Hyperbole Gone

The words have to go somewhere.

The holy act of expression, that's all there is: Creation.

It’s all we've got. Not a single person knows what anything means. Don't you get that?

I'm making this up dancing the words for you as I go, tying knots in lines calling them feet. Like the rest of us. Expressing myself with what's been expressed. How do you engage with other writers?

How do you not?
How do you knot the line?
How do you not?

We display a new thing, that thing-thing, that taboo of all words, don't touch thing, that thing? Any Thing. For Poets, the thing is our thing. What Thing?

Exactly.

Make it New he said.
Make it. We say.

Work it together.
Work the piece.

Is Poetry a collaborative art?
No. No. No.

Is Language?
Yes. Yes. Yes.

A word is a story if you go back far enough.
The collection of Poets is called, "Far back enough."

There's the call to The Cloth to receive the Blessing of God.
There's the call to Poetry to echo the Blessing Back.

It's not worth anything if it doesn't go anywhere.
It's not.
It's not worth a damn.

Pixels and pages,
Analog and binary.

It doesn't mean a damn thing if it doesn’t go anywhere.
It's got to hit a noun or it's dead, not even dead;
You got to exist to die.

Thoughts aren't things.
Despite the colloquialism,
Thoughts are potential things.

We only take form when we're shaped.
We only matter when we're made matter;
And we're only made to matter when we're shared.

Criticism and craft,
And craft and Criticism,

It's sharing that's the thing.

The audience, the destination matters almost as much as the poem, as the prose, as the words.

You tell a child about the sunrise. You tell a friend about the sunrise. You tell a lover about the sunrise. You tell God about the sunrise.

The destination matters. The destination is essential.

If it goes nowhere, it's talking to ourselves.
And the only place that goes is an institution of a different kind.

We get the call.

The Priest gets the call to receive The Holy Blessing.
The Poet gets the call to echo the Blessing back.

It's a misunderstood art.
In a win lose world poetry makes no sense.

Poetry is never a moral entity. Poetry is expression. There is no right or wrong in Poetry. There's only expression.

Morality is a chain. Poetry does not break chains. Poetry is the chain and the freeing from the chain and the need of the chain, and the want and the all in all.

Poetry is total expression, or it is nothing.

In a win/lose world, a right/wrong country, a black/white, him/her nation, Poetry is nonsense. How do we know if it's right?

How do we give a poem a thumbs up?

You don't.

We don't know what to do with poetry in this country. Because poetry is not something to be done with.

Poetry is expression. What to do with expression? Experience?

What to do when we're out of bungee cords?

How to feel something when all that's left is the evening's juxtaposition to the day?

What to share when the shine wears off?

What to do with sensationalism when the numb sets in?

Poetry. We make it new. We share the meanings of the old by making meanings new. Making meanings new. Making meanings new.

***

There's the soul as it stands today. Where are we at? We don't talk of the Over-soul in this country. Waldo left it for us. The Civil War came and we left the Transcendentalist's still jagged edges to be smoothed out by the arc of the sphere. Tried to call them Modernist, they said go to Existential Hell, we’ll be surfing the arc of the sphere till the world smooths you out.

Smooth enough for me. I’d say let’s Dial it up a notch, but there’s too much pun and not enough understanding.

We're enamored by Emerson, taken by Margaret and Hank and the Alcotts. We can throw Whitman in too by association, and we left them at Gettysburg. We killed the movement, the start of our Enlightenment, and we left it fallow and limp, calling it indescribable, or too individual to be of any good. Then the two Roman Numeral Wars Came and what's a Transcendentalist for? Martin reminded us of the power of the American Enlightenment, we rode that dream, then let it crash and burn when complacency seemed better enough.

How's that sound today? Too individual to be of any good?

Interconnectedness... A web weaving the world together a century and a half after The Over-soul, and History and Nature.

We got lost in the puzzle, for so long, and forgot the poetry. The poem of the act of the mind he said. And we left ourselves there to spin.

Soul. We beg for soul. We plead for it. The soul calls for its own. We don't know how. Our poems have lost themselves in spin dizzy puzzling. Sudoku when what we want is to sing the dog! Wag our own tails. Dance crazy because it's raining and puddles and squirrels and look a bee… and you! ...I know you!

I've not published because the world, this world, the way today is, is not a safe place to raise a soul. I've put more value on my own, and so neglected it in neglecting to share.

"Why do you homeschool your children?" They ask. "Because school children get sprayed-ripped open in art class with semi-automatics."

And it sounds absurd, like hyperbole gone sadistic, but it's Monday morning news again.

I don't hear enough poetry of soul. I hear puzzles. I don't say it's not here. I don't say the good people of the world are not here en masse either, it's just what we're showing. It's what we're choosing to put forth, to publish in all senses of the word.

Our news has stopped being new. Ratings are ratings. Even news crews have to pay the bills.

Poetry, honest poetry for all of us, gets shut out by institutions the way the honest news of the day gets white washed by corporations who call their stories real news.

The Networks have real news. The Universities have real poetry.

There's as much soul in this country as there ever was. More actually. But where are the poems?

I know where they are.

In the poets. In you.

The one's writing the puzzles; trying to find the most intelligent way to sound your soul.

To Hell with your brain, shut down Sudoku and sing the soul. Shout it! Whisper it! Tiptoe or Stomp Just Do It Out Loud. And for God sake do not apologize for your lack of NYT Crossword etiquette.

There is nothing wrong with a puzzle poem if your soul sings in puzzles. Most do not. And thank God for my tastes.

The poem of the act of the mind is mindless and only minded by the high-minded spinning near nevermind, don't mind it, let it be and set the poem free.

Sing the soul! Sing the poem of the act of the to Hell with the mind, this is the soul!

Let it Roll!

-WYNN-