this one looked at the window...

Last night, in a parked car, waiting, I’m reading Donald Justice, Collected Poems – I have a little light – and conclude that what I want, what I both need and demand from poetry – is not to be taken outside myself. I don’t read to be entertained, don’t read to be enlightened or to learn. My reading – no matter the genre – always focuses on a connection with words or image. I want to move deeper inside myself. That’s why I read … play guitar … watch films … listen to the wind, to rivers, to voices.

I’m always searching for words that make me tilt my head, left – my eyes move away from the page. Somewhere inside, I say yes, yes. And I’m a happy man.

*

– from Counting the Mad

This one thought himself a bird,
This one a dog,
And this one thought himself a man,
An ordinary man.
And cried and cried No No No No
All day long.