Poet’s Work

Source: Stocksnap

Grandfather

   advised me:

      Learn a trade

I learned

   to sit at desk

      and condense

No layoffs

   from this

      condensery

~ Lorine Niedecker

What is it that a poet knows

Source: Pixabay

What is it that a poet knows

                that tells him－'this is real?'

Some revelation, a gift of sight,

granted through an effort of the mind－

                                    of infinite delight. 

All the time I have been writing on the very edge of knowledge,

heard the real world whispering

                    with an indistinct and liquid rustling－

as if to free, at last, an inextricable meaning!

Sought for words simpler, smoother, more clean than any,

                            only to clear the air

of an unnecessary obstruction…

Not because I wanted to meddle with the unknown

        (I do not believe for a moment that it can be done),

but because the visible world seemed to be waiting,

                            as it always is,

somehow, to be revealed.

Whoever has once heard that music, in that quiet light, 

knows what he has to say, over again and over.

~ Louis Dudek

Untitled

Source: Favim

That poet you scorned

for retiring when he was forty,

then beginning thirty years later

with the same voice and style

The crack in his life invisible

What he said in youth

and approaching death

having the same breath

that precise pitch

unaffected by time

What a wonder I think now

after all those wars and eras

of love he must have passed through

not one gesture altered

as he wrote, as if he always slept

this way beside her

What could we learn

by leaving the color blue

for another?

~ Michael Ondaatje

A Fountain, a Bottle, a Donkey's Ears, and Some Books

Credit:  Gordon McKerracher

Old Davis owned a solid mica mountain
In Dalton that would someday make his fortune.
There'd been some Boston people out to see it:
And experts said that deep down in the mountain
The mica sheets were big as plate-glass windows.
He'd like to take me there and show it to me.

"I'll tell you what you show me. You remember
You said you knew the place where once, on Kinsman,
The early Mormons made a settlement
And built a stone baptismal font outdoors—
But Smith, or someone, called them off the mountain
To go West to a worse fight with the desert.
You said you'd seen the stone baptismal font.
Well, take me there."

Someday I will."

"Today."

"Huh, that old bathtub, what is that to see?
Let's talk about it."

"Let's go see the place."

'To shut you up I'll tell you what I'll do:
I'll find that fountain if it takes all summer,
And both of our united strengths, to do it."

"You've lost it, then?"

"Not so but I can find it.
No doubt it's grown up some to woods around it.
The mountain may have shifted since I saw it
In eighty-five."

"As long ago as that?"

"If I remember rightly, it had sprung
A leak and emptied then. And forty years
Can do a good deal to bad masonry.
You won't see any Mormon swimming in it.
But you have said it, and we're off to find it.
Old as I am, I'm going to let myself
Be dragged by you all over everywhere——"
"I thought you were a guide.”

"I am a guide,
And that's why I can't decently refuse you."

We made a day of it out of the world,
Ascending to descend to reascend.
The old man seriously took his bearings,
And spoke his doubts in every open place.

We came out on a look-off where we faced
A cliff, and on the cliff a bottle painted,
Or stained by vegetation from above,
A likeness to surprise the thrilly tourist.

"Well, if I haven't brought you to the fountain,
At least I've brought you to the famous Bottle."

"I won't accept the substitute. It's empty.”

"So's everything."

"I want my fountain."

"I guess you'd find the fountain just as empty.
And anyway this tells me where I am.”

"Hadn't you long suspected where you were?"

"You mean miles from that Mormon settlement?
Look here, you treat your guide with due respect
If you don't want to spend the night outdoors.
I vow we must be near the place from where
The two converging slides, the avalanches,
On Marshall, look like donkey's ears.
We may as well see that and save the day."

"Don't donkey's ears suggest we shake our own?"

"For God's sake, aren't you fond of viewing nature?
You don't like nature. All you like is books.
What signify a donkey's cars and bottle,
However natural? Give you your books!
Well then, right here is where I show you books.
Come straight down off this mountain just as fast
As we can fall and keep a-bouncing on our feet.
It's hell for knees unless done hell-for-leather."

Be ready, I thought, for almost anything.

We struck a road I didn't recognize,
But welcomed for the chance to lave my shoes
In dust once more. We followed this a mile,
Perhaps, to where it ended at a house
I didn't know was there. It was the kind
To bring me to for broad-board paneling.
I never saw so good a house deserted.

