Your Asia

   
    YOUR ASIA

    She's a good kid,
    No thanks to you.
    Whatever she did,
    You failed to do.
   
    Now you've got trouble;
    She's grown up so fast.
    Demand's going to double.
    The good times won't last.


   Whoa, how very metaphorical! And deep. Is it a compliment when someone says your poem is deep or does it just mean the reader doesn't understand? It sounds like something I would say about a poem if I didn't get it. And it probably depends on what word the response to your poem begins with. If the literary critic (aka Kinko's employee) in question begins, "Dude, your poem is deep..." you know you're in big trouble.

    Another word to describe deep poetry is "lazy". Nothing frees the abstruse embedded in a cluttered and disorganized mind like sheer idleness. All that stuff you declined to employ before on the grounds of low quality or poor clarity comes pouring out now like rust in an old petroleum tank. And no, there isn't anything wrong with that. We all need a purge once in a while and it's fine to compose that type of poem. Just don't try to elevate its status with illusory depth.

     Fed up with fuel prices and weary of pay at the pump, I abducted a Saudi Prince. Phil and I get along great; he's got Stockholm Syndrome already. But don't tell anyone it's me who has him, you know RH, the guy who lives in Chic--no, Belfast, er, Pretoria. Anyway, I've requested a lifetime supply of gasoline and they have obliged. All I have to do now is raise money for a pipeline.