"1st Place Winner of the Open Community Poetry Contest for the period January-March, 2011. Read the full interview with Mr. Miller here."--ed.

 

Poets come complaining of a poem lacking flow.

Even when it drips. Heavily. Steadily so.

Hungrily readily these interns crow

Ignoring the soft tissue.

Whilst other patients die from misuse.

Pristine papers and pens

Philistine writers handling a magnifying lens

Rip apart the skin

Searching surgically

For what may only

come verbally,

But in that instance,

They'll miss it,

And another prophetically pitch perfect poem flatlines

Another frustrated forth comer shoots Rhyme,

With another half-assed injection.

No second glance at the intricate complexities on the patient's complexion.

The fetching little quips on napkins, never happened.

Tortured similes and metaphors pushed out the door, still strapped in.

Then they look at me crazy because I am laughing.

Hundreds of doctorates, and upstart college kids

Couldn't find the heart of it,

Even as it laid splayed in my palm.