I share the anger of the Divine who frowns upon exclusive claims to owning Him.

They- the pundits of poetry- are new fanatics like the advocates of human genetics, whose territory is populated by the chosen few.

They- the literary elitists- have the effrontery to assume it’s their privilege to own me, to define me, to mark me up as if I’m a cloth cut out for dummies in fashionable stores

while my robes are infinite, far and wide
fluttering over oceans and seas, drenched in rivers, revivifying in sunshine–
and they contend that I no longer dwell in nature
(for nature itself is a cliche to them!)
that I have moved from the countryside of fields to city conclaves,
that I go by trends; that time, space, seasons and fashions can chain me!
They think they can determine whom to give me away like a father
marrying off his daughter to the man worthy in his eyes.

But they should know I have dwelled in “mere” utterances of saints, social reformers, revolutionaries, reformists for I have had been the architect and they my willing artisans.

They should know that I refuse to be cast in their careful, effort-driven, strenuous practice of inducing complexity and, on the extreme spectrum, in the lightness of their design of offering me oblation in the form of wafers on paper plates.

I steadfastly proclaim my right not to be tied up to the effigies manufactured by degree programs— chased, worshipped, popularized, made saleable by elitist presses
which make me feel as if I’ve been hollowed out
by their mechanics that celebrates hogwash–
unmindful of my delicacy like a newly-wed bride
at the mercy of her partner–
by the intrusion of insincere characterizations, spilled over by their ready kit
of nouns and verbs- disconnected from my soul.

Let me ask them should they be enraged:

Can you awaken an angel in the demon? Can you cause tears and wipe them too?
Can you reproduce hills, mountains, flowers, trees, vales, ponds–
know that it’s the majesty of the poet to make them drift along and settle in his colony!

I assert it’s my sole  privilege to define myself, discover myself, invent myself;
to decide whom to shower myself on with divinity
(Ah! Divinity is not in your lexicon, designed by the vanguards of modern creative writing).

So, be ready to hear:

To stir, to cause, to exhort, to shake off: none is among your strengths
for your craft is an aristocratic woman inside her gem-engraved mansion.