Poetry and the Petit-bourgeois

Pettiness and poetry. Handmaidens of the margins? Increasingly I find myself coming to the conclusion that poetry is really a form of Sunday pursuit. That it is like painting by numbers. Even those who willfully refuse to paint in the required places - will do so in a conventional way. Their revolt is like those who use cash instead of a credit card.

to trade in stereotypical train spotted fare paid for by grievous
harm to the body of literature which the bastards holday in,
(from "Thistle I" , 2010)

Then there is the stand-up - Wikicommons remix approach to writing that wishes to muck up the form and take no risks except maybe a bit of abuse to one's own person.

of the joke, your language conserved and preserved like a battered Mars bar,
to make funny with the expression, och jimmy, och, och, fuck, fuck, fuck
(from "Thistle I " 2010)

What is the end of all of it? Baying at the ATM machine? Often it is:

cobalt blue thoughts, arabesque fantasties
which rhyme with expensive wall tiles
and they end up with other polished
artifacts that meet the house styles
of arts council funded magazines
where the finished product reigns
(From "Tired of" 2010)

Is everything said? Do we now need poetry installations and swing our genitalia about publically - or is that old hat too? Who cares? Are the readers like those who collect kitsch glass horses and place them about their caravans looking across from Weston to Wales? Or do we

Delight in the swing, hazard the future
(from "The Swing" "2010)

Yes indeed.