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