"Excuse me if I ask you in a window
That happens to be broken, Davis said.
"The outside doors as yet have held against us.
I want to introduce you to the people
Who used to live here. They were Robinsons.
You must have heard of Clara Robinson,
The poetess who wrote the book of verses
And had it published. It was all about
The posies on her inner windowsill,
And the birds on her outer windowsill,
And how she tended both, or had them tended:
She never tended anything herself.
She was 'shut in' for life. She lived her whole
Life long in bed, and wrote her things in bed.
I'll show You how she had her sills extended
To entertain the birds and hold the flowers.
Our business first's up attic with her books."

We trod uncomfortably on crunching glass
Through a house stripped of everything
Except, it seemed, the poetess's poems.
Books, I should say!—-if books are what is needed.
A whole edition in a packing case
That, overflowing like a horn of plenty,
Or like the poetess's heart of love,
Had spilled them near the window, toward the light
Where driven rain had wet and swollen them.
Enough to stock a village library—
Unfortunately all of one kind, though.
They bad been brought home from some publisher
And taken thus into the family.
Boys and bad hunters had known what to do
With stone and lead to unprotected glass:
Shatter it inward on the unswept floors.
How had the tender verse escaped their outrage?
By being invisible for what it was,
Or else by some remoteness that defied them
To find out what to do to hurt a poem.
Yet oh! the tempting flatness of a book,
To send it sailing out the attic window
Till it caught wind and, opening out its covers,
Tried to improve on sailing like a tile
By flying like a bird (silent in flight,
But all the burden of its body song),
Only to tumble like a stricken bird,
And lie in stones and bushes unretrieved.
Books were not thrown irreverently about.
They simply lay where someone now and then,
Having tried one, had dropped it at his feet
And left it lying where it fell rejected.
Here were all those the poetess's life
Had been too short to sell or give away.

"Take one," Old Davis bade me graciously.

"Why not take two or three?"

"Take all you want."
Good-looking books like that." He picked one fresh
In virgin wrapper from deep in the box,
And stroked it with a horny-handed kindness.
He read in one and I read in another,
Both either looking for or finding something.

The attic wasps went missing by like bullets.

I was soon satisfied for the time being.

All the way home I kept remembering
The small book in my pocket. It was there.
The poetess had sighed, I knew, in heaven
At having eased her heart of one more copy—
Legitimately. My demand upon her,
Though slight, was a demand. She felt the tug.
In time she would be rid of all her books.

~ Robert Frost

A Fountain, a Bottle, a Donkey's Ears, and Some Books

Credit:  Gordon McKerracher

Old Davis owned a solid mica mountain
In Dalton that would someday make his fortune.
There'd been some Boston people out to see it:
And experts said that deep down in the mountain
The mica sheets were big as plate-glass windows.
He'd like to take me there and show it to me.

"I'll tell you what you show me. You remember
You said you knew the place where once, on Kinsman,
The early Mormons made a settlement
And built a stone baptismal font outdoors—
But Smith, or someone, called them off the mountain
To go West to a worse fight with the desert.
You said you'd seen the stone baptismal font.
Well, take me there."

Someday I will."

"Today."

"Huh, that old bathtub, what is that to see?
Let's talk about it."

"Let's go see the place."

'To shut you up I'll tell you what I'll do:
I'll find that fountain if it takes all summer,
And both of our united strengths, to do it."

"You've lost it, then?"

"Not so but I can find it.
No doubt it's grown up some to woods around it.
The mountain may have shifted since I saw it
In eighty-five."

"As long ago as that?"

"If I remember rightly, it had sprung
A leak and emptied then. And forty years
Can do a good deal to bad masonry.
You won't see any Mormon swimming in it.
But you have said it, and we're off to find it.
Old as I am, I'm going to let myself
Be dragged by you all over everywhere——"
"I thought you were a guide.”

"I am a guide,
And that's why I can't decently refuse you."

We made a day of it out of the world,
Ascending to descend to reascend.
The old man seriously took his bearings,
And spoke his doubts in every open place.

We came out on a look-off where we faced
A cliff, and on the cliff a bottle painted,
Or stained by vegetation from above,
A likeness to surprise the thrilly tourist.

"Well, if I haven't brought you to the fountain,
At least I've brought you to the famous Bottle."

"I won't accept the substitute. It's empty.”

"So's everything."

"I want my fountain."

"I guess you'd find the fountain just as empty.
And anyway this tells me where I am.”

"Hadn't you long suspected where you were?"

