Ethan Goffman |
Is verse ever really free?
It costs time and psychic energy.
If you write too much,
won't your vital life juices be drained,
your energy emptied,
like a Coke can left on a road,
splashing a few feeble drops of quick energy
sizzling on hot asphalt?
What if we each have a limited stock of words,
a word bank that we'll one day expend?
Some say free verse is like playing tennis without a net.
Others say you construct the net and rules as you play.
I worry that I write in free verse because I am too lazy to follow the rules of meter and rhyme. I worry that I write poetry because I am too lazy to create the narrative and character of stories. I worry that I write stories because I am too lazy to do the hard research of nonfiction prose. I worry that I write nonfiction prose because I lack the imagination to write poetry.
If verse today is free, what will verse tomorrow be?
***
Aesthetic Delights of the Coronavirus
That pale blue ball with buoyant red spikes
ubiquitous
familiar
has become
almost comforting
a beach ball
a child’s toy
fantastic floating figure
intricate geometric model
artist’s masterwork spiked by fervid imagination
vehicle of death in some sprawling sci-fi odyssey
floating free in outer space.
That familiar blue ball with buoyant red spikes
haunts our dreams
melts into our
unknowns.
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