here�s a poet who hears
voices, and it�s enough for him

here�s a poet who tried to vomit out
his soul because he doesn�t need it

here�s a poet pretending to be young, hands
in his pockets, hopelessly aged jargon

here�s a poet who wants to be a pilot
but he�ll be a poet because he reads while eating

here�s a poet werewolf, a poet only
by night, during the day a bookkeeper

here�s a poet who is clever because he knows
what to publish and what to discard

here�s an endlessly serious poet who does
the same thing and still constantly says: I don�t write much,

I carry lines around in my head a long time, and here�s
a poet who takes nothing to his heart?

here�s a poet romantic, who dedicates
his lines to waitresses and is easily moved to tears

here�s another poet, who washes his hands
and whistles softly as the closet bagpipe buzzes

here�s a poet glorifying nature as if
it needed his glorification

here�s a poet who hasn�t written a single
good line, but that doesn�t matter

here�s a fashionable poet with his retinue
secretly daydreaming about a scholarly career

here�s a poet intellectual, who all the while wanted
to be fashionable but did not succeed

here�s a poet na�f, who looks at what
he�s written and thanks The Almighty?

here�s a poet at his very best, two or three
days before he goes crazy

here�s a poet mystic, wringing
his neck in the cabala

here�s a poet in whose bathtub
is a poster of naked Marilyn Monroe

here�s a poet who doesn�t have Monroe or
a tub and washes in a bowl

here�s a poet driven into a corner, left
by a woman, left and afraid

here�s a poet, sacrificing his poem to metaphors
and here�s another, sacrificing metaphors to his poem

and here�s a poem, having sacrificed the poet, curly-haired
lamb, well in fact a whole sheep

a poem all alone:
the kind that�s enough for everyone.


� 2004 by Gintaras Grajauskas