(a) they seek to celebrate the word not to bring their knives out on a poem dissecting it to find a heart whose beat lies naked on a table not to score in triumph on a line no sensitive would put a nostril to but simply to receive it as an offering glimpsing the sacred there
poem probes the poet's once-intention but each time said budges its truth afresh (leaving the poet's self estranged from the once-intending man) and six ears in the room have tuned objectives sifting the coloured strands the words have hidden from the poet asking what world has come to light
people measured by their heartbeats language can't flout that come-and-go to touch the heartbeat in a poem calls for the brain's surrender a warm diffusion of the mind a listening to an eery silence the words both mimic and destroy (no excuses slipping off the tongue)
and when a poem works the unknown opens a timid shutter on a world so familiar it's not been seen before - and then it's gone bringing a frisson to an altered room and in a stuttering frenzy dusty attributes are tried to resurrect a glimpse of what it's like inside
a truth (the glow a glow-worm makes) this is not (not much) what happens there's serious concern and banter there's opacity there's chit-chat diversions and derailings from a line some avalanche has blocked (what a fine pass through the mountains) poetry and fidgets are blood-brothers
it's within all these the cosmos calls that makes these afternoons a rich adventure through a common field when three men moving towards death (without alacrity but conscious of it) find youth again and bubble with its springs - opening worn valves to give such flow their own direction
there's no need of competition no wish to prove that one of us holds keys the others don't to the sacral chambers - no want to find consensus in technique or drench the rites of words in orthodox belief - difference is essential and delightful (integrity's all)
quality's a private quarrel between the poem and the poet - taste the private hang-up of receivers mostly migrained by exposure to opinions not their own - fed from a culture no one bleeds in sustained by reputations manured by a few and spread by hearsay
(b) these meetings are a modest vow to let each poet speak uncluttered from establishment's traditions and conditions where passions rippling from the marrow can choose a space to innocent themselves and long-held tastes for carlos williams gurney poems to siva (to name a few)
can surface in a side-attempt to show unexpected lineage from the source to present patterns of the poet - but at the core of every poem read and comment made it's not the poem or the poet being sifted to the seed but poetry itself given the works
the most despised belittled enervated creative cowcake of them all in the public eye prestigious when it doesn't matter to the clapped-out powers and turned away from when too awkward and impolitic to confront - ball to be bounced from high art to low
when fights break out amongst the teachers and shakespeare's wielded as a cane as the rich old crusty clan reverts to the days it hated him at school but loved the beatings - loudhailer broken-down old-banger any ram-it- up-your-arse and suck-my-prick to those who want to tear chintz curtains down
and shock the cosy populace to taste life at its rawest (most obscene) courtesan to fashion and today's ploy - advertisement's gold gimmick slave of beat and rhythm - dead but much loved donkey in the hearts of all who learned di-dah di-dah at school and have been stuck in the custard since
plaything political-tool pop- star's goo - poetry's been made to garb itself in all these rags and riches this age applauds the eye - is one of outward exploration - the earth (in life) and universe (in fiction) are there for scurrying over - haste is everything and the beat is all
fireworks feed the fancy - a great ah rewards the enterprise that fills night skies with flashing bountifuls of way-out stars - poetry has to be in service to this want (is fed into the system gracelessly) there can be no standing-still or stopping-by no take a little time
and see what blossoms here - we're into poetry in motion and all that shit and i can accept it all - what stirs the surface of the ocean ignores the depths - what talks the hindlegs off the day can't murder dreams - that's not to say the depths and dreams aren't there for those who need them - it's commonplace
they hold the keystones of our lives i fear something else much deeper the diabolical self-deceiving (wilful destruction of the spirit) by those loudspeaking themselves as poetry's protectors - publishers editors literature officers poetry societies and centres
all all jumping on the flagship competition's crock of gold find the winners pick the famous all the hopefuls cry please name us aspiring poets search their wardrobes for the wordy swimsuit likely to catch the eyeful of the judges (winners too in previous contests
inured to the needle of success but this time though now they are tops totally pissed-off with the process only here because the money's good) winners' middle name is wordsworth losers swallow a dose of shame organisers rub their golden hands pride themselves on their discernment
these jacks have found the beanstalk castle harp and the golden egg the stupid giant and his frightened wife who let them steal their best possessions whose ear for poetry's so poor they think fum rhymes with englishman and so of course they get no prizes thief and trickster now come rich
poetry's purpose is to hit the jackpot so great the lust for poetic fame thousands without a ghost of winning find poems like mothballs in their drawers sprinkle them with twinkling stardust post them off with copperplate cheques the judges wipe their arses on them the money's gone to a super cause
everyone knows it's just a joke who gets taken - the foolish and vain if they're daft enough and such bad poets more money than sense the best advice is - keep it up grannies the cause is noble and we'll take your cheque again and again and again it's the winners who fall in the bog
to win is to be preened - conceit finds a little fluffy nest dear to the feted heart and swells there fed (for a foetal space) on all the praisiest worms but in the nest is a bloated thing that sucks (and chokes) on hurt that has the knack of pecking where there's malice - it grows two heads
winners by their nature soon become winged and weighted - icarus begins to prey upon their waking dreams prometheus gnawed by eagles the tight-shut box epimetheus gave pandora about to burst apart - yeats's centre cannot hold being poets they know the references
and they learn the lesson quickly climb upon others as they would climb on you - in short be ruthless or be dead they mostly fade away being too intact or too weak-willed to go the shining way with light- ning bolts at every second bend agents breathing fire up their pants
those who withstand the course become the poets of their day (and every one naturally good as gold - exceptions to the rule - out of the hearing and the judgment of their rivals) the media covet the heartache and the bile - love the new meteor can't wait to blast it from the heavens
universities will start the cult with-it secondary teachers catch the name on fast - magazines begin to taste the honey on the plate and soon another name is buzzing round the bars where literary pass- ons meet to dole out bits of hem i accept it all - it's not for me
above it all the literary lions (jackals to each other) stand posed upon their polystyrene mountains constructed by their fans and foes alike (they have such need of them) disdaining what they see but terror- stricken when newcomers climb up waving their thin bright books
for so long they've dubbed themselves the intellectual cream - deigning to hand out poems when they're asked (for proper recompense in cash or fawning) - but well beyond the risk of letting others turn the bleeders down so sure they are they're halfway to the gods (yet still need preening)
a poem from one of them is like the loaves and fishes jesus touched and rendered food for the five thousand they too can walk on water in their home - or so the reviewers say poetry from their mouths is such a gift if you don't read or understand it you'll be damned - i accept all that
but what i can't accept is (all this while) the source and bed of what is poetry to me as cracked and parched - condemned ignored made mock of shoved in wilderness by those who've gone the gilded route (mapped out by ego and a driving need to claim best prick with a capital pee)
it's being roomed with the said poem coming back and back to the same felt heartbeat having its way with words absorbing the strains and promises that make the language opt for paths no other voice would go - shifting a dull stone and knowing what bright creature this instinct has bred there
it's trusting the poet with his own map not wanting to tear it up before the ink is dry because the symbols he's been using don't suit your own conception of terrain you've not been born to - it's being pleased to have connections made in ways you couldn't dream of (wouldn't want to)