PUNK POETRY: A Little Glory on the Page, Please by Sarah Azizi

A Little Glory on the Page, Please

Written upon seeing an ad for a workshop that promises the student will leave with “ten perfect poems”

 

I need poems that fish pants out 

of the clean but never-folded pile, poems 

so creased they can’t be ironed smooth. 

Read me poems that burst into tears 

at the breakfast table, sob into their cereal, 

dribble milk onto their wrinkled, untucked 

shirts. Hand me crinkled pages, poems

that struggle w/ the alphabet, always put “O” 

after “P,” think “Q” shouldn’t need “U” all 

the goddamn time. Give me upside down 

poems, stanzas hard-shelled & towering 

like broken vending machines, poems 

w/ unshakable attitude & charm so thick 

they might nosedive into arrogance. 

I like a poem I’ve got to keep an eye on, 

 

one w/ lines that hit like liquid acid 

or rails of white powder. Fuck placebo 

poems. Tease me w/ poems that leave 

lingering stains: spills of merlot, smears 

of lipstick, haunting coffee cup circles, 

each mark a whirl of memory. A flicked 

cherry from a cigarette makes a poem 

sharper. A touch of ash & smudge 

of golden tea lend character. 

Let those poems leave dirty clothes 

on the floor, sleep in sex-soaked sheets, 

use the same cup after just a rinse, 

never a full wash. Screw perfect poems, 

all lined up like automatons. We need 

poems that fight death to the edge 

of the page! Make those poems messy

& glorious. Let them gulp air, from title to last 

line. Feed me a live one, a poem flailing & wet,

 

desperate, naked, obscene. Mean every word. 

I’ll read that poem so hard, I’ll savor

every turn, & lick my fingers clean.

-Sarah Azizi