Originality

The suffering artist
mimics paintings of other artists.

With his black shirt and pants
and his second hand art supplies
all of his paintings are called derivative.

A poem about writing
poems. It has been done before.
Has everything been done
before?

I can write a poem about picking apples.
I can write a poem about a red wheelbarrow.
I can write a poem about a harlem street scene.
I can even write a poem about a poor chimney sweep.

But it has all been done before. I can’t write poems
about real life anymore.

In my dream I was a little wooden elf
who can touch the knot in the center
of a tree, and open the front door to my house.

I teach a little girl who lives in a plantation home
in the backyard of my tree about Taoism.

I dreamt this. But has it been dreamt before?
It seems unique to me,
but I probably saw it in a movie
on late night television.