The Brooklyn Rail

Upon writing poetry [at the root of it] / a hole dug into a thought as if the head were a yard that took seed of what was planted there or blew there in the wind and the stem that developed from a little seed from the ground looked good though the next morning withered and not as promising as first thought.

Yet the journey continues [if]—after a rocky crossing the shore is reached. The thought of writing as bare ground with undergrowth of memory and other information floating through the air-waves arrives in the yard of the house I moved into last October [2022] remodeled by those who did not know what they did or care to understand the gravitas of what they were doing. Just paint the walls and lay vinyl flooring of a gray / off-blue that was a caricature of the ocean that had to be dug up because of leaks between the valves and pipes behind the walls. And reset with another idea. But the core was there—the soil remembered to survive. And you start into it again.

Writing develops from what was first formed as idea that had something to it / but withdrew before it came back. A few more wires corrected at the outlets of the switches. And the sewer line replaced. And gutters. Your initial idea always falls at first and has to be redone because first ideas are there but the idea itself has to be reformed or at least reworked. And all of it has to be given / which is a process by which the writer leaves former territory and starts across another ocean [of drafts] / [though at the same time settling in a house].

As to the remembrance of why leaving is an act of writing. Or leaving one’s hold on it. So it forms its own. Or finds its own current. A trip to the paint store for images in the section of blue—Beach Foam. The Real Teal. Blue Me Away. Tidal. The color of writing as writing after all is renovation. Resetting the rooms. Finding the concept that drives the work. Or was allowed to thrive. Divergent from original vision. How finding voice that did not go the way you thought but took side-trips as a boat on the water has no lanes. Or if it does they are not as visible. And there is more leg-room on the water. Which writing poetry is. And one finds to get from one thought to another does not always take a reasonable route but short-cuts and jumps over what usually would be said.

But poetry—small poetry—a valve that should connect pipes but doesn’t always and allows leaks. Real leaks that result in holes cut into drywall so the plumber can find the leaking. And he doesn’t care how many holes he cuts and has a saw always going that makes a lot of noise and a lot of dust. And to find solace, you return to the paint store just to read the colors—Confluence. Undersea. Night Watch. Rothko Blue—[to get lost a moment] before you return to your house / to the vinyl flooring that has been removed down to the foundation / and the rebuilders did not sweep before they laid the blue/gray vinyl strips and you are tracking dirt all over the house. Wherever you step there is your step-mark much like [writing poetry] you see the repetition of words and / or images. The anaphora and epistrophe come up in the yard. The way wavy waves roll onto the land. The seeding you did [though you don’t water] and the old roots that are all over the ground / and mainly under. Bushes trying to grow and growths you don’t want there.

The act of poetry is a reset as it always is from the start / and reset again with drafts as it works its way across the Atlantic to the page of your printed work. And how much of the functioning is behind the walls of the house. You find in all the repairs you make / you discover the human thought-process has to be breached to find the ocean-currents. You follow the momentum though it is October [2023] and you are still going and the summit of the journey is [this joining] this little gathering that is somehow the poem in which you arrive.

Poetry is trouble from the beginning / to get all the spreading parts into a garden-box that itself outreaches the space it is given. And cultivated with hayforks and sails and oars and rain that has to be a part.