Poems Like Jackson Mac Low

by Doug Draime

I sent them poems written
like Jackson Mac Low.
They sent back an uppity
note, telling me I was
imitating Jackson Mac Low.
I could have told them that
if they’d only fucking asked.
I sent them poems written
like e.e. cummings, written like Baraka
when he was still LeRoi Jones,
written like Bukowski
when he was still a
middle-aged angry man, written
like Kenneth Patchen
when he could still walk.
Their rejection notes come back as fast as
my poems go out.
So, I sent them the unwritten John Milton
poems, composed in his head a few days
after he went stone blind.
The chicken shits never sent back
a word about those.