Poetics

There is a guy coming tomorrow to move in, and so I was moving around some furniture. This happens to be my ex-girlfriends last house; she smoked a lot of pot, but that’s not why we broke up. It’s not even really all that important, the point is I found one of her roaches under the couch and smoked it. I don’t smoke a lot of pot, but it was like sucking on the memory of an old party and these dry times need the party favor. Anyway, no big deal – sex is good, just not when you’re not getting it and your girlfriend is doing it with someone else.

Let us see here, poetics…what’s that all about? It is expression, but in words and not pictures or other mediums, because most of us can’t paint. This is unfortunate, because many painters are well spoken and almost certainly write the same as they speak.

Safety is an urgent warning, so listen up poets – forget what the painters are doing. Words are tumble weeds in a tornado, and if you’re not flying in the wind you’re drying up looking at them bounce by.

Can anyone be a poet? Sure, all it takes is a brain that comes up with words. If you are brain dead, you cannot write poetry. Poetry is the art of recording and recording let us define everything as imprints of our past. A poet might like to appreciate as many things as he can as “touched by poetry”, because it means deliveries of inspiration from many sources.

Poetry is an extension of the mind like this: The mind is like the world we live in, but not exactly like it. The mind moves at a staggering speed and it is boundless in its messages and imagery. We walk in the mind just as we do here, defining how we explore it as we define our bodies and their capabilities in reality.

(Still talking about the mind as an extension)

So to know our own thoughts we talk to them as though they are a person. And so that little bodily image that the mind creates to hear it talk to itself, runs back to the consciousness we’ve all agreed on, and begins hammering on the nervous system. In that infinite universe, were we could be anything, some how we’ve captured some sort of interpretation of the minds perception. It has occurred in the sounds and movements we made when it pretended to talk to ourselves. We call the conclusion of this entire process “Brilliant words put to paper”. We could also say that somehow, poets are maids with dusters; very careful cleaners of the message.

Where’s this going? Probably nowhere, but that’s the beauty of being a poet; you can speak in vague generalities and never make sense and no one will ever question you. If people like it, you’ll sell lots of books. If they don’t, you’re a starving artist. All bases are covered.

It’s important for you to know that you are always welcome in my house and I want you to feel comfortable will you read this, so take your shoes off and stretch your feet. If that feels nice, unbutton your shirt and put your hand down your pants. You should really be comfortable; no point in pretending, that will just confuse the issue. Tell me how you feel? Be careful not to confuse my question with “Tell me what you’re feeling”? This is a precaution mostly for those who have their hand down their pants.

Having a roommate is going to be strange, and in a strange enough twist of fate, he also used to live in this house, with my ex-girlfriend. Isn’t love just the pepper of life; spicy and not as good as salt? My new roommate isn’t sure if I dabble in poetics, if he’s even thought about it at all. I plan to unleash on him tomorrow, in an awkward social event that will begin by greeting him with a hug that is more and more like a heavy groping.
Of course tea will be steeped and timed perfectly for his arrival, to come into his possession en route to a softly lit living room floating with incense. Then, the readings will begin, and the terror will spread through his eyes at his misinterpretation in his anticipation of this encounter.

Starving for direction? Don’t ask for any. Sense is something we should all get, and if one of us doesn’t, no one is going to be able to explain it to him. Besides, the poet doesn’t have to justify his product. Words are his liberation, the ticket to freedom. Poetics are every breath the poet takes, and not just in the air for the lungs, but by the suction of all the senses in whatever way that could possible happen.

Are you hungry still? Try a little bit of stationary emotional distance, perfect for keeping a sensible grip on one poetic avenue. At least if you step into the shoes of the poet you’ll know that you’re not as hungry as those born with no mouth; a mind behind a face to laugh at, that won’t trust one word his hand gives with anyone in the world around him. Shut up shut up shut up all of you! Be quiet and listen, the poetics are seeping through everything, the blood of your linguistic icons is flowing, don’t clog the vain! The sound of pen scribbling, the low hum of nostrils flaring and a poet at his station once more trying to explain things.