Never make friends with a poet.
One minute they’re sitting at the table
Shovelling couscous with you, polite conversation
Then – BAM – they’re gone:

They’ve thought of a radical rhyme or a snazzy
Bit
Of
Enjambment.

Never make friends with a poet.
All the time you’re talking, spilling
Your guts out, they’re greedily gobbling up the entrails
Laying them out, secretly, in bloody lines and gory stanzas.

Never make friends with a poet.
You can’t go for walk with them
Without them turning it
Into some sort of symbolic journey.

Of life.

Never make friends with a poet.
Those flowers they bring to your party,
Pull back the paper – there’s bound to be
Some hidden message.

A rose by any other name, is probably
The fragile ambiguity of friendship.

Never make friends with a poet.
Small talk looms large.
Nice weather for this time of year?
A cloud, is never just a cloud.

Never make friends with a poet.
That poem they’ve sent you
Just to see what you think.
It’s probably about you.

(Unless of course, it isn’t. You egotist.)

Never make friends with a poet.
It’s just not worth it. Even for the
Assonance. The sibilance. And it’s even worse
If they’re a blogger too.