"You mean miles from that Mormon settlement?
Look here, you treat your guide with due respect
If you don't want to spend the night outdoors.
I vow we must be near the place from where
The two converging slides, the avalanches,
On Marshall, look like donkey's ears.
We may as well see that and save the day."

"Don't donkey's ears suggest we shake our own?"

"For God's sake, aren't you fond of viewing nature?
You don't like nature. All you like is books.
What signify a donkey's cars and bottle,
However natural? Give you your books!
Well then, right here is where I show you books.
Come straight down off this mountain just as fast
As we can fall and keep a-bouncing on our feet.
It's hell for knees unless done hell-for-leather."

Be ready, I thought, for almost anything.

We struck a road I didn't recognize,
But welcomed for the chance to lave my shoes
In dust once more. We followed this a mile,
Perhaps, to where it ended at a house
I didn't know was there. It was the kind
To bring me to for broad-board paneling.
I never saw so good a house deserted.

"Excuse me if I ask you in a window
That happens to be broken, Davis said.
"The outside doors as yet have held against us.
I want to introduce you to the people
Who used to live here. They were Robinsons.
You must have heard of Clara Robinson,
The poetess who wrote the book of verses
And had it published. It was all about
The posies on her inner windowsill,
And the birds on her outer windowsill,
And how she tended both, or had them tended:
She never tended anything herself.
She was 'shut in' for life. She lived her whole
Life long in bed, and wrote her things in bed.
I'll show You how she had her sills extended
To entertain the birds and hold the flowers.
Our business first's up attic with her books."

We trod uncomfortably on crunching glass
Through a house stripped of everything
Except, it seemed, the poetess's poems.
Books, I should say!—-if books are what is needed.
A whole edition in a packing case
That, overflowing like a horn of plenty,
Or like the poetess's heart of love,
Had spilled them near the window, toward the light
Where driven rain had wet and swollen them.
Enough to stock a village library—
Unfortunately all of one kind, though.
They bad been brought home from some publisher
And taken thus into the family.
Boys and bad hunters had known what to do
With stone and lead to unprotected glass:
Shatter it inward on the unswept floors.
How had the tender verse escaped their outrage?
By being invisible for what it was,
Or else by some remoteness that defied them
To find out what to do to hurt a poem.
Yet oh! the tempting flatness of a book,
To send it sailing out the attic window
Till it caught wind and, opening out its covers,
Tried to improve on sailing like a tile
By flying like a bird (silent in flight,
But all the burden of its body song),
Only to tumble like a stricken bird,
And lie in stones and bushes unretrieved.
Books were not thrown irreverently about.
They simply lay where someone now and then,
Having tried one, had dropped it at his feet
And left it lying where it fell rejected.
Here were all those the poetess's life
Had been too short to sell or give away.

"Take one," Old Davis bade me graciously.

"Why not take two or three?"

"Take all you want."
Good-looking books like that." He picked one fresh
In virgin wrapper from deep in the box,
And stroked it with a horny-handed kindness.
He read in one and I read in another,
Both either looking for or finding something.

The attic wasps went missing by like bullets.

I was soon satisfied for the time being.

All the way home I kept remembering
The small book in my pocket. It was there.
The poetess had sighed, I knew, in heaven
At having eased her heart of one more copy—
Legitimately. My demand upon her,
Though slight, was a demand. She felt the tug.
In time she would be rid of all her books.

~ Robert Frost

Why Do You Stay Up So Late

Source: letter by candlelight by irish_princess87

Late at night, I no longer speak for effect.
I speak the truth without the niceties.
I am hundreds of years old but do not know how many hundreds.
The person I was does not know me.
The young poets, with their reenactments of the senses, are asleep.
I am myself asleep at the outer reaches.
I have lain down in the snow without stepping outside.
I am frozen on the white page.
Then it happens, a spark somewhere, a light through the ice.
The snow melts, there appear fields threaded with grain.
The blue moon blue sky returns, that heralded night.
How earthly the convenience of time.
I am possible.
I have in me the last unanswered question.
Yes, there are walls, and water stains on the ceiling.
Yes, there is energy running through the wires.
And yes, I grow colder as I write of the sun rising.
This is not the story, the skin paling and a body folded over a table.
If I die here they will say I died writing.
Never mind the long day that now shrinks backward.
I crumple the light and toss it into the wastebasket.
I pull down the moon and place it in a drawer.
A bitter wind of new winter drags the dew eastward.
I dig in my heels.

