Saturday, June 23, 2018

A Summer Evening - Estopped on the Library Steps



I suppose it can be viewed as a somber occasion when a poet announces that he or she has decided to forego future prompts and henceforth to live life averse.  But in truth I feel a certain lightness and freedom.  Now I'm just another ex-poet struggling for recovery, trying to kick myself of the habit of writing free verse.  Eight beats to the line, 12 steps more to try and keep things from getting any worse.

Of course I still have my translation habit to fall back on - a bit like methadone maintenance I suppose.  I can get all the high I need by spending an hour a day with the greater and lesser Tang poets.  But from now on - at least for the foreseeable future - everything I have to say for myself is going to be confined strictly to the purest of prose.




To brush with such a fine touch
When there’s barely enough me
To give the air itself wing
As if my thoughts could be
Directly intuited
By someone on the
Far side of the street

It’s a season of estoppel
The Staples store
On the nearest corner
Has nothing to offer
For the usual poetic means

Too late for call slips
Any hope for autopoiesis 
Tonight will only arrive
By way of my dreams

I’m left with no more than
The posterior view of Patience
(or is it Fortitude) and
The unvarnished truth
That silence bears 
Equal measures of
Devise divine and demise 






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