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Literary Bureaucrats (2)
 
A letter to the lot of you
(though, unlike the Carly Simon song,
those of you to whom it applies
probably don't think it's about you)

Dear Pieces of Feces with Feet,

Had I but known
that you were for all practical purposes functionally illiterate;
that your reading comprehension level was below sea level,
I never would have submitted work to you
But I did,
and the SASE came back crumpled,
with an enclosed note that I should have read your listing,
that you only accepted submissions by e-mail
Perhaps you should have read your listing;
for while it said you accepted e-mail submissions,
it said nothing about only e-mail submissions
And added to insult of your illiteracy
came the injury to me of your thievery,
stealing on several levels:
you stole thirteen cents,
or whatever the current difference
between postcard rates and first class letter rates;
you stole resources from the earth and time from me
by disposing of the poems rather than returning them;
perhaps you even stole the poems themselves,
for after such treatment I wouldn't bother to check your magazine
Sincerely (which is more than can be said for you),

Michael

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