The trouble with poetry
A Poem by Ryan Calo
The trouble with poetry
is how taste outpaces skill
like a faster brother
you admire from behind.
The trouble with poetry is Mary,
Isabella. Ardella. Perhaps
you forgot it was poetry
which nearly killed Nicholas Urfe?
The trouble with poetry is the
cutting room floor, a
cemetery of darlings.
It is a bathtub of autumn leaves.
A cottontail heart to keep up.
A spider in your bedclothes.
Ryan Calo (he/him) is a internationally recognized legal scholar and amateur poet residing in Seattle, Washington. His poetry appears in The Stonefence Review and he has written for the New York Times, The Atlantic, and many other publications. He serves on the board of the Hugo House, a longstanding literary organization in downtown Seattle named for the poet Richard Hugo.
