ROUGH DRAFT ON STATIONERY
(You said: what is poetry?)

a rain........the smell of earth........a wet beginning
...the patience of the mind........an afternoon's white cumuli
leaves shaken loose........a colourful fall........finishing
...the fear of nakedness........a long chill........silence

a need of presence........the instances of the I hold years
...and seconds........exiled bodies of ideas surge to accuse
the unversed judge of stinginess...........and steel their way
...through age-old blasphemies toward new........common places

the way to us........I cross a landscape that induces
...trivial dreams........with hills of hope........plains of
expectancy........a lake un-rippling........and the image of high
...trees reflected in it........the deep........the leaves........seek listening

as we seek to be seen . . . .the strikingly close
...flight of gulls . . . .......is like a frank laugh at our lying
by the Muse . . . .o air uncensored . . . .fingers of a deep
...sun . . . .touch midday adulthood . . . .crack the moulds

of yes or no........while for the feel of a brilliant pregnancy
...I venture to descend........I know there is a child
nameless and illegitimate........and his first healthy screaming  will wake
the world to her and our own obviousness

we live........& struggle for consent...........  & gain a language........lose
...another one........and die........and breaking our taboos break
everybody's........poetry includes a pause in its resounding
...reasoning........it is that which abandoned us

...... and what we owe our friends