It is hard, he says,
to put your cart
before your horse
when you have neither.
So then you are left
with the choice
of whether to buy
a horse and try
to overload it
until it cannot walk
or a cart easily filled
that no one can move,
or to just buy a half
dozen clichés.
All too often it
is just a matter
of tossing words
into the air and wondering
where, or even if,
they land, and if
they do, what we
will find when they
finally settle
on the paper.
Words, words, words
Polonius, it’s all
this damn book
is full of,
but don’t let it bother you,
for your time
is so limited, I’ll
see to it soon enough.
It’s the price of doing
the bidding of the devil.
Did you really think
it would be otherwise?
This is, remember one
of his tragedies,
so the only real question
is how to count the dead.
When all
is said and done
and everything
that can
be written
has been,
when the questions
have all
been answered
or forgotten,
when you grow
tired of answers,
ask yourself this:
Then there are the days
when extracting words
feels like extracting teeth,
and there is no Novocaine
for either my pen or me.
If you hear a scream,
just ignore it please,
it is only the agony
of a poem’s death throes.
Here in Haikutown
verisimilitude can
be found in line two.
But over in Tankaville
it can have three addresses.
René Magritte was born and died
in Belgium, neither happened
on this day, but he painted
a most realistic picture of a pipe,
which he captioned “Ceci N’est Pas
Une Pipe,” which of course it was not
since it was only a picture of a pipe
and he entitled the work
The Treachery of Images.
This brings to mind a question:
if I say, Ceci est une poeme,
is that true, or am I engaging
in a mere treachery of words?
Draw me a picture of your answer,
if you would be so kind.
