Poetry

I went to a poetry recital on Sunday.  I found myself wondering about the influence of Beat poets on our current crop of poets.  One or two of them could have been the great grandchildren of  Ginsberg and Kerouac.  Some of it was very good.  Local poet Joe DeCenzo moved me to tears and I wondered  if it were the combination of his reading AND the work; it's a bit like separating the dancer from the dance, I suppose.  One poet I just didn't get, but his was a visual work and he did not have the right equipment to present it so maybe I was missing something.  Maybe I should go to more poetry readings.

It takes a certain amount of intestinal fortitude ( that's a fancy word for guts) to get up in front of a crowd of strangers and read your poetry.  Poetry is the most personal of art forms, at least for me.  Words written on my heart, then laid bare for the world to see and judge or discard.  As a writer of what I think of as "bad poetry" I find the act of presenting it to be an act of bravery.  I know I couldn't do it.  I may write later on this week, if I have time and something to say;  but I offer you this poem I wrote a while ago.  It does not apply to where I am today, but that fact makes it no less true.

Love leaves.
You want to scream
or drive
or slit your wrists

But you don't.

Instead
You
cook a meal you don't eat
play music you don't hear
sit in the dark
knees drawn to your chest
waiting for the dawn.