Whenever I read writing on writing
by novelists
my poet blood
chills and clogs my valves.
These schematic malingerers
ail so far into the future
and wilt so deep into the past
as to make little actions into long arks.
Characters that live and die!
Flood survivors.
Plots that might be plotted
on lines!
An inter
net of shocking spidering webbing.
Chicanery's highest order.
A magnitude of activity and reactivity
that the mere poet
may never assuage
swims in this creeping,
vining muckland,
threatening my short verses
with the oblivion
of yet another universe.
I read novels and novelists
to feel small.
When I feel tiny enough
my pinky finger pecks up
enough letters
for another discontinuous poem.
Roman Ryan 