Put Your Hand Near The Bug (we are so much like him)

10.17.06
3:36 PM

The Rite of First Refusal

Prepare the tear-stained cannons.
Fire sorrow in salute.
Dark and brooding; the candles’ flames are blue.
The rain stings your face.
Sharpen the dolorous dagger.
Bring your tears as offerings.
Your reward will be dissatisfaction.
Uncertainty.
Sleeplessness.
Regrets and questions.
Unasked and unanswered.
Unimportant and unremarkable.
The silence heard is yours.

I found out today I was put on hold for a booking. What that means is that I should keep the day of the shoot (10/25) open. Usually, the term used is “on hold”, but today I was told that I had “the right of first refusal” for this thing. That got in my head. It sounded awesome and archaic, like something inscribed on the inside of a sacrificial victim’s skull. Then I thought, what if it was “rite” instead of “right”? Then I wrote this.
I don’t write poetry well. I remember something I wrote in 8th grade or so…it was so laughably terribly ATROCIOUSLY bad is gives me goosebumps to this day. I think there was only that one though, a fact for which I am VERY grateful.
One of the only things worse than bad poetry, in the literary world, is bad poetry that you yourself have written.