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RULES
I learned from John Berrymanby way of W.S. Merwin that as a poetI should paper my walls with rejection letters.I thought this a good idea whenI lived in a small apartment, butall too soon the walls appearedto be growing ever smallerand I was papering over paper,like the latest in a too longline of tenants who…
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FOR ME OR THEE
Do not ask me why I write poetrynor for whom I write poems.You will not be pleased by the answer.You assume I have an audience in mindwhen I pick up the pen and put it to paper.That would be a false assumptionfor only the occasional poet writeswith a specific audience in mind.The rest of us…
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RULES
W. Somerset Maugham suggestedthat there are three rules for writinga novel, but no one knows what they are.I suppose the same could be saidfor writing poetry, with a twistfor there are three rules for thisas well, but everyone knowsprecisely what they are not.Writers and poets must be rebels,writing what must be saidand damning the consequencesfor…
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YOU OF COURSE, OR NOT
Someone, at a reading, asked me“who do you write for?”I avoided the obvious answer,“You” since he was there lesthe say someone dragged him alongmost unwillingly and my readingconfirmed his initial reluctance.The honest answer is that I writefor those who might stumbleacross my words, might seethem online browsing, or comeacross them in a coffee shopwhere I…
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DA CAPO AL FINE
“And then it all came crashing down around him.” That was going to be the last sentence in his novel. He had known it would be the last sentence for years for it was the perfect ending, one that left the reader wondering “what then?” Seeing it on the monitor only confirmed his judgment that…
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TIMING
Time travel has becomea standard trope of science fiction,a protagonist going back in timeby intent or circumstance, fearfulto take any action for thatmight change the universeand the future as it would have beencollapses and is replaced bysomething wholly different.But this is where logic fails,for the traveler from the futurecannot affect the futureor he could not…
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WRITING
I have a Chinese friendwho says I should write poemsabout pomegranates and chrysanthemums.A Japanese business acquaintance sayspoems should be populated by sakura and Lotus.I tend to think of their advicein the deadest days of winterwhen snow presses against the houseas if seeking its faint warmth.As I thinly sliced the tender shootsof bamboo and dampen the…
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WHAT ISN’T LEFT BEHIND
When a poet dies they will be mournedby those who loved them,those who admired them.Obituaries and eulogieswill be offered, tearswill be shed and memorieswill begin to slowly fadeafter the short possiblesale spike has run its course.I am no differentthan all of the other mournersbut I take an extra momentto mourn all of the wordsand the…
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TY NEWYDD
In the gently aging house,replete with writersthere are endless roomsin which the muse dartsdispensing her soul.I prefer to sit with the catcurled in an overstuffed chairher head risingand falling imperceptiblyour breaths harmonic.We commune in unspoken dialoga language of silencebespeaking volumesof our shared existence. First published in The River, Sandy River Review, March 2024https://sandyriverreview.com/2024/03/30/seeing-you-again-next-stop-riding-ty-newydd/
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an old writer and his words 