Complete Failure

I wonder how different

things would have been,

if instead of calling the first

track on Electric Ladyland,

“And the Gods Made Love,”

Jimi Hendrix had called it,

“And the Dogs Made Love.”

Would I have dropped out

of school and washed cars

for the rest of my life?

Would man never have

set foot on the moon?

It makes me worry, some-

times, about the names

I give to things, and the

titles I give my poems.

If only I’d called that poem

from twenty years ago

“The Complete Failure

of Your Ass,” maybe

I’d be famous by now.

Maybe you’d be famous, too.

-Jose Padua