Demimonde Poem by Rene Diedrich

he drops the term

which i define in context

seize

then confine
 to cranium crawl space

i can no longer concentrate

on my poetry professor

who praises my authentic depiction

of low lives

i wring my hands

to turn these syllables

into a dam

as if they alone

will make sense

of my momentum in bar rooms,

among people i am better than 
now

but still beholden to


these words flow true

like crawling black insects

defecating across the page
i am neither flattered nor insulted

which dawns on me outside

his office, where i misspell 
the password inside my palm