Poem 159

A poem is two things, an idea and how that idea is expressed … sometimes an idea gives rise to writing, sometimes writing twists turns and edits itself into a cogent idea … often you end up with only one or the other, the missing half just never shows up and you’re left with a hollow cracked bell of an idea or sparkly writing rattling round on itself like a clockwork toy (let’s pause here to consider why two-thirds of the fifteen hundred or so poems I’ve written are not being shown to you) …

… but on a good day the two sides of the sky give birth to and nurture each other and you can’t remember what came first or  gave rise to what …

( I like the way we feel the larger story beyond this narrator’s cramped point of view, reverberations through the wall poisoning sleep … )

Barking

My neighbours keep a dog
I've never seen
  so often it knocks the furniture over
it's too big
for such a small house
and they never exercise it
                   never take it outdoors
maybe it's too big now
for the doorways
too big for the windows
nights I hear it barking
                                          barking

but if I say anything
            to him
            or her
they tell me they've got no dog
and bare their teeth