Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

I had a friend
whose parents had been successful writers
and badly wanted to be like them
but his prose didn’t cut it
not good, not bad, just somewhere in between
so he continued his job as a handy man
and edited a small press magazine
not good, not bad, just somewhere in between
and in his free hours wrote the poesy
but having never worked a real blue collar job
or spent much time on the streets
or faced down a bully in a bar
his experience was limited to the
library and academic journals he longed
to be published in
but his poems were not good, not bad
but somewhere in between

in the beginning we shared conversations
and broke bread on occasion
and had a drink or two
beer for me and near beer for him
his poems sometimes cute sometimes clever
but never cutting to the bone
never leaving me hungry for more
just words that filled up space
like a box of corn flakes

his problem was that he had no reality
of what goes on in the lives
of ordinary men and women
what a living hell it can be day in
and day out just to put bread on the table
the years passed quickly and the
fates were good to me
as I gained a measure of success
while he labored in obscurity
and that’s when the change took place
no more letters in my mail box
just a few trivial e-mails

and then word got back to me
that he was bad-mouthing me to others
this man who purported to speak
of love and decency in his poems
but who now practiced the opposite
and when I confronted him
he wrote back and said I was sick
and needed help and that others
felt the same way
hardly the karma one might suspect
from a friend let alone a gentle soul

the moral of this story is beware of people
who seek immortality in the guise of minor fame
as Bukowski told me long ago
always remember that betrayal
is but a built in concept of the way it goes
the blade will never be as sharp
when you know it’s been there.