A City Known for Its Poets

What you would really like is a city
Known for its poetry. Not its poets.

No sizable group of poets ever
Amounted to much as human beings—

And why should they? They’re the usual mix.
If you’re human, you know what that mix is—

Bigoted, kindly, greedy, self-righteous,
Heroic, inattentive, forgiving,

The whole of it. But if not the poets,
The poetry, the good stuff, chill-filtered,

Distilled, and sampled. That’s worth a city
Dreaming of a reputation for it.