet
ought to destroy everything
that was written before
what a reader might
be reading now
Everything but the now
is disgusting
droolish horse apples
stretched in a line
on a rainy afternoon
without so much
as a poncho
to shield the artist
from the road splatter
of the fawners
So erase this after reading
because the words
feelings and images
no longer exist
in a writer's mind
unless of course
it is the last writing
that stews itself
for a rewrite
in a coffin
or as the flames
lick at the spinning brain
stirring a scream
to stop
to stop
as it seeks a better word
to replace the trite
just read
by those
not yet dead
who will acclaim
the last lines
humorous
visionary
and mystical
gODD dammit
Barry G. Wick
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