Q: What do you see as the future of poetry?
A: Oblivion.
Ever since I first noticed “my blood
setting out on its long journey beyond the skin”
I have been pondering that line.
I wrote it, sure, but
What the hell does it mean, you know?
Must be part of the dark speech of silence,
I guess.
But it’s here, and so are we.
So I keep rephrasing the question
Endlessly,
Hoping the answer might somehow change,
Becoming accessible.
Or at least that, you know,
It might make sense
One day.
I’ve seen you out there by the barn,
surreptitiously tucking away your meditative, image-driven lyrics
Between hard covers,
Thinking that absolves you, that it’s enough.
Well, no, goddammit.
I mean, really, I don’t have to explain it to you, do I?
God damn it, get out there and sell us some poetry!
Are you with us, or against us?
Since that first phone call
I’ve been somewhat confused, sure. But finally
things are back to normal, I think.
Anyway, I awoke this morning
then didn’t bother to get up.
The sun was shining anyway,
like always. So, I thought… after a while…
why bother
getting up?
I just lay there for a while,
thinking about nothing in particular,
and not wondering why things weren’t really going anywhere.
I don’t care about progress, anyway,
it doesn’t interest me. Never has,
even though I’ve somehow lived to see my seventies anyway. You see?
You don’t really have to try.
And really, why get up, after all is said and done?
Well, said, anyway.
Although, one gets hungry
eventually.
And the people at school aren’t really waiting for me to show up.
They already know where I am,
or suspect that I am
probably just lying in bed, or dead.
on the waterside path
by the levy familiar geese
gaggle along
while a fat boy rests on the bridge
while his backpack rests beside him on the bridge
while the train goes by
that jackrabbit lolloping headlong
that reaches cover in the tall grass
and runs out the other side of the tall grass
toward the shack with walls no longer square
whose roof is rows of weathered slats that gap
to sunlight and the morning air
while two crows black and black
perch atop two dirty chunks of broken concrete
upon a low mound of broken concrete
and me watching
me watching
as if my heart would break
III.
It is a dragon that swallows the moon.
A dragon delivers the rising sun in its jaws.
Knowing nothing of despair or love,
While its heart remains hidden it cannot be killed.
II.
In the time before men the dragons ruled the air,
Spurning the ground,
Fearing nothing, not even the sea.
Evil by their birth,
They were most noble.
I.
The Chinese dragons have faces like old men
Grow stronger the older they grow
Lie by telling the truth
Can ride the slightest wind to invisible heights
Are beautiful in motion, hideous in repose.
Bag of Anything 