4 October 2023
old poet
there isn’t time to be a poet now
grasping at the leavings
of other poets
trembling
their crumbs into your mouth
there isn’t time to learn it all
or love it all
or even swallow a fractionally attenuated little bit
of it
and so the question
is is there enough time to
do anything at all but
write
write
write
and only in one language among
the infinitude of possible
languages
and peoples
who could make them
it leaves no time
for more than
hope
less
ness
because you write what you hear and
you hear what you write and you
hear
hear
hear