If you call yourself a poet
You’re judged by your degrees,
The person who you voted for,
How often you hug trees,
Whether you can rhyme things
Or use semicolons right
And, most important, whether
You have a penis or are white.
I am not a poet,
Though to you that’s no surprise.
I’d rather sleep in Saturday
Than watch the sun arise.
I do not care for wheelbarrows
On which so much depends.
I’m one of the mere commoners
Whom nobody defends.
I write, not for an audience,
But for the ones like me
Who want to dance the rain away
And feel completely free
But have to read a book about
What things are right to say,
Waiting to dance in private
Once the poets go away.
I feel like a geode,
Full of color, trapped in stone,
But thanks to anonymity
I needn’t be alone.
I can be with all of you
And hold you in my heart
By failing to see beauty
In what poets call their art.
