Poetic License

The way the mind works amazes me sometimes.
I am substituting “vulnerable” for “weakened”
before I realize that it chimes with “vitamin” in the lines below,
and reading back I see “avoidance” there too.
(Not here, in another poem I am revising.)

Such a pretty pattern of “Vs” lacing the lines together,
lifting the language just out of the ordinary,
so that it sings a little as you say it,
rings on the ear,
tickles the tongue,
makes it fun,
to say or hear—
while the sense of the thing,
enmeshed in the pattern of sound,
sinks down in the mind to where we play,
and in playing build the world of meaning that matters.

I have been listening to the way the language sounds for so long now
that the patterns are built into my brain.
I am, in fact, programed for poetry,
the software of my speech centers
builds on patterns faster than I can see them,
quicker than thought itself,
reflex and reflection rolled into one,
I find myself saying what I mean
before I know I mean it—
letting the wisdom in the shapes and sounds of the words
carry me to sense.

It looks sometimes, I know, like magic,
but it is really more a habit of the mind,
a trick, even, my tongue and brain have learned
almost without my trying,
almost without my assent,
so that “vitamin,” working backward through “avoidance,”
by way of “weakened,” calls up “vulnerable”
and it looks to you like I always meant to say it.

And perhaps I did.

The Poem on the Page Is Only Half Alive
for Jessica

I am reading “Poetic License” to my class of juniors,
one of my own poems about poetry, and
Jessica says, looking down at the paper in front of her
furrowing her forehead, really perplexed,
“I don’t get it.
I mean, can anyone just take any old words
and arrange them on a page and call it a poem?”

And I think, “No, you really don’t get it.”
meaning the poem in her hand
which is “about” this very thing,
so I try to explain, again,
the difference between formal verse,
with it’s measured meter and scheming rhyme,
it’s obvious, controlling, consciously artful, pattern,
and “modern” poetry
with its emphasis on the natural rhythms of speech,
the flow of the breath around and through the words and phrases,
intention, inevitability, and the subtler patterns of letter sounds,
alliteration and assonance and repetition,
that accent, that ornament, the flow,
and I find myself quoting the poem back at her,
reading it slowly, a line a time,
as though she might be a little hard of hearing
(or maybe just a bit dense, which she definitely isn’t),
since it really does say all that,
hoping that hearing it again in the context of her question
it will suddenly all make sense.

“Yeah,” she says, “If you say so...”

but she doesn’t mean it.
Doubt is in her voice, her face, her very posture
as she holds herself apart from me
there at her table.

I haven’t convinced her and I know it.
She still feels there has be something
more than this to poetry!”

And maybe she’s right.

Maybe it is the poem that is not convincing.

Nah! That’s just my own doubt talking.

It is only that I have forgotten
to make them take the poems into their mouths.
I have trusted too much to their untrained ears
and forgotten that the poetry I write, the poetry I love, has to be said;
you have to let the words and phrases take your breath;
you have to wrap your tongue and lips around it;
you have to feel it shape your face before it even begins to make sense,
before you know how it hangs together,
why it is poetry.
The poem on the page is only half alive.
You have to trust your breath, your face, your whole body to it
to know if it really is a poem.

So today, I will ask Jessica to read the poem (this poem) out loud,
hoping, trusting, that once the poem shapes her face
there will be no room left in it for doubt.

Breath Taking, Face Shaping Poetry

I want tummy tickling poetry,

breath taking, tongue twisting, lip smacking,
ear popping, face shaping poetry.

I want poetry that prickles the palms of your hands,
strokes the souls of your feet, that sends shivers
up your spine, walks over your scalp
and runs down both arms and out your legs
until you dance all over.

I want poetry you can eat like an orange,
so juicy it drips off your chin,
dribbles out of the corners of your mouth
until you catch the too-good-to-get-away juice
on the back of your hand and suck it in.

I want poetry you’re not ashamed to slurp.
(That good!)

Poetry so tasty it wakes your hunger,
Eggroll poetry, wrapped tight, crisp on the outside,
full of steaming cabbage, bean sprouts,
crunchy water chestnuts soaked in soy sauce
and tasting like tears—
Chinese food poetry that leaves you fully satisfied
and always hungry for more.
I want scratch and sniff poetry,
as evocative as the odor of onions frying,
vanilla, apple pie with cinnamon, lilac, popcorn popping,
bread baking, ball park hot dogs, lawnmower leavings—
subtle as violets, powerful as skunk—
ethereal as the smell of snow falling,
elemental as fresh turned earth
(with maybe a hint of manure on its breath).

I want poetry that kicks you in the stomach,
that pounds your heart,
that leaves you breathless,
that makes your ears ring,
that ties your tongue (and your soul) in knots.

I want poetry that turns your heart right over like a rock
so you find the treasure (and the fat slugs
and wiggly white grubs) underneath.

I want poetry that washes over you like the waves of the sea,
storm or calm, that floats you, that casts you down like a waterfall,
that sucks you in like a whirlpool, that lifts you up like a fountain.

I want poetry like still water reflecting your face and everything behind it.

I want poetry that climbs your mind like a mountain
to show you views you never knew were there.

I want poetry like a search light
to probe the night of your days,
poetry like sun after rain that invests everything it
touches with extraordinary light and dimension.

I want poetry that leaves you helpless with laughter,
seized by surprise, stunned by insight,
so drenched with delight you have to be
rung out and hung out to dry.
I want poetry a size too big
so you have to grow into it,
intimate as underwear,
spectacular as a ball gown or a long tailed tux,
durable as denim, seductive as silk—

I want poetry you put on like a costume
to become someone else.

I want poetry so irresistible
you have, like an infant, to put it in your mouth,
poetry like mother’s milk fresh from the breast,
full of a fat, sweet and salt all at the same time,
completely, instinctively satisfying.

I want poetry like ice cream
that melts on the tongue,
that turns liquid in the heat of your breath,
that fills your mouth with goodness
(so like mother’s milk) until it
runs down your throat and you have to swallow,
and then...
tickles your tummy from the inside out.