Poems give love
expression without
explicit protection
from sense and sense's
ability. Each line can
be a spine or a disc
in the body poetic,
flowering down or
vining sideways,
invincible to the
arrows and screws
coming over the side
and in under the top
from the forces prepositional.
Next to banality
sits analysis.
They eat their soup
loudly
slurping just to spill
their tea.
And it takes a lot of soup
to knock over
even a very fine cup.
The senses can recoil
or revolt
or recur.
Music may be a guide
to riding poetry's dragon
to developing a rhythm
that does not smell
like way up
and way down
more like the small scent
of a mountainside
after a wet snowfall
and a long walk.
Roman Ryan 