20111201

a poem is novelty, love, or pain

novelty is clever the way
papier-mache is.
colorful, young
but empty if you pick it up,
filled with hollow

love, always perched at the tip of the pen,
is fragile,
trying to slip away behind a hiccup
and hide inside

pain. dark wells of it.
lapping against walls of lonely quiet.
at once novel and lovely,
and a poet's repast.

i ask
is there poetry beyond pain?
-- love.

beyond love?
-- novelty.

and what is beyond novelty?
--

My, my. Aren't you clever.