If I were a copyright lawyer for Disney, I’d do my best to preserve the purity and wholesomeness of their intellectual properties. I’d bust head shops for Rastafarian Mickey Mouse pipes, with their dreadlocks and painted bloodshot eyes. I’ll tell them: that privilege is for authorized retailers only.

So I know it’s been a while. I don’t really have an excuse. But I’m back. Hey. Maybe it was turning 40 that did it. Or that cold that knocked me out for two weeks. (The same one the kids got that slowed them down for about two minutes.) I used to be able to bounce back from that shit overnight. But I’ve come to the painful realization that I’m not young anymore. So like any good, albeit lapsed, Catholic facing her inevitable mortality (God, I’m such a cliché!), I’ve started going to church again. You already know that, though, don’t you?

There can be little doubt that poets do not contribute greatly to society. Their work, produced in vast abundance, is nearly valueless to our species. Indeed, the great bulk of their efforts are simply given away; the poems cannot be sold. Yet, I believe that poets are capable of contributing meaningfully to the human endeavor and I propose the following ways in which we may put poets to use.

Those who have never hated anyone, for example children under ten years old or saints, often don’t know how to show hatred for deserving hateful people, or even what that feeling is like. By rights they should hate quite a few people, as we all should, and yet they are blocked. At most they feel a vague dismay and insecurity in the presence of repulsive others, or become queasy at the thought that so many folks out there are obnoxious jerks, but they can’t summon the proper attitudes of derision and disdain that all these unmitigated asses so richly deserve. Yet by following a few simple rules they can break through this barrier of reticence and let their justified hatred pour forth.

Grant Sims revolutionized technology. His early death saddened us, but we shouldn’t ever forget that he put all of himself into the products we enjoy today. Now, not forgetting this, we should also know he was human. So let’s allow the man a flaw or two without losing sight of what he meant to us.