Satire
as if from the Latin
Tell me, Satirist, about your satires.
Why is it necessary to malign
your rivals and ridicule those poets
whose efforts, you seem to think, are worthy
only of your disdain. Torment enough
for them it should be to live with their own
shortcomings and delusions of greatness.
Surely you are in error to believe
that these uncharitable jibes enhance
your own verses or, through them, your status.
The well-dressed man moves easily through town
secure in the knowledge that nobody
will pity him on account of his poor
couture but he displays no tendency
to criticize the vagabond without
the means to disport with such elegance.
But neither is he a dandy, too keen
to parade flamboyantly in search of
the attention of others. Such poets,
one could construe, are hardly much better.
Save your surliness for the coffee house
and your conceit for your lounge bar cohorts
where they can be enjoyed for what they are,
merely extemporized and short-lived wit,
before they disappear with the same haste
that they arrived. Your like-minded cronies
will slap your back but you’ll not be admired
as you make your way home. They don’t belong
in print for the author of sarcastic
verses is the lowest form of poet.
