Bevelled (On Reading a Too-Clever-by-Half Novel) [poem]

Which do you prefer?
The gemstone or
the ore?
High tide
or low?

Admire the craft! The skill!
The burnished prose
the flawless plane
the graceful curve
the perfectly poignant chord

Fuck the composition
Fuck the guile the wit the
     insight
Fuck the smug conceit
Fuck the erudition and
     all the goddamn references

Raw
     not cooked
Incomplete
    not done
Vagabond
     not civilised
Real
     not constructed

Open bleeding awful
     not chosen
     not processed
     not edible

Emetics, not art
Confusion, not progress
Essence, not control

Fuck it.
Fuck them.
Fuck you.