~ Marvin Bell

Why Do You Stay Up So Late

Source: letter by candlelight by irish_princess87

Late at night, I no longer speak for effect.
I speak the truth without the niceties.
I am hundreds of years old but do not know how many hundreds.
The person I was does not know me.
The young poets, with their reenactments of the senses, are asleep.
I am myself asleep at the outer reaches.
I have lain down in the snow without stepping outside.
I am frozen on the white page.
Then it happens, a spark somewhere, a light through the ice.
The snow melts, there appear fields threaded with grain.
The blue moon blue sky returns, that heralded night.
How earthly the convenience of time.
I am possible.
I have in me the last unanswered question.
Yes, there are walls, and water stains on the ceiling.
Yes, there is energy running through the wires.
And yes, I grow colder as I write of the sun rising.
This is not the story, the skin paling and a body folded over a table.
If I die here they will say I died writing.
Never mind the long day that now shrinks backward.
I crumple the light and toss it into the wastebasket.
I pull down the moon and place it in a drawer.
A bitter wind of new winter drags the dew eastward.
I dig in my heels.

~ Marvin Bell

In case you missed AWP 2014: Fifteen Ways of Looking at a Conference

Source: German British Forum

I

I went running beforehand, just at dawn,
heard a varied thrush, down from the mountains.
And I could’ve gone home happy then.

II

I wore my most fabulous garment, a coat,
even when I was indoors. Because every writer
needs a security blanket. And every other writer
needs a companion dog. But I get that.
It is hard to be with twelve thousand people
who all want the two tablespoons of fame
available in our measly genre. Very hard.

III

I have never heard of anybody. Or met anybody. Or read anybody.
I have never done anything with trochees.
Is it too late? I write down quotes.

IV

If you’re an editor, use a green pencil.
A poet must be a good reporter, but he must be something more.
Poetry can add to the stock of available reality.
Want to write better? Be more.
If it doesn’t sound right it’s no fucking good.
Bears aren’t afraid of being asleep.
The more you try to be original, the less original you’ll be.

V

You’re welcome.
I just saved you
$230 and that’s
if you signed up before Halloween.

VI

Know how when you leave an art museum
everything looks like art, even stop signs?
Everything sounds like poetry by around 2 p.m.

VII

I hate being all fan-ny, but there is no alternative.
There is the famous poet who wrote me a blurb.
I say thank you, even though I did so at the last gathering.
And then what to say? Umm. Thanks again?

VIII

I am talking to a younger writer
and come up with a quote:
You can’t not write.
I never wanted a tattoo before this.

IX

That awkward moment at the cocktail party when
your friend introduces you to someone and says
“Hey, Ben’s a poet. Ben, this is Tina. Tina’s a poet.”
Kind introducer is pleased somehow. She forgets:
Poets have nothing to say to poets. Not always,
but mostly.

X

You are my tribe. But we do not dress the same.
I forgot to get a piercing for this. And dye my hair neon.
And wear a long gingham prairie dress. Or painted shoes.
The black coat serves me well.

XI

The things you hear.
“We are rebuilding
the emotional infrastructure
of the world.”
Sigh.

XIII

We share ego insecurity desire for immortality rejections very long scarves
comfort that fame can come posthumously knowledge that we usually feel better
after we write a curious fascination with the truth of long lists disdain for commas

XIV

We develop prowess in submission.
We apply to a retreat,
something you do after you lose.

XV

We observe each other up and down
the convention center’s cascading escalators,
six floors of them! And smile and wonder
and star in our own author interviews
in our minds, and hope for the best.

~ Tina Kelley

In case you missed AWP 2014: Fifteen Ways of Looking at a Conference

Source: German British Forum

I

I went running beforehand, just at dawn,
heard a varied thrush, down from the mountains.
And I could’ve gone home happy then.

II

I wore my most fabulous garment, a coat,
even when I was indoors. Because every writer
needs a security blanket. And every other writer
needs a companion dog. But I get that.
It is hard to be with twelve thousand people
who all want the two tablespoons of fame
available in our measly genre. Very hard.

III

I have never heard of anybody. Or met anybody. Or read anybody.
I have never done anything with trochees.
Is it too late? I write down quotes.

IV

If you’re an editor, use a green pencil.
A poet must be a good reporter, but he must be something more.
Poetry can add to the stock of available reality.
Want to write better? Be more.
If it doesn’t sound right it’s no fucking good.
Bears aren’t afraid of being asleep.
The more you try to be original, the less original you’ll be.

V

You’re welcome.
I just saved you
$230 and that’s
if you signed up before Halloween.

