A Poem for Landlords

 

 

Today I paid my landlord

 

at the last possible minute

 

on the last possible day

 

of the month which is

 

on the 5th day of the month.

 

It is the 5th of November, 2012.

 

 

 

Poets hate their landlords.

 

This is an imperative. It has no grammar.

 

Maybe it has a crude grammar.

 

I am not writing the check until

 

the last possible minute

 

in my car because I have

 

so much hatred in my heart

 

for property and landlords

 

but not land or streams

 

since I love the Romantics

 

since I am also a romantic

 

when I am not practicing

 

stupid conceptual poetry

 

like going to TJ Maxx

 

and looking at my face.

 

 

 

I have been thinking

 

of the body of my three-year old

 

and how it is so new and so unstable

 

and how I don’t want him to ever feel

 

happy in this world.

 

I don’t mean it like that.

 

I want him to feel joy

 

but not happy in the sense

 

that he feels content.

 

I want him to also feel

 

contempt for landlords

 

the same way that I feel

 

contempt for landlords

 

and how I have hated them all

 

in exactly the same way

 

which is an abstract hatred

 

since it reaches into the future

 

as well as a concrete hatred

 

since it is right here

 

in my parked car as

 

I write this rent check

 

and how the hatred is sophisticated

 

in the manner of a Marxist

 

and how it is unsophisticated

 

like the juvenile delinquent

 

I will always be even when

 

I’m very old because

 

for whatever reason

 

that simply could not

 

be beaten out of me.

 

 

 

So back to this check

 

I don’t want to write

 

and writing the numbers

 

of amounts of money in cursive

 

which is the last place

 

in the world in which I use cursive

 

and writing out a check

 

which is also the last place

 

I write checks and how

 

if I don’t do this

 

I would need from now

 

on to get a money order

 

to pay the landlords

 

I despise who are all

 

exactly the same

 

and whose threats are

 

all exactly the same.

 

 

 

I do not want to feel this hatred.

 

I want to feel joy and I want

 

my little infant to feel joy

 

and I don’t want her

 

to grow to be happy.

 

I don’t mean it like that.

 

I want her to feel joy

 

when she walks in a forest

 

or by a river looking at birds.

 

But never should she

 

feel happy or complacent.

 

If she feels one day

 

a “seething contempt,”

 

I will be proud of her for I shall know

 

she is my daughter.

 

 

 

I know that I should be happy

 

for them, my children,

 

if they are happy

 

but this is not the case.

 

Oh don’t become tax

 

Collectors!

 

 

 

I am writing this so quickly.

 

Soon Craig will be home

 

and I will need to breastfeed

 

and cook dinner.

 

I am writing this so fast.

 

I will not be able to look

 

back at it but just now

 

I am looking back at it since I made

 

dinner and cleaned the house

 

and I am also revising it

 

and thinking about how

 

my anger has subsided

 

because at dinner Ezekiel

 

told me he kissed

 

his friend on the cheek at school

 

and he says it is “okay to hug

 

a friend but we

 

don’t kiss friends at school.”

 

I will post this on my blog

 

immediately.

 

It is Nov 5th, 2012