Stay Out Of My Head, Please…

IMDB

Poetry is an echo asking a shadow to dance.

No way to know
when or where
a writer started
or stopped or stepped,
much less what he meant
in any singular moment.

Give it up.
Read the poem,
not the poet.

Too many variables
in the woman or man.

Limitless traces.
Gathering twilight.
Invisible histories.
Fictive networks.
Arcane knowledge.
Elusive imaginings.

A shifting center.
A fleeting glimpse.
A moving target.

Won’t get
no satisfaction.

Can’t know what
can’t be known.

Stick to the words
stuck on the page.

The poem is the person.

The imperfect
unknowable poet,
a fallible person,
not a sage.