Maybe the Best Poetry
John Tustin
​​
Maybe the best poetry
Is written by a man
Completely drunk at 4:40 PM,
Listening to Lightnin’ Hopkins
With his fingers and toes tingling
As he pours out beer #17
Into a newly lonely glass
Soon to be embracing company
And contemplating her
Emerging from the foam
To kiss him on his damaged
Lonely mouth
Three hours before
The sun deigns to set
Upon the cherry stems, pits,
Bloody stains along the table
Where he types as he burps and
He hiccups,
Lightnin’ playing slow,
Deliberately singing the way he did
Before you and I were born.
Singing and playing for us.
 
Maybe the best poetry
Is written by a man
In flannel pajama bottoms
Hours before the sun has died,
Drunk on everything
But the scent of her
Rising from the bed
To brush her teeth and wash her face
Before the darkness comes.
Maybe the best poetry emerges from the fingers connected
To the throat drowning in beer #17
At 4:51PM.
Maybe,
But
Probably not.