I Strive Against The Silence Of The Night

I STRIVE AGAINST THE SILENCE OF THE NIGHT

I strive against the silence of the night
Against my own inner emptiness
I wait to hear some song from inside myself -
Nothing is written.

I go back to where I am
And begin again.

There is always a poem if one is patient enough.

But what poem?
And for what special meaning of this night?

I write again and again
A poem which is about writing a poem
And when I come to end it
I question again and again
Whether it is real.

This night is already deep in darkness
And yet I have almost broken its silence

One more line
One more writing about writing a poem -

Perhaps Memory will come back to me
And I will write a more real poem
Than this strained effort now.

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The Poem I Am Writing Now

The poem I am writing now
does not know if it will be finished
it does not even know if it will be a poem -
it is slowly appearing line by line
and making its own meaning on the page-

Is it worth anything?
will anyone care?
I don't know -

The poem I am writing now
is just these lines
and these lines like all lines
are only small words
in a vast universe
that has long lived
and will probably longer live
without them.

Why then write these words now?

The poem I am writing now is saying,
'I am here now'.

But why should this mean anything to anyone else?

The poem I have written here
is not the poem I would have posted here
It is only the poem I am finishing now
a poem without great love or belief in itself.

The poem I am writing now
is written.

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The Poem I Did Not Write Today

THE POEM I DID NOT WRITE TODAY

The poem I did not write today
Will never be written.
No one knows what it is
Or where it is
'How it can be? ' is another question
No one can answer.

The poem I did not write today
Never went away
It is always here with me and with you
It is the same simple poem
Written over and over again
In our everyday minds.

It is the poem of love of life
The poem of happiness
The poem of belief in God
And in the goodness in the world to come
It is the poem which believes too that poetry will help save the world.

It is the good poem
The happy poem
The poem I did not write today
Is the poem my life is writing now and always
And with you it says
‘What a miracle it is that we are here
reading and writing
and loving life as we do’.

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My Poem Came To Me In The Night

MY POEM CAME TO ME IN THE NIGHT

My poem came to me in the night
Long after I should have gone to sleep
It came with darkness inside and a fear of darkness deeper still-
It was a poem of the end of the earth
A dark poem
The last poem of the day and perhaps the last poem of forever-
It came to me in the night
And made me write it down gently
And said because there is no time left
It is impossible to add on to it
Or give it true character and feeling.-
The poem of the night and its darkness
Stilled me into vulnerable silence
And I slept and went to sleep
Far from the page I wrote.

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The Silence Of Nothing To Say

The silence of nothing to say
Is forcibly broken by the will for words
A poem is made not born
And there are nights when only determination can say anything-

I write now in the shadow of the night
When all the light is artificial
When inside me is only an empty emptiness
A quiet of nothing deep or beautiful –

I can make a poem out of nothing
But then it may be nothing too
Words alone are not enough
The truer poem comes out of something deeper I do not have now

Let the words play
Let the silence be broken
Let this night be written down
For the empty poem it is.

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Will I Have A Poem Tonight?

WILL I HAVE A POEM TONIGHT?

Will I have a poem tonight?
Or will tiredness take me to bed
Without an answer?
Will I be able to find within myself
Some sounds of meaning
Some hint of beauty?
Something deeper than the darkness outside
As real as the longing within?

The poem which is written about the poem which is not
Is the poem which is written about the poem which is
And the poem which is
Is tonight the poem of the night
And the poem of the night tonight
Is the poem this poem is.

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Not The Poem Then

NOT THE POEM THEN

Not the poem then
Although it can be the poem
Writing
Simply writing
This is the duty and the meaning
And the release from meaninglessness
And the ‘enabling me to go on’
The poem is only one form of it
It is the writing which matters
My life has been this
This writing
Even if it is a poor poem now
As I write these words
I live.

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What Poem Can The Night Bring?

WHAT POEM CAN THE NIGHT BRING?

