Poetry about Poetry ... original or previously published poetry, September 2001
Rebellious Rhyme
As someone once said 'metre is a great bullshit detector' - Matt Barnard, Poetry Review 90/3
I
Not so much its presence in a metred line:
that poet's joust. Words taken hostage - turned predictable
(and dull); or truth in hock to ....myth? Something not mine,
at any rate, to do with certainties. Some principle.
Instead - (feet on ground!) - a child like those innocents
in once-famous shoes. The way (I wish) lies clear ahead. Embarking....
on front foot. (Wishful thinking showed up again in dreams
last night. Words - or worlds - crowd in to split my poem's seams.)
Reality's an untidy bed of almost prose: forget-me-not and larkspur; dead-nettle, fool's parsley.... and rose.
II
Feet on ground. Yes. Since what I yearn for is a painter's stance
(and eye; and skill). Squared up, with almost endless patience,
to confront ....other. Bad work - the fake - can, does, misinterpret
its object; but can't violate - not really - that special distance.
Unlike poetry. Verse (I do see) - in skilled hands - sharpens its focus:
both vision and fine art.
But let it go wrong - and just watch it (I can feel it) begin to vanish up its own ....!