Ghost Buffalo

The other night I dreamed that an old poet, spewing vitriol about his lowly brethren who dared let loose their works, was methodically hoarding away every poem written through the ages. I watched as he stacked poems, like precious bricks of gold, in underground caves. When I moved to intervene, he barked that poetry was far too important to ever see the light of day. A grey rabbit, dressed in overalls and a newspaper hat, was riding a chariot through these underground tunnels; under his breath he was muttering something about the nature of vanity, the nature of pride, and the nature of poetry. I woke to the alarm ringing out Joni Mitchell. A student of mine and fine poet has asked if I think she should begin seeking publication. What could I do but quote Robert Creeley. If you got a song, man, sing it.

If the poem doesn't produce a smile in my loins, it is immoral and bad art.

Oh Bhikkhus, even this view, which is so pure and so clear, if you cling to it, if you fondle it, if you treasure it, then you do not understand that the teaching is similar to a raft, which is for crossing over, and not for getting hold of.

As we say in the sticks but not in the stone, these old dinosaur bones from the sad period were discovered by a clutch of small children gathering blackberries by the side of the road. Those were the days, the elders said. Nights like these, the moon has a certain decrepit charm. One could almost believe no story, and no storyteller could ever live in poverty, for the treasures moving about in the breeze. So say the trees, quivering with the precision of autumn. Across the way the grandmother of winter is bitter, bitter as an underwatered lawn, and across the universe the ghost of William Blake lifts his veil and falls at the clay feet of Venus. On Shaggy Cat Lane, says the one remaining merchant, when the child ghost was breathed into the world, Madam Essa spoke of the benchmark and the birthstone. She lifted his body to her breast and said, a child born of the transparent soul finds all diseases of the flesh a mere inconvenience. The broken backed man and the boil-ridde

Lear: How do you see the world ? Gloucester: I see it feelingly.

Making the decision to have children is to decide forever to have your heart go walking outside your body. -- Elizabeth Stone

. Clouds come from time to time and bring to us a chance to rest from looking at the moon.

Three of my small poems in the current issue of Poetry Magazine are now available online: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/toc.html#81072