Poets & madness: some preliminary notes

[PrinceMyshkin]

For those of us who consider ourselves poets,
madness is a tame dog
that runs at the end of an easy leash.

We lope the streets together
and only the cognoscenti
recognize that we are eccentrics.

[DanielBenoit]

Yay, another thread of PrinceMyshkin's fine short poems :banana:

Loved the latter stanza.

[NickAdams]

Interesting simile, particularly the adjectives used within it. Alone, "runs at the end of an easy leash" makes my think of a mad pulling, but when you precede it with "tame dog" I imagine a steady departure that doesn't call attention to itself.

[qimissung]

As usual you have come up with something that appears simple, but provides much to ponder.

On reading this I think of two beings that are joined together and come together easily-not a mad dog in the midday sun, but a tame one, still an animal of a lesser order than ourselves (some will dispute this, I know). and we run together. It is not obvious that "madness this way lies " to paraphrase, or that there is a deep vein of eccentricity, which is, I suppose, a tame madness, and only some more intuitive or observant see it in the seemingly ordinary, unobtrusive poet.