the failed poet

In a breathless summer afternoon
an implacable sun beneath which
memories seem to wilt
emanating, like some august blossoms
ocher influences, which make the
brain wade and heart wane-
an epical malaria, distinct, as I
think, from roseate melodies,
those murmuring utterances
which I had spotted in
musty springs and winters
of a century ago.

The poet, a vile thing,
wretched and wicked slave of words,
an instrument not feigned
by human genius, but
the procreation of body, who,
instead of affecting the soul,
merely rouses
the debris of nature, she
counterfeits sun-stroked nature
eulogizing cinnabar summer,
her friends praise her effort
she feels summer again—

she destroys the poem.