VI

Know how when you leave an art museum
everything looks like art, even stop signs?
Everything sounds like poetry by around 2 p.m.

VII

I hate being all fan-ny, but there is no alternative.
There is the famous poet who wrote me a blurb.
I say thank you, even though I did so at the last gathering.
And then what to say? Umm. Thanks again?

VIII

I am talking to a younger writer
and come up with a quote:
You can’t not write.
I never wanted a tattoo before this.

IX

That awkward moment at the cocktail party when
your friend introduces you to someone and says
“Hey, Ben’s a poet. Ben, this is Tina. Tina’s a poet.”
Kind introducer is pleased somehow. She forgets:
Poets have nothing to say to poets. Not always,
but mostly.

X

You are my tribe. But we do not dress the same.
I forgot to get a piercing for this. And dye my hair neon.
And wear a long gingham prairie dress. Or painted shoes.
The black coat serves me well.

XI

The things you hear.
“We are rebuilding
the emotional infrastructure
of the world.”
Sigh.

XIII

We share ego insecurity desire for immortality rejections very long scarves
comfort that fame can come posthumously knowledge that we usually feel better
after we write a curious fascination with the truth of long lists disdain for commas

XIV

We develop prowess in submission.
We apply to a retreat,
something you do after you lose.

XV

We observe each other up and down
the convention center’s cascading escalators,
six floors of them! And smile and wonder
and star in our own author interviews
in our minds, and hope for the best.

~ Tina Kelley

Poem: The Nude that Stays Nude

Photo: William Logan from the Sewanee website

Don’t do what all the other little buggers are doing.

Don’t try to make the poem look pretty. You’re not decorating cupcakes, Cupcake.

Don’t think you’re the only bastard who ever suffered — just write as if you were.

Don’t eat someone else’s lunch. For eat read steal. For lunch read wife. For wife read style.

Don’t be any form’s bitch.

Don’t think if you cheat on form or slip the meter, no one will notice. They’ll know and think you a fool. Don’t think it impossible to cheat on form. If you do it well, they’ll think you a genius.

Don’t think if you declare yourself avant-garde, your sins will be forgiven.

Don’t blubber if you never receive prizes. Look at the poets who won the Pulitzer fifty years ago. See who’s there. See who’s not.

Don’t think you’re special. Stand in a library amid all those poets who thought they were every inch the genius you think you are.

Don’t double-space your lines and think the poem better. It just takes up more room.

Don’t think regret is 20/20. Regret is myopic. Hope is astigmatic. Trust is blind.

Don’t think what you have to say is important. The way you say it is what’s important. What you have to say is rubbish.

Don’t think you don’t have to read. You read in order to steal. Read more, steal better.

Don’t think your poems are good because they sound good read aloud. Get your hearing checked.

Never write poems about poetry.

Don’t play to the audience. Your audience is full of dopes, cheeseballs, and Johnny-come-latelies?—?besides, they’re laughing at you all the way home.

Don’t think you’ve been anointed by early success. Look at the critical darlings of a hundred years ago. Look at the darlings of twenty years ago.

Never wish you were there. Wish you were here.

Don’t think you can ignore grammar. You need grammar more than grammar needs you.

Never eat the pie if you can own the fork.

Don’t think new is better. Don’t think new is not better. Don’t think, read. Don’t think, ink.

Poetry is the nude that stays nude.

Never write the first line if you already know the last. The best poem is the unwritten poem.

Don’t break the window before you look at the view.

Don’t think that if you have two manuscripts, you have two manuscripts. You have one manuscript.

Don’t eat jargon, because you’ll shit jargon.

Don’t think poetry is a religion. It’s more important than religion.

~ William Logan

Poem: The Nude that Stays Nude

Photo: William Logan from the Sewanee website

Don’t do what all the other little buggers are doing.

Don’t try to make the poem look pretty. You’re not decorating cupcakes, Cupcake.

Don’t think you’re the only bastard who ever suffered — just write as if you were.

Don’t eat someone else’s lunch. For eat read steal. For lunch read wife. For wife read style.

Don’t be any form’s bitch.

Don’t think if you cheat on form or slip the meter, no one will notice. They’ll know and think you a fool. Don’t think it impossible to cheat on form. If you do it well, they’ll think you a genius.

Don’t think if you declare yourself avant-garde, your sins will be forgiven.

Don’t blubber if you never receive prizes. Look at the poets who won the Pulitzer fifty years ago. See who’s there. See who’s not.

