or why i don't hate billy collins anymore

ok so he sold out to bush
what EVerrrr like if you were named
poet laureat of the us of a you'd turn it down
politix shcmallatix. tho i dunno, if hitler
was the man appointing ...well history will judge so anyway
why i don't hate billy anymore is cuz tonight he said
like a wicked child with his baggy middle age poet eyes
under his bald pate with its anachronistic fringe kind of wispy on the right
side how he stole an image from ferlinghetti, shamelessly and robert
browning too, how poetry's veins transfuse great lines
into a new poem, the way you
well he,would write it
i'm paraphrasing here n that's the warner
brothers zany ironic twist that got him
a shel silversteen berth on
the leaky poetry princess cruise line
bound for bahama or bimini or suddenly
how everything fell into place under the wet sky
outside at picnic tables covered in white
cloth, a small PA and a large projection screen
with a close up zoom and the mic a poor
second hand set borrowed from usf down the road
i guess cuz one had to strain to hear the sound
outside but cigarettes and wine were served
and i could see the man himself inside, small and distant
then close and personal on the screen
and he was funny
and he was self deprecating
and he was almost intimate especially when
talking of how the poem might come
and i heard in him the echo
of my mentors and i knew then he feels the poem
same as you and i, he just carries it off
a little less sadly, that's all.