Joe the Poet goes to ModPo*

Joe the traveling poet is off the road and stuck
in a rut, the grooves in his brain gone smooth
with disuse, his pencil of inspiration worn to a nub
sullen, silent as a child caught in a lie, wilted
as an unstarched stand-up collar, an old woman's lace
hanky, Joe is ready to die to seek his muse
among the constellations that circle slowly across his blind sky
until --sighted just below the fog-glow moon ‒ he hears
no, sees a Filreis calling children, doctors, senators, lapsed poets
to study known and unknown difficult poems.  Joe listens, writes.

*ModPo is a Coursera course from University of Pennsylvania.  Prof Al Filreis and a smart and varied group of TAs hold out at Kelly House in Philadelphia.

Published in Joe the Poet: The Anthology. Beatlick Press, 2014