What poem can the night bring?
The poem of darkness?
The poem of silence?
The poem of infinite unrest?

What poem can the night bring?
When the night itself does not know its own meaning,
And all its quiet darkness says only:
A man alone cannot live as one.

A man alone can only write,
Until somewhere else
Somehow
He is heard.

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Poem After Poem After Poem

POEM AFTER POEM AFTER POEM
POEM AFTER POEM AFTER POEM

Poem after poem after poem
But a poem is not the way out.
Money is depleting
Soon I’ll be without.

How will I manage to live then
What will become of us all?
To write a poem is to do nothing
When the writing is on the wall.

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The Poem That Perhaps Never Should Have Been Written

THE POEM THAT PERHAPS NEVER SHOULD HAVE BEEN WRITTEN

Not the poem of yesterday
Nor the poem of tomorrow
But the poem of today-
What gives life meaning now.
Not the poem as it is read
But the poem as it is written.
Not the certain poem
But the poem that does not know
If it truly is a poem.
The poem that gives hope only when it is written-
The lesser poem-
The poem that perhaps never should have been written.
The poem I am writing now,
Perhaps for myself alone
The lesser poem
The poem that perhaps should never have been at all.

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A Poem Is Just A Poem

a poem is just a poem and if it is just a poem
it must be just a poem just like another poem

a poem is nothing but just a poem otherwise
it cannot be my poem; it may speak about

anything, or something, or about everything,
but my poem is just a poem just like anybody's

poem, which is just but a poem, like any other
poem, for a poem to be a poem it must just be

a poem: it has nothing to do with my love, and death
my life, or bliss, but as i have told you, once, twice

thrice, eat some rice, and be that wise, a poem is
just a poem, just like your poem. Why do you insist

on asking, what is happening to me? I am not a
poem, for i am but just the composer of the poem,

need i tell you again, that a poem is just a poem?
just like any other poem, which is just a poem

it is just a voice in my head that i have heard
someone comes and speaks and i listen so

this poem is not actually my poem but the poem
of someone else's: theirs not mine, from a mind.

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The Poem Of All The Places I Have Never Been

THE POEM OF ALL THE PLACES I HAVE NEVER BEEN

The poem of all the places I have never been
The poem of all the dreams I have not seen
The poem of others poems written in lines I have never imagined
The poem of the infinite – what-is- not and ‘what- will- never- be
The poem of seas and suns and sounds and Shakespeare’s sonnets,
The poem of words and only words whose sounds do not mean what we feel
The poem of all I would not and cannot write
The poem that is not and never will be in me
The poem I do not write
The poem I am not
The poem lost
The poem which itself is not a poem
The poem of the last contradiction and the first
The poem beyond the poem hidden within the poem
The poem which will never be a poem
The poem which is not
The poem I cannot dream.

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There Are Those Who Wait Years To Write A Poem

THERE ARE THOSE WHO WAIT YEARS TO WRITE A POEM

There are those who wait years to write a poem
The fruit slowly ripens inside and then as with Rilke
It suddenly falls -

There are those who write a few lines
And come back time after time
And find the poem after many efforts-

There are those who cannot wait to write a poem
And once conscious of it must write it down as fast as possible
Before it is lost-

And there are those who only in the present writing
Find the poem -

The page suffers many methods and modes

But what truly makes a poem worthy
Is another question.

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Scribbler's Stymie

Pen and paper in sight
I've got no poem to write

Staying up all night
I've got no poem to write

Although my mind is bright
I've got no poem to write

It's windy out tonight, should I go fly a kite?
I've got no poem to write

My ceiling, it is white
I've got no poem to write

It's 4: 59! Five, but not quite
I've got no poem to write

In your arms I'd feel so light
I've got no poem to write

I've had no sleep tonight
I've got no poem to write

Will you just hold me tight?
I've got no poem to write

Outside it's almost light
I've got no poem to write

It's late, off goes my light
I've got no poem to write

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Life Art

Life Art

I want to write you a poem.

