Elegy for the Local Poet

by Philip Nikolayev

So let there be local poets,
the poets of where we live.
Because we’re everywhere.
Quiet, invisible,
or sometimes loud and drunken.
There used to be so precious few of us,
but today every city square,
as well as many of the farms
and certain watering holes
boast poet a laureate.  We can socialize,
have several tequilas and smoke up,
not globally known.  Not poets of everywhere,
nor of all time.  More like, Davis Square, Inman,
Central and so on, early 21st-century.  And why not,
one location not better than another,
all backdrop to our drama, the universe
is self-similar, ultimately reversible to a point.
Eventually, in the big bright poetry cemetery,
we continue to remain intensely local,
having finally transcended
the ego, the self-importance, the silly ambitions,
poets of just one
solitary spot.