first revision of yesterday’s:
over the rainbow
I am
learning the language
to
make a poem
there
is no minimum of words
I think
you know the tune
I have
to be wrong
a lot to be
right
a language is another
country
far and wide
wraps you in a flag
you fall through
to find your feet
.
a poem is another world
spins on its own – on how
many wheels?
you go there when the
cupboard is bare
remember this room?
place furniture where suits
one cannot help but
tell a story
there is no animal less
than this
nor tree, nor stream,
nor stone
a language is a philosophy
complete
has its own geometry
swallows religions
whole
.
poetry is like talking
to a dog in a haystack
and past perimeter
limits
the colours come
who’ll name them?
each one after a cloud
I once knew
and how we caught the
sun
a language is all in
your head
the obverse reverse
standing army
truth is made of pure
intention
some days there’s no
one at home
not at all
.
consider the idiomatic
hutch
and everywhere-luggage
brought you so far
I break a rule until it’s
gone
they won’t try that
again
shall we approach
to press the skysill?
there’s nowhere else to
make a poem
we must have dreamt a
way
.
a language’s loyalty is
assured
furthest galaxies obey
I am committing to
heart
these lines
an echo after
pond
drop
tear
place of birth
the all-ancestral lamps
to light
and appetite
then mirth
.
write with a mirror
work wrong-sidedly
a language
yet to learn
is the bag of tricks
you are
I am
learning the world
to
make the words
I
have brought my passport of poetry
.
to
make a language as I go
I have
to write the poem
that
cannot be helped
you
must know it
I am
spreading out
dust,
wings
road
long as life
no
moments the same
but
here we are
make
up it all up
from
what’s to hand
I greet
you with beginner’s luck
(take
off one head
screw
on another)
replace
tongue too
tune
heart
adjust
a landscape
it’s
these funny spectacles we wear
.
where
things have no name
no
seeing trees for the wood
but
here’s my pot of gold
meaning
– yes, and you know where
I am
taking the words
just
as they go
to tell you
we use all the light
that there is
.
I learn the rules by
breaking them
like stones
it’s what they’re for
how to make a world
whole
set out no clue who
but words are the way
I will find where I am
where we
where you
notice how into the
future
everyone comes tumbling?
you can call that the
conversation
I’m telling you
because you might want
to know
and here I cannot help
but wonder
will I ever be believed?
will I be understood?
I work with words
to make a world
where else is there to
go?
