Arlene Corwin Poetry

                You Can’t Fool Your Friends

You write a poem.

You write a ‘we’ instead of ‘I’.

It smacks of insincerity

Your friends are sharp and sensitive;

They know a compromise

On palette or in word:

The visual, the heard;

Straightforwardness and honesty,

Too little or too much. –

They’ll give you all the feedback

That’s required to re-touch.

But if, in your travail and sweat

You’ve made your peace with what you met

During conception and inception,

Working-through

To a conclusion that convinces you,Then stick to it now matter what –

And thankful for the friends you’ve got,

To thine own self be true.

Allowed to bash at faulty views,

And at your pace

(Which can take years, for after all,

It’s not a race).

You cannot fool your friends, but still,

They’re not inside your soul

Seeing the whole,

As you perceive it.

They have their ways to receive it –

And that’s lovely.

But an artist’s life’s reflective, lonely.

Seen from that perspective,

Friends are not the folk you pool

Your art’s results with, but a tool

For transformation,

Further change, modification.

Cruel they may be,

Fuel they are

Gruel for future art.

And jewel –

For the friend you cannot fool

And ought not to resist –

The catalyst –

Is your most loyal propagandist

And reminder.