If a poem or essay can end with a conclusion or its opposite, either one,
Can it be of any use to anyone?
Do the discrepancies and disparities, dualities and densities, reflect only the dementia
Of the bearer of the pencil?
First entertain, then enlighten if you can. One stretches truth in order to pretend,
another leavens with levity one’s inevitable end.
Most days it’s not possible to bring your life into an expressible state. Disparate thoughts,
arduous chores, word choices. And, of course, the state of the state.
Driven by ideas rather than rhymes, for it is not metres, but a metre-making argument,
That makes a poem. What of it. Convenience store or university English department
The day’s arguments, down to the meaning of the weather, leave you indisposed
To share your heart of zero and your inner rose.
It is the strong force, the energy of the loved ones combined with cooperation for good or war.
Dad’s years in New Guinea fighting Japs, he said, were his best by far.
The best that can be said or done is Be where you are. Love the one you’re with
Not necessarily an adult of the opposite sex, perhaps just a kid who hates math
And school, dresses goth, reads rarely but learns a lot from movies and YouTube,
Has the presence of mind to say I am who I am, deal with it. That’s who I want to be
And have always been. Today clean the house, again. Woke up this morning to two thoughts:
How sweet to be alive! Life is tough.
Copyright 2013 by Robert Ronnow.