Bestsellers

 

suppose i tell you my

poem’s about
            the death of the fish
                        when the harpooner
                                    took him in the neck

never in the poem
            but from the book’s
                        introduction, the book
                                    that has the poem

will you say i told you

the meaning
            of the poem, or will you
                        still be baffled by
                                    poems’ natures and

ask questions
            about those that
                        make the poems make the poems
                                    apart from the reason of

putting meanings?

let me tell
            you this, speaking
                        as poet—poems do
                                    mean what they say

but what
            they say
                        is what,
                                    for even if

i tell you what

i’m saying
            it’s only what
                        i am saying and you
                                    listen of course

but you won’t
            understand if you
                        try to understand
                                    for understanding’s sake.

i can’t tell you what

if you can
            never listen and
                        i can never tell ya
                                    apart from reading

that which we've both
            read, and of course we
                        are reading from different
                                    locations or

you’d sit on my lap, so

the question is—
            to write politics
                        or not? i tell
                                    the people

what ought
            to be told the people
                        but i may say it
                                    silently, otherwise

it’s all introduction

 

 

—27 Oct./85

 

 

Copyright © 1999, 2004 Vicente-Ignacio Soria de Veyra. All rights reserved. Readers are welcome to view, save, file and print out single copies of this webpage for their personal use. No reproduction, display, performance, multiple copy, transmission, or distribution of the work herein, or any excerpt, adaptation, abridgment or translation of same, may be made without written permission from the author. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this work will be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

CLOSE WINDOW