Tyler Clark

Tyler Clark graduated from Kean University in 2022 with a BA in English. He currently works at Kean as a Financial Aid Counselor. Tyler can be seen performing in the PBS documentary Here's the Story: Voices in the Garden. It is available to stream on the PBS website.

You Don’t Have to Be Good

You don’t have to be good
for me to love you,

said the poet to the poem.
Just be true to your

own desires.
Dear sweet creation,

I wish I could protect you
from the evils of this world.

How I weep knowing you
will be rejected over and over.

When my words reach their ears
and they breathe in the full extent

of you and your glory,
don’t be shocked if they don’t care.

If they don’t see you as good enough
or filled with deeper meanings,

I will give you a home.
I will keep you safe.

I know that in time,
you will join other

magnificent works of art
as you help to heal the broken

and you help to heal the sad
and you help to heal the unlovable.

Dear sweet creation,
one last question, before we part.

Is it better to be heard and hated
or never heard at all?

All I See Is Trash

It's like I got this music in my mind.
Marching to the beat of a dead horse.
Gentrified streets of a once beautiful town.
The people don’t look like me anymore,

they’ve been priced out.
Everyone thinks it’s so fly;
Asbury Park, New Jersey is back!

But what they really mean is:
it’s less black,
it’s less brown.

A lot less people who look like me.

No more poor people
to bring down happy
summertime moods.
It makes me reclusive.

Afraid to step foot in a place I’ve
known my entire life.
Harsh lessons learned.

Nothing stays gold forever.
What becomes new again,
will bury old memories.

Dead, lost, and forgotten.

There will be a time
when this too is erased.
They will discard the old
and pine for the new.

In it everything will be
even more expensive,
and oh so trendy.

But, all I see is trash.
Seagulls should be
picking this town apart.

Let in the raccoons;

let them feast on their luxury.
Let the undesirables back in;
watch as they burn the land,
they were forced to leave.