Bill Nevins: Pick of the Week [ed. Terence Winch]

photo (detail) by Tony O’Hara

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No Prisoners

What can I say?
We met in Santa Fe.

She’s got everything she needs,
She’s an artist
And she knew John Berryman.

Poets
are worse
than lawyers
she said
worse
than mosquitoes
Like those big flying cucarachas
down south
they get in your hair

Poets!
Poets tell you stories!
Stories about
anarchist painters
who won’t take cash
from the cruel corporate state
so
they live in boxes
made of cardboard
under bridges
without berets
without brushes
without canvas stretchers
without grants
without patrons

without brushes

Poets
she said
are like syrup
on a pancake
they soak in
until they wipe out all the taste
of the pancake itself
and fill it in with words
words
words
sweet, sticky
words!
Poets make everybody else
taste
what they taste
she sighed.

I
hate
fucking
poets
she said

First,
she hissed,
after the revolution
we’ll kill
all the poets!

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Bill Nevins has two books of poetry from Swimming With Elephants Publications: Heartbreak Ridge and AWE. Bill is an Iona College graduate who has lived in New Mexico since 1996. He is profiled in the 2007 film Committing Poetry in Times of War. He is also a widely published cultural journalist. He may be reached at [email protected].

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Comments

[Indran Amirthanayagam]

Yes, Bill, the poets get their words stuck in noses, hearts and minds and we cannot wipe them away no matter how much we try. They are the gadfly. They are the fly. They are buzzing now. And if they go, what would the world be without their humming wings beating?

[Dita Anthony]

She's right about poets -- they are mosquito-like lawyers. And they bite. Ugly creatures.

[Lucas Florida]

Mr. Winch's taste is spot on.

[Terence Winch]

I know. But they're very hard to get rid of.

[Jennifer O’Riordan]

I love this!

[Terence Winch]

I'm very glad you do!

[lally]

what a perfectly brilliant, and brilliantly perfect, poem Bill...and the same can be said for your choosing it Terence...

[Terence Winch]

I agree. And thanks, mo chara.

[Bill Nevins]

Thank Michael and thanks Terence! Just kidding about killing poets!

[Bill Nevins]

Ah yes, Indran, poetry is a sticky wicket indeed!

[Jiwon Choi]

But at least we're maple and not corn syrup, right?

[Terence Winch]

Good point.

[Bernard Welt]

Finally, someone with the courage to denounce the unacknowledged legislators of mankind. The ones who pull the strings. The Dark Shadows.
I only wish I’d said it. And most likely, some day, I will. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but plagiarism is the easiest way to fill up the little notebook.

[Terence Winch]

Thanks, Indran. There is a lot of buzz about this poem.

[Terence Winch]

Thanks for your comment.

[Terence Winch]

I knew you would get the deeper implications of this poem.