Is a poet a smoker who doesn’t smoke?
Who looks at a tree, as if the tree in the winter silence spoke,
Who knows the tree will never speak,
As every word of the poem burns to ash,
As the nicotine strikes, and makes the poet weak;
Anonymous, common, unknown as cash
For secret and dirty uses
Every word the poet uses,
As the smoke of what the poet expresses,
Drifts into the stark branches of the tree,
And the nicotine rush interpreted by me
As smoke, is the smoke of the poetry?
Is a poet one who breathes the air,
Invisible, necessary, and everywhere,
Through which the world is seen
And lives? The drifting, invisible air
Which the poet pretends to own,
And pretends to give, so the invisible reader pretends to care?
Is a poet a drinker who doesn’t drink,
And moves off from the gathering,
Lonely, to be alone, and think?
Is the poet one who loves, but doesn’t dare?
Who moves off to think, thinking poetry is not anything,
Thinking perhaps you wait there?