Poet as prose
The poet as prose
can be but only so far -
prose should aim to be clear, direct: mince
words and that's rhetoric, hand-waving -
logic requires straight lines, a
few curves maybe, but strictly geometric (solvable
preferably in finite time, boundaries &
all) the poem hints, the lines are
blurred, the curves speak to the birds, mix
with blood & birth & then return to where
word greets word, and the light that
seeps in with each flight of dark is unconfined by
space & time, yet bound by the liminality of
joy straggling behind this burn
of light is just its uncertain incomprehensiveness
sure
---
Earlier today I was trying to explain to my daughter, Amina, how I saw prose vis-a-vis poetry and how they intermingle. Amu understandably found my vagueness vague, so I wrote this poem.