Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

i sit with my breath caught between viewpoints
what will the words say
can i hear them take me for a twisted stroll?
will they keep their promises,
will they show me what's behind the door?
will there be puddles in moonlight and broken-down memories
and sudden haunts from bizarre locations

all that, i read, as i read their poetry
and i hope my breath will one day return
and i'll sit in my morning position
not wanting to move, as i read poetry

sometimes nothing makes sense
and i give up on poetry
i say "i give" up
on you poetry
all these crazy thoughts
others offer
nothing pretty
no craft
not art

...just thoughts..

sometimes it's not poetry
it's words
in short lines
like this

sometimes it's poetry
and it whirls and sweeps me away
in unbroken beats and shocking fulfillment

one night
clasp to his breast
i gave myself to Neruda
crying out in verse
each gasp a stanza
my lips hurt
from loving
passion

that's the stuff
that eyes are made for

reading neruda made me realise
i've never loved except as an aesthete

soft tangled lines
words of her from freshly a shower
fall down the page in revealing
notes of flesh i read
with "soul clenched" read and wait

spending time with larkin - the grump - on a train
i smile at his frustration
his at-odds-with-all-this expression
in serif fonts of mad confusion
and try to understand
these words so british, honest and refined.

i've never felt as close
to a poet than to philip
who looks at a virtuous angel
and sees a painted trollop

and vica versa

high tide
moon risin'
pumpkin wagon
waitin', gonna
take me to the
other side.........

Pablo Neruda
His name even sounds like a poem



So does
Anna Akhmatova


Poetry is better than TV even
Always there to take me to the other side
the truly alive side
my out of my mind side
the alchemy of poetry

I don't get it
But I don't get electricity either
or magnetic fields
but I turn on the lights and I can see


Poets on poetry
oiy
and fools rush in

as I bow down and worship a poet today

reading her
made me realize
I have never loved
except as a brute
a half man thing
unconscious of the woman thing
I was impaled upon
"Tell me how men kiss you"

.

Men kiss with the lips of Enkidu

Squirmming a tadpole tail

.

if only I was a poet, a prince or even a frog
not just a pollywog

Men kiss with the lips of Enkidu

Squirmming a tadpole tail

just thoughts
carriage returns
but just thoughts

Cosmic swirls
so far from me
a trogdolyte in paradise

When Inanna sang the blues
The rains came.
Teardrops or stillness
anguish or agony
bitter fame or love
more thoughts
bubbles in my beer
Poetry turns off the me in me
it turns off the bubble machine

beauty

I want to be in that number
when the priestess goes marching in
I don't know Neruda at all

But if I out live my old dog
I will read A Dog Has Died
at his burrial.

and if I GO before him
he will howl at the moon for me

go gone going go
just don't know j
I don't belong here
but thankful for the poetry

the carriage returns
the poet to the page
before the strike
of midnight

ooooops!

turned in to a pumpkin
before my thyme

poet - ing is a slippery slope
you can fall down or fall in famously
my oldest son claims to hate poetry
does that mean something???

people write long three line sentences and call it haiku
not even meditation can reveal a mystery it isn't
I read more poverty stricken poetry than not
abandoned poetry, low rent poetry, this is poetry poetry
those that claim poetry as a mission but going nowhere

where is the spark, the jazz, the passion?
skipped out poetry, dead poets poetry
you slog through poetry with hip boots
looking for a germ of in sight but none is

sometimes i quit, i think i quit, i can't write
not poetry...it has gravitas, city lights are out
i quit and fall off the poetry wagon, under the wheels
turning in my head. POETRY!!! I suck out the seed
of good wordies, but empty husks litter my mind

i grieve poetically, i plant tomatoes in stanzas
row upon row, ripe and juicy poetry wishes to come
where is the poetry? will it come again like a savior
or strike me dead like lightning?

i may not be finished...