Don’t think you’re special. Stand in a library amid all those poets who thought they were every inch the genius you think you are.

Don’t double-space your lines and think the poem better. It just takes up more room.

Don’t think regret is 20/20. Regret is myopic. Hope is astigmatic. Trust is blind.

Don’t think what you have to say is important. The way you say it is what’s important. What you have to say is rubbish.

Don’t think you don’t have to read. You read in order to steal. Read more, steal better.

Don’t think your poems are good because they sound good read aloud. Get your hearing checked.

Never write poems about poetry.

Don’t play to the audience. Your audience is full of dopes, cheeseballs, and Johnny-come-latelies?—?besides, they’re laughing at you all the way home.

Don’t think you’ve been anointed by early success. Look at the critical darlings of a hundred years ago. Look at the darlings of twenty years ago.

Never wish you were there. Wish you were here.

Don’t think you can ignore grammar. You need grammar more than grammar needs you.

Never eat the pie if you can own the fork.

Don’t think new is better. Don’t think new is not better. Don’t think, read. Don’t think, ink.

Poetry is the nude that stays nude.

Never write the first line if you already know the last. The best poem is the unwritten poem.

Don’t break the window before you look at the view.

Don’t think that if you have two manuscripts, you have two manuscripts. You have one manuscript.

Don’t eat jargon, because you’ll shit jargon.

Don’t think poetry is a religion. It’s more important than religion.

~ William Logan

Quote on appreciating nature

Source: Unknown/Favim

Learn about pines from the pine, and about bamboo from the bamboo. 

Make the universe your companion, always bearing in mind the true nature of things—mountains and rivers, trees and grasses, and humanity—and enjoy the falling blossoms and the scattering leaves. 

It is this poetic spirit that leads one to follow nature and become a friend with things of the seasons. For a person who has the spirit, everything she sees becomes a flower, and everything he imagines turns into the moon. 

Every form of insentient existence—plants, stones, or utensils—has its individual feelings similar to those of people. When we observe calmly, we discover that all things have their fulfillment.

~ Matsuo Basho

Quote on appreciating nature

Source: Unknown/Favim

Learn about pines from the pine, and about bamboo from the bamboo. 

Make the universe your companion, always bearing in mind the true nature of things—mountains and rivers, trees and grasses, and humanity—and enjoy the falling blossoms and the scattering leaves. 

It is this poetic spirit that leads one to follow nature and become a friend with things of the seasons. For a person who has the spirit, everything she sees becomes a flower, and everything he imagines turns into the moon. 

Every form of insentient existence—plants, stones, or utensils—has its individual feelings similar to those of people. When we observe calmly, we discover that all things have their fulfillment.

~ Matsuo Basho

RITUALS BEFORE THE POEM

Photo credit: hotblack from morguefile.com

In terror they will drink water grudgingly —Ezekiel 4

Before the poem comes like a word from a brazen sky
the poet must lie on his side for a year
eating only dry bread and measured bowls of water.

The poet must pour sand over grass and build
the walls of his city. The poet must surround
the walls with the offence of guns; and for days
upon days starve the city of all its music.

The poet’s tongue will grow heavy and his
limbs will be bound with cords so he cannot
move. He will quarrel with God about
the meaning of poetry. The poet will beg for mercy,
lying on his other side for a hundred and ninety days,
his body scarred with the wounds he inflicts on his family.

All this a poet does before a poem so that
when he walks out in mid-winter, his face
will be smooth, his eyes will have the quiet resignation
we call peace and his satchel will be full
of whimsical lyrics about the color green
and the sounds a whore makes in her dreams.

~ Kwame Dawes

RITUALS BEFORE THE POEM

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In terror they will drink water grudgingly —Ezekiel 4

Before the poem comes like a word from a brazen sky
the poet must lie on his side for a year
eating only dry bread and measured bowls of water.

The poet must pour sand over grass and build
the walls of his city. The poet must surround
the walls with the offence of guns; and for days
upon days starve the city of all its music.

The poet’s tongue will grow heavy and his
limbs will be bound with cords so he cannot
move. He will quarrel with God about
the meaning of poetry. The poet will beg for mercy,
lying on his other side for a hundred and ninety days,
his body scarred with the wounds he inflicts on his family.

All this a poet does before a poem so that
when he walks out in mid-winter, his face
will be smooth, his eyes will have the quiet resignation
we call peace and his satchel will be full
of whimsical lyrics about the color green
and the sounds a whore makes in her dreams.

~ Kwame Dawes