Poetry

Flare

I want to wake…        No—don’t start like that—to start by waking forecloses the night—and not all awakenings are necessarily beginnings—the night has its dreams and they…      they too are worn out by poetry and dream for themselves—dream of being taken for what they are—the filing of minutiae & system errors in the MS-DOS modulation of our minds—No let’s not wake—and let’s not dream—don’t look for poetry in the sun—or in the moon’s pockmarked face—don’t measure his sharpening to a sickle—or his greedy return as he chomps Pac-Man-like into the darkness—don’t take for granted these miracles of nature either—just understand that you yourself are equally miraculous—and twice as vile.

Don’t imbue the actions of birds with grand designs—they eat—and this is enough—they fuck—and build intricate little homes also—but this is just survival—they don’t—like us—make more of it than that—it is not even right to say 'homes'—they are just the cots in which they place their young—unborn—the trees do not whisper to them—unfurling their leaves in Spring—and the bird sings always out of self-interest—not for any incidental pleasure that might curl itself into our ear. 

Give poetry to the kerbstone and the filth on the pavement—so much of our life unfolds itself around these things—give poetry to the breezeblock that has none of the qualities of its namesake—also to the concrete faced like stone—and the stone faced... or masked? to deny the organic irregularity of rock—Spilled beer has a certain poetry—more so than any that was ever swallowed down and belched back up in hollow profundities—If the sun glints pleasingly on a little something—don’t hang the irreplicable moment upon it for poetic scrutiny—consider only how far that light travelled to be squandered upon your empty eyes—when it could have lit its flare upon any corner of 

William Watts