A poem for Kenneth Rexroth

Yes, there is always poetry
lending meaning from language
to us, this world. Yes, there is art
and here is the world, and us;
here before each poem, then after
changed and unchanged. I think of lava,
how Kenneth Rexroth described it –
here and no more. Burning into stone
as if fluid vision can become
cold rock, boring into eternity.
Yes, there is always poetry
and here is this world, and us
running through the words we leave
as if lava were so much water
each letter a failure to hold the flow,
the flow a failure to stop and perceive.

I wrote this last night, then posted it on posterous. I thought I’d put it up here (with two slight emendations) today. It’s very much inspired by reading Kenneth Rexroth – I’m deep in his Collected Shorter Poems just now, and loving his determination to respond to the world as it is, in the moments that he perceives it. This poem came in particular out of reading ‘Lyell’s Hypothesis Again’.

3 thoughts on “A poem for Kenneth Rexroth

  1. Hi Kolembo – thankyou! Glad you enjoyed it. And Ken – you’re the webmaster there? It’s a wonderful site, been having much fun reading through the Rexroth section – I linked to it from within my post, it’s great to have such a varied collection of material gathered in one place.

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