A GREAT RECKONING IN A LITTLE ROOM

It could have been a little room like this—
four walls, a window, table, chair—tales
tell us he was stabbed and cursing when he died
a much regretted master of blank verse…

but that was long ago and this is now
in this little room, at this window
looking out upon the ruddy repetitions
of a blank brick wall across the way…

I count poetic feet by heart, bemoan
the calling of them, just as that Touchstone
who held a plumb line for The Bard:
“When a man’s verses cannot be read
nor a man’s good wit seconded…
it strikes a man more dead than
a great reckoning in a little room,” he said.

Even the graffitist, wily, undercover,
come by night to paint his colors on the wall
might lurk in shadowy corners come the dawn
to overhear effects of his calligraphies

or the forest with the falling tree and no one
there to hear—does it find the earthy thump
insisted by an inner ear dwelling in thought?

It all comes down to one small room
and looking out the window wondering why
why embark upon an expedition or ambition
surely doomed to disappointment or despair?

Wisdom has said: because it’s there.
Then, too, there is that falling tree…anything
to get out from under it, sound or no sound,
purely by dead reckoning, no guarantee.
.
.
A GREAT RECKONING IN A LITTLE ROOM

A GREAT RECKONING IN A LITTLE ROOM

It could have been a little room like this—
four walls, a window, table, chair—tales
tell us he was stabbed and cursing when he died
a much regretted master of blank verse…

but that was long ago and this is now
in this little room, at this window
looking out upon the ruddy repetitions
of a blank brick wall across the way…

I count poetic feet by heart, bemoan
the calling of them, just as that Touchstone
who held a plumb line for The Bard:
“When a man’s verses cannot be read
nor a man’s good wit seconded…
it strikes a man more dead than
a great reckoning in a little room,” he said.

Even the graffitist, wily, undercover,
come by night to paint his colors on the wall
might lurk in shadowy corners come the dawn
to overhear effects of his calligraphies

or the forest with the falling tree and no one
there to hear—does it find the earthy thump
insisted by an inner ear dwelling in thought?

It all comes down to one small room
and looking out the window wondering why
why embark upon an expedition or ambition
surely doomed to disappointment or despair?

Wisdom has said: because it’s there.
Then, too, there is that falling tree…anything
to get out from under it, sound or no sound,
purely by dead reckoning, no guarantee.
.
.

POETRY THESE DAYS*

If a poem is about a cat
many come to read and love
one of the truest loves they know.

If a poem is about a river
or the ocean or a sunset
interest is sure to grow.

If a poem artfully confesses
a deep yearning or a wound,
many gather to console–

if it surfs toward sex
the text is dropped
for a lace camisole.

But if it’s just about a stark
unsentimental basic loneliness
grasping a truth by metaphor

chances are its limits
may be transcendental
but mean nothing at the bar.

*with apologies to my friend, Marta Nussbaum Steele, who once presented a poem by this title on the dissecting table of a poetry  workshop in Harvard Square.  I had been reading T.S. Eliot’ s “The Use of Poetry and The Use of Criticism” and was enjoying a classic double martini when these lines occurred in the space of ten minutes.