JOSEPH FARLEY
-- For Kenneth Koch
1.
Trail blazers
cut down the trees
and make a path
that leads somewhere,
but not necessarily
where they were
trying to go.
2.
Others followed,
built cities
in the wilderness.
3.
What path is this
I have set upon?
What path is this
that you have followed?
4.
Afterwards,
some people
missed the trees.
5.
Some people
haven't noticed
the trees
are missing.
6.
It all ends the same.
That's nothing new.
All roads lead to Rome.
All poetry obscures
the obvious,
or makes it more so.
It's because the earth continues to wobble on its axis that we continue to stumble down the streets of the heart. It's because of the loneliness of the first cell trying to swim through its primordial pool that we are filled with a kind of galactic fear. For example: one moment a rocket falls capriciously into a square. Another moment, a rogue wave turns over the fishing boat whose crew leaves their memories floating like an oil slick that never reaches shore. In this way we understand our dying loves scratching at the door. In this way, each love creates its own theory of pain. Each love gnaws the derelict hours to the bone. But because there are so many blank spaces in history we still have time to write our own story. Wittgenstein said our words have replaced our emotions. He never understood how we have to cleanse ourselves of these invisible parasites of doubt and fear. We might as well worry about the signals from dead worlds wandering around the universe forever. Think i...
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