I don’t know why
it never occurred to me before
but today I thought
that I could kiss you
something serious
for letting me know poetry
after all is
a respectable thing to love
so even though it’s years on
and you, last time we met,
hated me, anyway
there’s a kiss outstanding
you don’t really want
and I won’t really give
and that’s poetry too
as much as anything is
(after William Butler Yeats and James Harbeck)
First Gyre
The falcon circled, then flew off; the falconer was pissed.
Well, what did he expect she’d do, with everything so dis
-combobulated?
Second Gyre
There’s a book I read, predicted this: come
the millenium, and things would fall apart, get discom
-bobulated.
Third Gyre
As you see: just look at this rum job:
A riddling monster, shambling through the sand, has discombob
-ulated the indignant birds.
Fourth Gyre
Brother, it’s a bad job—who
can stand to swim? The bloody tide’s so loose and discombobu
-lated.
Fifth Gyre
While the best lack all conviction, haters hate;
No wonder everything’s so fucking discombobulat
-ed.
Sixth Gyre
It’s been more than twenty centuries our end’s been fated:
And now it seems the whole damned world is discombobulated.
for poetry
you need wings
that’s what they say
so that’s what you think
but the thing for which
poetry really begs
is legs
the girl loved the whole world
she loved everything about it
even the parts that were not nice
she loved it and she wrote it all down so she would be sure not to forget what it was about the whole thing that she found so beautiful and compelling
but after a while everything was covered up with words and she remembered the words and that she had written them but she was less sure about the things themselves and what she had loved about them
when the rains came and washed away her words it was a relief
but she loved the world a little less afterward
Robert Ranke Graves
Had a voice like the waves.
Its falling and rising
Was rarely surprising.
I burned my candle at both ends
Thinking to get more light —
But drowned its wick in red wine
Then tumbled down a flight.
I favor nor Intent nor Chance
And take alike a Mark, or Stain:
Alike the Accidents of Hands,
Or weighty Musings of a Brain.
What am I?
Bag of Anything 