Archive for the ‘meta-poetry’ tag
Ruddy
My name, taut as an old skin, constricts my breath.
I’ll scratch it off, let it flake in the dust, so new
skin may grow, ruddy, fresh and new.
My heart, hard as a scab, still aches,
but no longer bleeds; it shies from any touch.
I’ll cut it from my chest, let fresh blood flow.
My head, thick as a scar, picks at itself
until the tissue is dull and hard, too thick
to speak or laugh. Better to walk headless.
by Ronosaurus Rex
A Simple Metapoem for an Oxymoron: You
Paradoxes and Oxymorons
by John Ashbery
This poem is concerned with language on a very plain level.
Look at it talking to you. You look out a window
Or pretend to fidget. You have it but you don’t have it.
You miss it, it misses you. You miss each other.
The poem is sad because it wants to be yours, and cannot.
What’s a plain level? It is that and other things,
Bringing a system of them into play. Play?
Well, actually, yes, but I consider play to be
A deeper outside thing, a dreamed role-pattern,
As in the division of grace these long August days
Without proof. Open-ended. And before you know
It gets lost in the steam and chatter of typewriters.
It has been played once more. I think you exist only
To tease me into doing it, on your level, and then you aren’t there
Or have adopted a different attitude. And the poem.
Has set me softly down beside you. The poem is you.
