Poems Like Jackson Mac Low

By. Doug Draime

I sent them poems written
like Jackson Mac Low.
They sent back an uppity
note, telling me I was
imitating Jackson Mac Low.
I could have told them that
if they’d only asked.
I sent them poems written
like e.e. cummings, written like Baraka
when he was still LeRoi Jones,
written like Bukowski
when he was still a
middle-aged angry man, written
like Kenneth Patchen
when he could still walk.
Their rejection notes come back as fast as
my poems go out.
So, I sent them the unwritten John Milton
poems, composed in his head a few days
after he went stone blind.
The chicken shits never sent back
a word about those.





Doug Draime's latest book is "Eyestone" (Kendra Steiner Editions, 2007). He started to publish in the 'underground' and small press in the late 1960, while living in Los Angeles, becoming part of the notorious L.A. poetry scene of the latter 20th Century. His work (poetry, short stories and plays) continues to appear in magazines, newspapers, broadsides, and online journals worldwide. He lives in Oregon.