this is me

[Billy]

this is me

clutching air
not knowing
what to do with it

holding my breath
as if to examine it
in a petri dish

it
being this life
like a delicate jelly fish

moving in the water
barely perceptible
until it stings

growing
out of nowhere
without boundaries

if not
for my little experiment
under glass

[Michael (MV)]

here:

holding my breath
as if to examine it
in a petri dish

it
being this life
like a delicate jelly fish

as:

holding my breath
as if to examine it
in a petri dish

this life delicate
like a jelly fish


esp liked, and suggesting the echo I heard:

moving in the water
barely perceptible
until it stings (like a spider bite)

and liked:

growing
out of nowhere
and not knowing boundaries



suggesting:

if not
for my little expedition
under glass


the poem could be read as an ars poetica - a poem about poetry/creativity - here, specifically about the development of a poem- the poem-in-process

A. R. Ammons' poem "Poetics" comes to mind:

I look for the way
things will turn
out spiralling from a center,
the shape
things will take to come forth in

so that the birch tree white
touched black at branches
will stand out
wind-glittering
totally its apparent self:

I look for the forms
things want to come as

from what black wells of possibility,
how a thing will
unfold:

not the shape on paper -- though
that, too -- but the
uninterfering means on paper:

not so much looking for the shape
as being available
to any shape that may be
summoning itself
through me
from the self not mine but ours.





Michael (MV)