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Can Poetry Matter?
Heart feels the time has come to compose lyric poetry. No more storytelling for him. Oh, Moon, Heart writes, sad wafer of the heart's distress. And then: Oh, Moon, bright cracker of the heart's pleasure. Which is it, is the moon happy or sad, cracker or wafer? He looks from the window but the night is overcast. Oh, Cloud, he writes, moody veil of the Moon's distress. And then, Oh, Cloud, sweet scarf of the Moon's repose. Once more Heart asks, Are clouds kindly or a bother, is the moon sad or at rest? He calls scientists who tell him that the moon is a dead piece of rock. He calls astrologers. One says the moon means water. Another that it signifies oblivion. The girl next door says the Moon means love. The nut up the block says it proves that Satan has us under his thumb. Heart goes back to his notebooks. Oh, Moon, he writes, confusing orb meaning one thing or another. Heart feels that his words lack conviction. Then he hits on a solution. Oh, Moon, immense hyena of introverted motorboat. Oh, Moon, upside down lamp post of barbershop quartet. Heart takes his lines to a critic who tells him that the poet is recounting a time as a toddler when he saw his father kissing the baby-sitter at the family's cottage on a lake. Obviously, the poem explains the poet's fear of water. Heart is ecstatic. He rushes home to continue writing. Oh, Cloud, raccoon cadaver of colored crayon, angel spittle recast as foggy euphoria. Heart is swept up by the passion of composition. Freed from the responsibility of content, no nuance of nonsense can be denied him. Soon his poems appear everywhere, while the critic writes essays elucidating Heart's meaning. Jointly they form a sausage factory of poetry: Heart supplying the pig snouts and rectal tissue of language which the critic encloses in a thin membrane of explication. Lyric poetry means teamwork, thinks Heart: a hog farm, corn field, and two old dobbins pulling a buckboard of song.
Stephen Dobyns
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:hi:
RL
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