i never intended to write poetry within a framework for the purpose oration, or too keen for it to be memorised; in the latter instance i know what puts people off poetry: the schooled induced need for memorisation, as if each poem were a national anthem; that's at a basic level, on the more advanced level people are put off poetry because the analysis of poetry, the transaction of but a few words into entire pages of essayist epics, the need to identify poetic tools, and admire does poets who are conscious of applying them puts people off, hence they easily grasp and turn to journalism of the daily news, to be easily duped and perhaps informed; it's harder to be duped by poetry, the tarantula venom in poetry works both ways: so too the poet amazed by an incomprehensibility due to the spontaneity and, something akin to lithium reacting in water: froth boom splash sizzle pop!*

i.

a ****** reader of philosophy books
will realise the hardship of the endeavour,
such books are more for thinking
after than talking a book reading club
to talk about them, in any casual conversation,
a whole philosophy book becomes
a single sentence that's memorable,
and the dropping of the philosopher's name,
nothing more, only because so few people
tackle the subject matter to try and speak
about it after, unless they're in academia
and instead of casually talking about it,
extract what's necessary and popular and
simply teach it - so unless you're paid to read
the material, it's a rather cold world out there
for talk of philosophy over a pint of beer
or a cup of coffee; and why did i start reading
these books? world got complicated, couldn't
escape reality with fiction, had to add to it,
plus it was a welcome change from reading
chemistry.

ii.

this is what i find strange in relation to poetry
and fiction narratives - with poetry you simply
can't get a sense of achievement as you do with
fiction - there simply isn't a sense of achievement
after having read a book of poetry, not in the same
way as there's a sense of achievement after having
read something beastly like joyce's ulysses:
it's the way it's packaged - it's denseness, it's need
for ramble ramble dabble dabble: the more depth
a narrator's consciousness has, apparently the more
critically encapsulating thumbs up too - compare
that to poetry and you see poetry as a form of
pure narration, not contaminated by plot or characters;
plus as franz kafka said: they didn't do two things
i asked of them: a. they didn't burn my work like i
asked, and b. they didn't do as i asked about font size,
it's tiny! any intelligent reader will realise that they
could lose their eyesight reading my works! i said
BIGGER FONT! and compare that to bukowski being
considered a "prolific" writer where his chapters are
knee high and his font is MASSIVE
so poetry is gentler on the eye - it s p  r  e   a    d     s,
cuts short, doesn't bother packaging to be a best-seller,
but it also doesn't do what i mentioned previously,
there's no sense of achievement after completing a poem,
because most poems are actually completed by readers
rather than discarded at some point...
and that's where dis-satisfaction creeps in with reading
prose: you just have to finish them - because i find
with fictive prose that there's no satisfaction i can immediately
find in poetry, the bird spreads his wings and isn't
a curled up hedgehog, or snail, or tortoise -
you need to finish these books to get what's intended
a feeling of achievement, the only satisfaction from
prose is when the last word is read, the book is shut,
is put back onto the shelf, and you look at it and admire
yourself with the thought: gosh jolly good, i've read that.