ME AND RUTH TODAY

Perhaps I'm too much in the dark, or reading Ruth Stone
with too close a sympathy akin to identification, as though
I am the twig that begs release, or the poet needing fuel
with only herself to burn for inspiration--imagery--a word.

Cause and Effect

"Once a stick who was tired
of being beaten against everything
lay down on a fagot pile.
'Let me ascend to heaven,' it snarled.
Presently wood smoke rose
from the Poet's chimney"

 
Outside this space, in the world, I look up at cloud shapes
searching for the message I might be compelled to speak.
There the wind has business, but I have no business here.
I write to prove to myself that I exist, and pretend it matters.

Interim

"Like the radiator that sits
in the kitchen passing gas;
like the mop with it's head
on the floor weeping;
or the poinsettia that pretends
its leaves are flowers;
the cheap paint peels
off the steamed walls.
When you have nothing to say,

the sadness of things
speaks to you."

 
These are not the high exhalations of youthful hope,
nor the lamentations of the totally lost and forgotten;
but the soft mutterings of a being who's seen and felt
much of life's latitudes, and still rises to the occasion.

What Is a Poem?

"Such slight changes in air pressure
tongue and palate
and the difference in teeth.
Transparent words.
Why do I want to say ochre.
or what is green-yellow?
The sisters of those leaves on the ground
still lisp on the branches.
Why do I want to imitate them?

Having come this far
with a handful of alphabet,
I am forced
with these few blocks
to invent the universe."

Ruth stone at Poets.Org