how blank does you mind need to be?

by doreen peri

Posted to Action Poetry on 2003-10-25 20:13:00

Parent message is 534843
how blank does you mind need to be
to write poetry? as blank as a black slate
or a white piece of paper, the only light,
the taper of a slim candle shadow, verse
being the curse of bombastic iambic
drips of waxed meaning,
succinct, gleaning instinct
above doubt

without the multi-leveled nuanced
shout of a beloved husband snoring In a chair,
war and fair play dismissed for rest, poetry
should test images and devices, rival words,
absurd sweat gatherings becoming for better
or worse under a stifled collar,
hat brims taller than passages
of thought

we are caught in meaningless escapades.
we dance to lyric music, dropped notes
like rests between steps, fashion ourselves
wealthy with syllables and guests of speech,
phrases of hair color in fifteen minutes;
strands of minuets, golden artifacts
to keep sweet in leather jewelry cases
complete with a variety
of compartments.

stare at me like an anchorperson
and i will believe anything you say;
the way your incisors neatly fit
my wound and the tests of DNA
will soon proove
the meaning of poetry
masked in girth, each image
worth garble and abandon,
stranded in canyons or on cliffs

poetry is the gift
of technique and release,
a tease of evidenced imagined
music, sounds fused with emotion,
caressed with oceans of perceived
devotion.

the lotion of words
can soothe blurred images like science
can explain. perhaps this is the aim
of stanzas. perhaps we can gain
a comprehension of another heart.

it is not the art we are a part of.
it is the biting inside out of undefined
shouts coming from abandoned bellies.
we are a part of the unconscious swell
of hell and heaven mixed, the orchestration
still becoming.

i am but a line on a page, hopefully stunning;
you create the couplet, rhymed.
i have only the time to read you,
shunning all others.

be my lover, brother.
i’ll be your home.
let us write poetry tomes
delving into the shelves
of what it may or may not mean.

how blank does your mind need to be?
look at me and see an empty carafe.
laugh with me and we will soon proove
our own audience
comprehends meter.

what could be sweeter?