The Idolatry of the Poet

The poet may experience
a failure to forget. Poem
is another word for icon.

Verses curse the thirsty;
stanzas, once written, 
are empty canteens. 

The book is a false god.
The sentence for poets,
Death, and death again.

The observant poet
gives red and orange
for blank ashes

then picks up 
a charcoal pencil,
Write, and write again.