Dirty Little

O visions of poets

lost in the wilderness

of ignorance

when will they find you out?

Will the night

be a scar

upon your soul?

Will the angels of tread

dance around your

dark and bloodied head?

Will they pick up

what’s left of your thoughts

after they’ve been dashed to bits

on the shithouse floor?

Will you go out

into the night,

laughing, cursing,

spitting on your own work?

Will you love me

if I let you?

Bio:

Kenneth Lumpkin is an educator, writer, poet, musician, Freemason and activist. He has published four collections of poetry to date: “Gather the Ashes”, 1984, winner of the Louis Ginsberg Memorial Fellowship from the Chaucer Guild, “Song of Ramapough: A Poetics of Place”, 2016, “Love Lake”, 2017 and “God Has Many Names and other poems”, 2018 and “Slip of the Tongue”, 2019 NS “Possum: Tales from the Hidden Wood”, 2021. He teaches anthropology online through three New Jersey state universities and resides in London, Ontario with his wife, Kim and cat, Molly.