(and I cannot live
from with-out)
<>
a poem in appreciation to Rossella Di Paolo
<>
I, too:
- am an embryonic work in progress,
well into my seventh decade, with no ending in sight
I too,
live in the house of poetry, the address likely differs,
but suspect the innards of the houses differs little,
the decor, quite similar
- my house shrewdly requests a rethinking,
noting, it lives my artifice,
with in & with out
Then, we are a We:
- my cavities house her, She, Poetry is of Ruth (1) born,
- Poetry, She, reminds me, ”whither thou goest, I will go”
This duality:
- where the haunting of words providential,
emanate, both inhabiting & inhibits my breathing
She, a fearsome creature, a fearful-something,
for it tears me and shreds tears its demands be wrung
from with in to with out
She, Poetry:
- leaves me gaping, hollow, fills me with
depressurizing boreholes exposed to the elements of
externalities of an admixed atmospheres, that nature demands be refilled, fresh in, stale out,
for which the artifice trick is knowing which is which
when Poetry’s birthing:
- chest pounds, heart-rate beats heavy metal,
abdomen contracts, there then, no languid in my language,
no help untangling the alpha-bet jumbling,
product of the screams of pushing,
squeezing it forth
you’re hoping to quick-catch newly formed combinations,
for if you fail, a poem
noisily crashes to and through the floorboard cracks,
where poetry’s chaotic glinting etes
maliciously glimmer~winks at me
with a sarcastic thank you
“ah, too bad, another creation stillborn,
gone to rest, biting the nether dust,
without hope of resuscitation…”*
just another unfinished work in progress
periodically
a survivor clean caught, transcribed, edited to be finished,
amniotic fluids cleared,
poem resurrected
blessed with eternal life,
readied to be shared and delivered,
affirmed
and you say to no one and to everyone:
this poem will be our poem,
wither it goes, ascending, descending,
all live in the house of poets,
one house,
many apartments,
each poem a god,
and
my God will be our God,
your God, my God,
in the House of Poetry
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/4717212/leave-if-you-can-ii-by-rossella-di-paolo/(1) And Ruth said: “Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee; for whither thou goest, I will go, and where thou lodgest, I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.
——
Leave if You Can II
I live in the house of poetry.
I ascend her stairs slowly
and leap back down.
I sit in the chair of poetry,
sleep in her bed, eat from her plate.
Poetry has windows
through which mornings and afternoons
fall, and how well she suspends a teardrop
how well she blows until I tumble / With this
I mean to say that
one basket brings
both wounds and bandages.
I love poetry so much that sometimes I think
I don’t love her / She looks at me,
inclines her head and keeps knitting
poetry.
As always, I’ll be the bigger person.
But how to say it / How to tell her
I want to leave / honestly I want to
fry my asparagus…
I see her coming near
with her bottle of oil
and crazed skillet.
I see her,
her little bundle of asparagus
slipping out her sleeve.
Ah her freshness / her chaotic glint
and the way she approaches with relentless meter.
I surrender / I surrender always because I live
in the house of poetry / because I ascend
the stairs of poetry
and also because
I come back down.
— Translated by Lisa Allen Ortiz & Sara Daniele Rivera
