After A Phrase By Adam Kirsch [poem by James Cummins]

'No one asked for Shelley's views on the Congress
of Vienna, just as no one asks for John Ashbery's views
on climate change.'  No one asked Galway Kinnell for
his views on sex & romance, either, just tried to avoid
the old bull as he prowled the hotel halls.  Still, sex
is a hot topic among poets, just as it is with romance

writers, teens, plumbers.  Shelley's views on romance
resemble ours more than his views on the Congress
of Vienna do.  And what poet isn't an expert on sex,
nowadays?  You'd be surprised at Ashbery's views
on the Congress of Vienna, too.  (If you want to avoid
six levels of puns, delivered in maybe three or four

different languages, be careful what you wish for.)
I'm not going to offer you my opinion of romance--
I'm waiting for you to ask--but it's too late to avoid
the pun you've been anticipating on 'sexual congress,'
because I have no shame.  Adrienne Rich's views--
you know what I'm referring to--on lesbian sex--

were never asked for, really, but like good sex
were volunteered.  Is that the same as 'asking for
it'?  Isn't climate change really science, not 'views'?
Maybe Shelley had a Congress of Vienna romance
going on the side--that would color his Congress
of Vienna experience.  Manipulating the Dixieland void

in the heads of many, ah, 'humans' we usually avoid
(spitting 'chaw' into their Mountain Dew cans & having sex
with relatives--I should have saved 'sexual congress'
for this stanza) is what our Congress stands for,
it seems.  Ask John Ashbery if he'd like a bromance
with that goober from Tennessee, whose views

on evolution, I guarantee you, aren't J.A.'s views.
But a poet's 'views'--that's right-brain shit to avoid,
right?  Poets are 'lefties'--in their DNA the old romance
of the Proletariat, right?  'Everybody having sex'--
except Young-Republicans-Grown-Into-Codgers-For
PAC-Funds, for the purpose of purchasing a Congress ...

Aaarrgghh!  Enough about romance, sex, Congress,
the Me-First attitude permeating the American void
we sure don't want poets substituting their 'views' for!