Classic Poem

Stop whatever it is you're doing, drop
Everything, and think of it, just think :

The odds against your being here are more
Than astronomical; they're infinite.

Our odds, anonymous, monotonous,
Run on and on and so on.
Here we are.

The National Endowment for the Arts
Can kiss my foot.
I write on a short shoestring.
Poe sold his poems for a penny apiece,
And that's the way it ought to be, our business.

A real artist really making a real
Poem (that takes place about one hour
Per year) is not a person with his mind
On Cosmos, Psyche, Logos, or any other
Grecian urn;
but one concerned, consumed.
Preoccupied, absorbed, obsessed, engrossed,
Yes: lost in horrid corridors of doubt
About the mouth-to-hand, the mouth-to-mouth —

And where is my phoneme coming from?