One that contains no verses

no words

how long it will be
I cannot tell.

It will be a poem that you can see through
yet it will shade you from the sun

a simple lyric
as complex as a crossword

I want it to be something
that you carry through your day

every day

I don’t know if I can write that poem

Or if indeed that poem can be written at all

So instead I am with you
Of you

And slowly together
we are writing our very own poem

Not on a page
Or in a lost notebook

But in the café
and in the street

At a table

In our bed

Every day we add another line

another image
another verse

and I know that with every word that we write
I want it to be the longest poem

That has ever been written.

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Your Dog Dies

it gets run over by a van.
you find it at the side of the road
and bury it.
you feel bad about it.
you feel bad personally,
but you feel bad for your daughter
because it was her pet,
and she loved it so.
she used to croon to it
and let it sleep in her bed.
you write a poem about it.
you call it a poem for your daughter,
about the dog getting run over by a van
and how you looked after it,
took it out into the woods
and buried it deep, deep,
and that poem turns out so good
you're almost glad the little dog
was run over, or else you'd never
have written that good poem.
then you sit down to write
a poem about writing a poem
about the death of that dog,
but while you're writing you
hear a woman scream
your name, your first name,
both syllables,
and your heart stops.
after a minute, you continue writing.
she screams again.
you wonder how long this can go on.

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The Poem About The Poem About The Poem

THE POEM ABOUT THE POEM ABOUT THE POEM

The poem about the poem about the poem
Written in dream
And forgotten in sleep
Comes back to me slowly now
As if it had been away on a long long journey
And is reluctant to come home-

I write it
But it really writes me
And when I try to make sense of what it means
It tells me its ambiguities
Are more important and interesting
Than my clarity-

The poem about the poem about the poem
Written now
May not be a poem about a poem about a poem at all
But may merely be my own playing with words
Which take the place in my life
Of really living-

A poem about a poem about a poem?
Surely this is a mysterious thing
If it exists at all.

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The Only Poem Is The Poem/ At The Moment Of Its Writing

THE ONLY POEM IS THE POEM

The only poem is the poem
At the moment of its writing
The poem being lived now
The poem I am trying to make
The poem of these lines.

The only poem now is this one-
And this poem is so small and so self- reflexive
That it is not much of a poem at all.

The only poem is not much of a poem at all
This one
And me now? .

But what about everything else I have not done?

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If There Is No Poem

IF THERE IS NO POEM/ WHY TRY TO WRITE ONE?


If there is no poem,
Why try to write one?
Why try to force Meaning
Out of nothing?
Why try to pretend to be doing
When one cannot?
Why try to write
When one is not writing?
Why try to be
What one is not?

If there is no poem
Learn to wait
Perhaps it will come-

And if it does not
Live in a universe
Of your own poemlessness
Most people do after all -

Just live
Poemless
In your own inner Silence, Loss, and Longing.

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This Poem

THIS POEM

This poem
This first poem
This last poem
This poem that invented Poetry
This one and only one poem
This fictional poem
This ideal poem
This perfect poem
This would – be holy poem
This unreal poem
This poem which is not a poem
This poem which is the essence of all poetry
This poem
And that poem
And my poem
And your poem
And all poems
Poem poem poem poem poem
This poem
Mine and yours
This one small poem of so so many
And not such a good poem at all.

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How to write a Poem?

Must I know what I write down
Meaningless or meaning found
Making poem, don’t know how
Must I know what I write down

Does a poem need to breathe
To plan a knit into a weave
Or can it start not to conceive
A poemed haze is free to breathe

Writing breath from writing down
The poem tilts as I think now
Bias nature changing how
The poem writes, still writing down

No thought, no poem, here with me
Should I stop or let it be
Bleeding brain, becoming free
Rereading, learning, me for me

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