My library door’s still open <br />with its invitations and its promises <br /> <br />and empty shelves waiting to be filled <br />and on the table two or three new books <br /> <br />yet unread; but I’m done with poetry-reading now. <br />I’m sleepy; I’m full of poetry; <br /> <br />smell of poetry; taste of poetry; <br />close to, you can hear me buzz.. <br /> <br />I can’t get the sound of other poets <br />out of my head. <br /> <br />Sometimes it’s envy; sometimes <br />just annoyance, like the sound <br /> <br />of the man next door with his buzz-saw; <br />and I can’t help hearing, too, <br /> <br />the sound of postboy bringing yet more books <br />by other poets; the presses rumbling <br /> <br />with yet more poetry books to come.. <br />some, I fear, they’ll ask me to ‘review’.. <br /> <br />yes, I’ve had too much of what <br />I helped to start – that great harvest <br /> <br />of ‘American Poetry’ ten thousand thousand <br />graduates of college courses; <br /> <br />chapbooks, self-print, little mags, by the barrel-load <br />and so many bad apples to each barrel; <br /> <br />fruiting like sour crabs <br />on the dead wood of faculty appointments; <br /> <br />how much wood can this woodchuck chuck, <br />amidst the woods and two paths’ luck? <br /> <br />jeez, I’m sleepy; feel a long sleep coming on; <br />the book I’m holding slides from my hands, <br /> <br />its pages turn without my turning them; <br />like you, my fingers, mind… frost-bitten.<br /><br />Michael Shepherd<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/after-poetry-reading-with-apologies-to-robert-frost/