Poetry
FOR JONAS, BY WAY OF MAGRITTE
This table is not a table
This poem is not a poem
And the table holding the paper has no grasp
And the paper has words in a certain order but no wings
And an unassigned purpose has not yet found the table, though it is long and could securely support a live battalion of fingers
And anyone could sit at the table and not bother to read the poem
And anyone could see that there is more to the table than a poem could say
And not bother to remember how the table no less than the poem was made
And also, remember, the poem has to be well hammered as the table was
And so the sawdust tapped into the spinal genetics of the poem
With failure still a struggle, while success is drumming the beat
And the poem continually choking and clutching to make a clean break and escape free and intact
And the table can only rise to an occasion it did not solicit
And the poem can enter unannounced and uncalled for and make the moment new
And though later elaboration can disguise, even mar the table no less than the poem
And the table show its wear
And the poem collapse
This is not the table
This is not the poem
Contributor
Vyt BakaitisVyt Bakaitis, with three books of poems published and Refuge & Occasion due soon from Station Hill Press, is now wrapping up The Antigone Play, freely adapted from Sophocles by way of Hölderlin’s renowned German version.
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