Thoughts on the Modern Poet

Thoughts on the Modern Poet

What words are these
You slip out from under your tongue
As if they were the moisture in your
Breath?

They wet my face,
Insulting my pride
And drowning my intelligence.

Attempts to glean
The smallest meaning
And joy are wiped away
With them in my sleeve.

There they stay unseen, gone,
And skin dries,
But I find you no more
To my liking.

What is it you have so much to say
That can’t be said to me?
That can’t be fed me like a calf
Alone without mother?

I am not a blade of grass
That holds in its cut its green,
withstands the wind
And thunder and rain poured down
Without mercy, and still flourish.

Why in your attempt to clarify
Do you leave a cleft?
Yes, one between what you say
And what you mean.