Poetry like love is made in a bed. In her messed-up sheets the sun rises. Poetry lives in deep woods. She has all the rooms she needs. One whole side of the universe Is ruled by a hawk's gaze, By the dewdrop of a furled fern, By the memory of a sweating bottle of Fume Blanc on a silver tray, By a thin bue vein down an obelisk poised over the sea. And the road of mental adventure, which peaks abruptly- One pause and it's weeded over. No need to spread this around. Wouldn't want to frighten the horses. Shoals of salmon, hedges of songbirds, Rail-flanks opening before the approach of a railhead. Reflections from two banks of a river, The valleys baked into a loaf, The odd and even days of the calendar. The act of love and the act of poetry Are incompatible With reading the news at the top of one's voice. The way the sun shines, The blue blur that binds the arc of the woodman's axe- The reach of a kite string, The measured beating of a beaver's tail, The diligence of lightning, Someone tossing candies down from the top of an old staircase. A good address is not necessarily part of the action- Nor a corner office. No, gentlemen-nor gin, leather, and cigar smoke. Dance steps footed on a summer's night, The shape of a woman's body delineated by throwing-knives, Blown ephemeral smoke-rings, The curls of your hair, Slippery flutters of wettest flesh, Ivy slithering into ruins. The embrace of poetry, Like love's impossible, perfect fit, Defends while it lasts Against all the misery of the world. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...FUNERAL HYMN by LOUIS UNTERMEYER THE WAY TO ARCADY by HENRY CUYLER BUNNER AFTER A LECTURE ON KEATS by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES PHILLIS'S AGE by MATTHEW PRIOR THE TEARES OF THE MUSES by EDMUND SPENSER MUSIC IN CAMP by JOHN REUBEN THOMPSON THOUGHTS NEAR ASHAMPSTEAD AERODROME, HARVEST-TIME by CHARLES WILLIAM BRODRIBB |