Association & Noise

the temptation is to start with the four letter word I’ve talked about once with students

after finding the sounds repeated in a particular poem brought violence at the tooth & lip.

sometimes I stutter, not only speaking or typing but thinking, say the same same-thing over

not knowing if either utterance was what I meant, finding that it wasn’t what I meant at all.

the danger of such talk is that its cheapness has a cost over time, if it wasn’t that the askers changed

so often, they might see that what they mistake for knowledge might just be fear or worse, futility.

the stand up knows how a nearly empty room might either be a place to try the bit for diagnostics or,

more certain that it kills, might save it for the packed house lined with listeners thirsty for the kick.

more often, lately, I’m dying up here & audiences dwindle down to something too precious for dregs,

I can’t believe in superaddressees when even the close know the lines, long & short, at best are foppery.

then, for that small cohort that care, let some last lines dangle in case they stay away a while:

when I say bird, by now, you know what lost soul I seek that never read a word of any of this.

when syllables slide along a line & count to three or four or five you know that it’s the same as breathing, & when the long vowel  hides between the short it’s just the need for singing.

I’m through with making noises now & all associations fail to conjure more than ordinary doodlings.

let this be a lesson for the lazy lovers of the word: there’s more to making art than simply wanting.

___________

[Note: "— but poetry is talk altered into art, speech slowed down and attended to, words arranged for the reader who contracts to read them for their whole heft of association and noise. Donald Hall, "The Unsayable Said"]