To a Poet Who Looks for Dinosaurs in His Toilet Bowl

A poet finds a dinosaur in his toilet bowl
like some bizarre commercial
for a new toilet bowl cleaner
“Tyrannosaurus Rex,”
so he takes out his notebook and
writes about it like some
new social problem or a prophesy,
maybe AIDS or the Judgment Day, who knows?
there is a dinosaur in his toilet bowl—
not big enough to destroy the apartment
but still quite menacing and terrifying
to make one shit in his pants,
but the poet finds it all inspiring
like an earthquake or a hostage crisis
or a gang rape or maybe a holocaust—
he is oblivious to the real world
all he needs is to put down that
vision on paper, that beautiful
and horrifying vision of some
suicidal love, yes, that’s it!!...
A poet finds a dinosaur in his toilet bowl
and all he can think about is that
ultimate poem to fulfill
some sick need for a thrill
or attention, who knows?
but I can see him still writing—
that verbal acrobat playing
with images and words
that spread a magic veil
over the world of anguish,
loneliness and despair—
so I scream to him:
“Get off your high horse,
you dime store magician!
There is no dinosaur in
your bathroom—only
a monument to human
vanity and stupidity!”
And I flush his dinosaur
down the toilet.


   July 6, 1990 
--Alexander Shaumyan