.......Dear...,
.............there is an unseen conspiracy that has taken hold of you
and that makes you a co-conspirator.
If my writing this letter seems like an act of duplicity
you had better think again,
...........................................for that only shows
that you're really in its clutches.
This is not a poem,
(really it isn't)
I don't know what makes you think that I'm
always writing poettry
there are many more constructive things
I could be doing with my time
This is not a poem even if you think that it is one,
or reads like one,
or smells like one,
or sounds like one.
This is just a friendly warning.
I will risk putting it like that though I wish
there was some other kind of word
that I could use
because I don't want it to sound like a veiled threat
I have to tell you that things are going wrong.
You are starting to fall apart,
you are beginning to hate me.
I can hear you now, don't think I can't - you're laughing
or sighing,
or nodding your head in disbelief.
You think that my overactive imagination is
running riot
you're calling to mind all the occasions
that it has wreaked havoc with your life
you think that poets are prone
to making things up
but poets can make nothing.
You must forgive my lies
(You see, I do not deny them!)
A poet's not a Martyr or a Saint,
not a Genius or a Guru.
It might surprise you to learn these
things,
already you're beginning to despise me
but it's time I told the Truth.
I cannot walk on water.
I'm always climbing mountains.
I discount Freud at every opportunity,
a strung- out, hung-up psychopath,
a man with a lot of problems.
Deep down, however, I believe every word he wrote.
(I've never revealed this before, this is between you and I,
.it is something that we share. Please don't tell your friends!)
It's good to have that off my chest
it makes me feel enlightened.
It gives me some small insight,
some giddy glimpse,
of what it is for a woman to
lose her Virginity.
(I have measured out my life in broken hymens - Is this bad taste?)
A poet is someone who is trying to shed his sickness
and palm it off on unsuspecting victims
catharsis is part of the conspiracy
and all the poems I wrote for you
were not for Love or Reverence
were not attempts to save you
were not born of those disturbing moments
when you thought that you would lose me.
Remember that day in the Bois de Boulogne?
whn you said this was Eden
Years befor the Fall.
Remember
all those mirrors in Versailles?
when you said that if there were Eternity
then it must be like this.
Well, that wasn't poetry
it wasn't sickness or disease,
you couldn't see the ague of the flesh
or the skull beneath the skin
that's just because it wasn't poetry.
Poetry is like rheumatism,
a phthistic hand
that withers when the sun goes down,
it mentions you and I from time to time
it eats away our instants
and robs us of our dreams.
If one lost and rainy Persian day,
the street devoid of passers- by,
you took your pen in hand,
if you wrote to me and told me that you loved me
and if I did not reply
it would be something like the Bois de Boulogne on that April day
or the many - mirrored rooms in the Palace at Versailles.
It would be something like this letter
a gentle, chiding warning
to remind you
that this is not a poem.
