when that voice from twenty years ago
asked as before: “why should we care
about this person, why would we
be moved?” I still couldn't say.
and when my favorite parts of my
twenty-year-old
“poems”—the “too-easy”
parts—still seemed
the best, and still satisfied me most,
I began to wonder: was this all some
mistake?
my enthusiasm immersing me, once more
again beyond my ken? perhaps I was
never a “writer”
in the first place; that would explain
much; perhaps
my “poems” were simply remarkably
lifelike
facsimiles, nothing more, something
near,
but not quite, like a life: aping
ethics, moral
concern and compassion, enough to fool
me
(a mere stylist, not a jot more)
for twenty long years into the
thousand... well,
what then shall we call them, if not
poems,
then what? I had no answer; still,
I had this; one more, another whatever
you call it. but as to why you should
care at all, or even why I do, if I do,
I still have nothing.
