The Poem and the Doughnut

It has got to be the next one, although the last

one was pretty good. Then I get to thinking,

could be the best one has already been written,

could have been last week, last month, last

year. Ran across a poem I had written about

a year ago, and I had forgotten that one. It was

a good poem. When you write a poem or two

most every day you tend to forget the ones

you created a time ago. I usually never look

back, new day, new poem, always moving

on hoping the best one is yet to come. Yet,

I seem satisfied with most pieces I manage

to write each day. Who’s to be the judge

anyway? They’re kind of like doughnuts, you

roll ‘em out one at a time and bake ‘em each

day. The baker knows his trade and never picks

a favorite. He leaves that judgment up to

the customer. Only difference between

doughnuts and poems, the baker and me

is dough. Dough makes doughnuts; poems

rarely make dough. I have several thousand

unsold poems to prove that. When a customer

buys a dozen glazed, he expects all of them to

be all the same size, same shape, same taste.

Doughnuts will become stale in a few hours.

Not so with poetry, but allow them to pile

up over time and one tends to forget they

have been written in the first place. This

poem may not be my best. The analogy I

slipped into its making may not even make

sense. Tomorrow I’ll be on to something

else, and will have forgotten about this

one all together. So, shut the hell up, and

eat your damn doughnut before it gets stale!

                       -30-

Chris Hanch 5-22-2020