One Book of Poems is like a Novel

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One Book of Poems is like a Novel

You do not seem to have
The heart of poetry
You do not suffer tragedy
Like a liar who always speaks the truth

A poet looks at the world
The way a man looks at a beautiful woman
As if he will be haunted by her
All day long, the poet doesn’t

Have to invent, she listens
She listens all day
Like a solider ready to liberate words
From their steadfast possession

Of definition, form, ignorance
A poet must be a psychologist
She must find secrets
And tell them in some grasping narrative

For too much feeling unearthed
Like the soul lost, a mother-tongue
There is poetry as soon as
We realize we possess nothing

Then all the world comes alive
Sometimes poetry is inspired
By the conversations of life
Other times by the readings of other poems

There you go again, plucking
My heartstrings and making
Music with them, each word
Bears the weight of your loneliness
I’ve read my own quite slowly too.