This is my confrontational poem

Every poem is a love poem.
Every poem is about a deer
on the side of the road.
I’m grabbing your face now,
telling you not every poem
is a kind poem, but
they’re all about kindness.
Even the ones that grip you
and shake you. I wish
I could tell you with pictures
of waterfalls and birds
but there’s no time.
They tried to kill my friend
again today. Every poem
is a love poem about kindness,
especially the ones about
their absence. Got it?
Good. Now here’s your poem:
There are flowers
where there shouldn’t be.

rhythmic thoughts

If you write “regret” seventy times
you have a sonnet. If you write
“I wish I’d done differently then
because I’d do differently now”
in the margins, you’ve made the page
busier and haven’t erased a thing.
But you still wrote it. You still meant it.
You’re as good as the last thing you wrote.
You’re better than the worst thing you loved.



Casey Garfield is the Bard of Exeter.

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