Greenlawn Cemetery, Columbia, SC
Sick of being called a poet for simply writing poetry
and wandering in graveyards on sunny Saturdays
like today when a wind blows off the windup
of your punch, I should like to say today I am retiring
from poetry, effective immediately at the end of this poem,
but that, going out, I have always wanted to write
a standing-at-the-grave poem because what could possibly
be more symbolic of retirement than the stillness
of headstones—me out walking and the dead lying down?
Poetry is a silly thing, so small, and who could imagine
the crowd at a poetry reading yelling, “You ain’t shit, Hastings!”
the way the crowd did in Madison Square Garden, in 1989,
when in black faux-leather boots you stomped Leilani Kai the Hawaiian
until the announcer, clearly in love with you,
announced, “She gets away with murder!” But how else to heel—
to be the one every one loves to hate, risking it all for the sake
of a fake, histrionic art—broken ankle, cracked rib,
or even, hell, death? Except seeing now how I will never equal that,
I quit. Better to sell insurance, or tend small herbs
in the garden, or watch children grow old, and the reruns on television.
