Poetry about Poetry ... original or previously published poetry, December 2000
A Definition
It lives
When the gold myrtle-wreath
From an uncertain tomb
Is put on display under glass,
Is sex and death
In each of their various fashions,
Tastes of salt,
Smells of hot bitumen
Or a handful of crushed leaves.
It rids the boredom of known stuff
And gossip that doesn't amaze
In a shiver scalping our skin.
It can't be polite-
Mucus, scar tissue, fluids
Best not mentioned
Rush to its page
That we sometimes write,
Sometimes sleep with,
Sometimes kill with.
Our depression won't exhaust it.
Think of a cleaver stuck in your
thigh,
Skin made mortal,
Or the crimp on the face
When we stand on the edge of large
things-
A hard birth, the end of the
affair,
That loved thing whose name makes
us sweat.
It isn't money,
Though money might buy
Something of it
(Cézannes on the wall,
The rights to Fellini's next
film).
It might come
Just as you've ironed the ninth
shirt
And feel like throwing the kid
Who hasn't shut up for three hours
Out the window along with the
bills
(But the child
Is made wholly of this thing-
It can shred as years intervene).
Then, for each expert
Who sets down its plan,
The real thing goes off at
tangents.
It won't fit in troughs,
Glinting, flittering over books,
Breaking Olympic records.
Try to put a sack over it,
Hold it under water- just like
Johnny,
It'll be back, grinning.
So, whatever you might think
About its demise, it will be
around,
The warmth behind our monotony,
That passion in the slipstream,
For it lives and keeps on:
That's what poetry is.