Poetry by James Morrill

SubtleTea.com has a new look

Poetry by James Morrill

Mediocrity As An Art Form

Bad poems. Bad Food. Bad Company.
Bad Conversation.
Bad with no good to equal out
the scales.
Watch a Bad movie or some Bad TV
I know better it's hard to see any good
now, but there's these perfect days,
they come along once in awhile,
when the weathers perfect, and
your welfare just kicked in and you
finally can have a good meal,
maybe even exchange some intellectual
banter with someone good.
Then you go home, sit down with a pen,
and the words are good and the flow
is good and smooth and the longing for
a different life weakens as the dream dies
and the numbers of your age go up,
you start accepting mediocrity
as an art form.

Chinese Water Torture

There's a slow drip and

April is about over, I

Realized on this depraved

Sweaty Saturday, almost 8:00 clock

And the racist sky refuses to

Blacken and I am strange

And slow entwined with

This night, with a strange ailment,

Something that you'd catch

In Vietnamese heat.

The fan is loud

The birds are louder.

And tonight they're

Celebrating something

Like everyone else.

So I'm alone with a

Tightened up digestive system

And the cogs of

My rusted insides barely

Turn as I hear the

Drip. Drip. Drip. And

Now it's my own sweat

As this Chinese water torture

Keeps me up.

All work is property of James Morrill.

[back to top] [home]