Seven Minute Afternoon Poem

I don’t understand poems anymore,
that are short
and use no punctuation,
like the ones that appear
in Rolling Stone.

Whatever happened to formula
and substance and
colorful verbs to offset well-dressed images?
(long time passing…)

And remember the ones that
compared life to inanimate scenes
with shadowed rooms and
people staring through candles
and sighing
at night.

What I wouldn’t give for
a brand new pen
and a pad of paper that bursts
with ideas.
I’d let the phrases chew up the pen cap,
and rip the paper into works of
volumed care,
letting it speed between
the sleeves of memory
and argue passionately as it lies on the
table of dissection.
To show it really is
ninety percent perspiration.

— January 26, 1982

After only a few months at college my frustration was already starting to show.