Poetry fulfills a real need

[blp]

Did this shop ever have a menswear department?
She asked, an immediate family member doing what
all members of my immediate family immediately do,
already
I could feel my throat tightening
It did? But…do you mean this shop or
all of them?
All of them? Really? Or just
some branches?

No time to think of Autumn
or possibilities
No time to think of leaves
or leaving

throat tightening

Please
Adrenally
Please
What does it matter?
And why
do you imagine I would

know

…
If you’re going to talk about anything
You have to talk about it properly, she said
viciously
lying
leaving
no space to talk
properly or not
about hell
forcing an argument
about nothing

We walked around the corner up Broadwick St. Before she came out of the shop I’d been thinking about nonsense, lemonade, good conversation, peace and I thought of my analyst wondering why I had suddenly started to write poetry, realized it might not matter as much as it seemed to if I could just let myself have it and not bother with the silly fight I didn’t want and said

But glass of water men’s jigsaw not

That…no wait…that doesn’t

even make
grammatical
sense
she replied suspiciously
unless…

Banks of the river jumping jack flash

I replied

And my whole body
in the cold Autumn street
felt warm

And it all meant something – really
as I found out in analysis later

[white camellia]

i still like it-a very human one; more interesting it seems the more i read it. the "doesn't even make grammatical sense" conversation does make sense.

"Poetry, then, is a response to, and an evaluation of, our experience of the objective, bustling world and of our ideas about it...responded to sensorially, emotionally, and intellectually."

;-P

"it all meant something-really"

[Foxvoices]

If it makes little sense to anyone else, it still serves a purpose if it causes the other person to stop their prattle. It scares them to think something new and wilder might come out next, because they can't respond in-kind. Loved it, John.

[blp]

If it makes little sense to anyone else, it still serves a purpose if it causes the other person to stop their prattle. It scares them to think something new and wilder might come out next, because they can't respond in-kind. Loved it, John.

Mm, although it might also be about a mode of expression based on a leap of faith in the pleasure of words, opposed to an anxious pedantry.

Glad you enjoyed it. :)