Unslept Poetics

I want to wake…        No--don’t start like that--to start by waking forecloses the night--and not all awakenings are necessarily beginnings--the night has its dreams and they…      they too are tired out by poetry and dream for themselves--dream of being taken for what they are--the filing of minutia & system errors in the MS-DOS modulation of our minds--No let’s not wake--and let’s not dream--don’t look for poetry in the sun--or in the moon’s pockmarked face--don’t measure his sharpening to a sickle--or his greedy return as he chomps pac-man-like into the darkness--don’t take for granted these miracles of nature either--just understand that you yourself are equally miraculous--and twice as vile--Don’t imbue the actions of birds with grand designs--they eat--and this is enough--they f**k--and build intricate little homes also--but this is just survival--they don’t--like us--try and make more of it than they should--it is not even right to say 'homes'--it is just the cot in which they place their young--unborn--the trees do not whisper to them--unfurling their leaves in spring--and the bird sings always out of self interest--not for any incidental pleasure that might curl itself into our ear--Give poetry to the curbstone and the filth on the pavement--so much of our life unfolds itself around these things--give poetry to the breezeblock that has none of the qualities of its namesake--also to the concrete faced like stone--and the stone faced as if it never had the organic irregularity of rock--Spilled beer has a certain poetry--more so than any that was ever swallowed down and belched back up in hollow profundities--If the sun glints pleasingly on a little something--don’t hang the irreplicable moment upon it for poetic scrutiny--consider only how far that light travelled to be squandered upon your empty eyes--when it could have lit its flare upon any corner of this bilious cosmos…

Author's Note

http://williamarthurpoetry.weebly.com/poetry/unslept-poetics

Reviews

[ANTO]

I felt bi*ch-slapped by this one William Arthur but also I want to thank you for the bi*ch-slapping. I felt it was giving me hidden knowledge - like opening my mind somewhat.
I love the language you chose and the format of it. Tyler Durden delivered it and then punched me in the guts saying 'get it - got it - good!'