My Poems

I understand poetry like my wife understands cars. She knows how to get behind the wheel, turn the ignition on and drive like hell. It gives me no pride in admitting that my understanding of poetry is analogous to her understanding of cars. I can look at a form, set the rhyme scheme, look at the beats and take off but I couldn't tell you a sestina from a pentammeter. For me it's all ear. Having said this I understand the importance of structure in poetry. To me poetry is akin to making an explosive device. First you have ideas stripped down to bare essentials, then they are forced into the form. The form distorts and further compresses the material into an even more volitile essence, that is packaged as poetry. When a reader begins reading a poem, he/she figuratively lights the fuze and at the end, it explodes, fizzles or waffles in the smoke of ambivilance. Ambivilent poetry makes me shudder. I can almost hear the shriek of a "poet's" muse as the form rips her heart out.