Sixth Sense

Democracy VI

You have to have I think
An oblique black and white photo
Look 'arty' with eyes invisible
Anything simple or childish
'Normal' or ordinary
Is derisible

Swear a lot or hint at it - 'cnut' gets surefire pay
Be pretentious and exaggerate
Your life experiences
To sound like a new Hemingway
Peddle lefty clich?s
To sound revolting, but safe, very safe
Within the accepted paradigm

Drop names a lot, but don't delve
Too deep, be economical with words
And numbers, tenty, eleventy, twelve

You can be a drug addict, a crooked shit
A single mum dying of AIDS
Or a violent (but creative) fuckwit
Your prose or poem should be as black
As the Ace of Spades

Words 'grittily' evocative, like aural gonorrhea
Should fill your story
But whatever you do
Don't be Christian, or tory

How the fuck do you get inside?
I keep getting rejected and stung of pride
Lack confidence and daring do
So fuck you, and you, and fuck you too

Wax lyrical on smoking pot
Or rape, or incest, on family not
Not kids, nor work
But lovers, and estrangement, and the joy of shirk
Ing your life on hols in Bohemia
And the urbane, and safely 'radical', and academia
Wax Satanic on blood, and sperm, and snot
But remember
Editors are not God, they are not
They are not