An Afternoon Spent Reading Poems
They come out of nowhere, but what doesn’t?
bringing their own weather but unless its brusque
or unavoidably fresh or tragic
we hardly notice, caught in our own
flash and slope of surfaces
Some sing and dance, shaking it
while we clap, stamp our feet, whistle
some taunt us – rude, condescending
some mutter in poor translations
from languages we don’t speak
we don’t hear much from strangers
though they talk at us, their stories nascent poems
but sometimes we find ourselves engaged
minding something escaping from beneath words
water leaking out under a closed door
slow and sly, become a crossing over,
an inversion, an unlikely turn
so that we park our expectations and listen
letting whatever’s there soften us, stir us in
The words tug at us, lines and phrases, images
as though we’re eating a bowl of fish stew
wondering vaguely while chewing
hunger elbowing out curiosity
what sort of fish, what vegetables
what seasonings….
Poetry is a threshold pausing us
a customs checkpoint at an airport
in a foreign country, with rules of force
to keep out undesirables
we’re neither in nor out
hovering, torn between curiosity and unease
not saying who we are, not wanting it to
whatever is, is mostly hidden here as anywhere
by preconception, habit and misperception
unimaginable as one’s own old age is to the young
like dark energy ubiquitous and all but unknowable
except obscurely, and then only at cosmic distances
Poetry is the speech of what-is’ hiddenness
of near-identical beaches walked or watched
by thousands, and their neighboring patch of water
like knighted darkness timeless and indistinct
we try on separations: here and there, then and now,
light and darkness, but what-is ignores us
not waiting for minds to arrive
as noticing their already role in it.
The Dog Star 
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