the answer to the question
why write poetry
would be
(no matter what else it was)
something to shrivel me up
a measure of how impure i am
(no matter which way we speak)

for the more its dazzle blinds
the further it drives me away from itself, this poetry,
away to where dark grottos and mud huts soothe,
into an unreasoned age, only to relearn

in a time without seasons
slouched in some clawing desk
big clock its many numbers over me
kid taught the notion of no last time

regardless
i decided for myself
long ago
things like
unity
or
finality
lots of things
might only be

the tools of some shuffling artisan
engaged as if nothing else matters
beyond the manmade curve
of some clay cup


� 2004 by John Eivaz