another poetry reading.

i have noticed

on several occasions

that many great poets

write 

about their pasts

and their lives

and things that are

sometimes

not true

but mostly,

mostly true.

i have heard the time

of their words,

lines of nostalgia 

served:

motherlands and fatherlands,

mater (semper certa), 

pater (incertus),

then

motherfuckers,

abusive fathers,

who drank too much

and were unfit,

and used their hands

in such wrong ways

that listeners would

cringe,

frown,

but breathe (please do),

after a last line,

somewhat relieved.

but sometimes poets

only lie,

their words

only fiction,

sometimes beautiful,

sometimes not.

i do not write

such things

you call poems

and therefore am not

what you call

poet;

perhaps i lie

about my past

and all the fuckers

in my life,

but you, dear reader,

will never know.