Aiming to Please

He knew it best to
follow his gut when it
came to his scribblings,
to let his stomach tell him
the truth, when his need
for approval tried to
lead him astray.
Pretty eclectic in his
reading, he still liked them
sweet and short, to the point,
but slanted a bit, too.
I mean, who needs to actually
employ that word
in a poem about love?
That’s not to say that
that Browning woman didn’t
have a lot to say, having
led an interesting life.
And those beat poets
followed a well-walked path,
letting their need for read,
and sometimes weed, get them
to a place where they used
more words than they
themselves needed.
The more recent laureates
and near-laureates
seemed to get it, Ryan and Collins
leading the young century with
brevity and wit.
He knew it best to
follow his gut, but
those damn buttons,
send and post and share,
so easy to push, so easy to
let them lead him into temptation,
when he knew to follow his heart.