Just a minute                                                                             16 December 2007


The place of poetry is in the home, a place where writing is not opposed to reading and where reading is a preparation for writing. If a poet wants to express the same in other words, the words may not cooperate or go on strike the moment decisions have to be made about the road to take or not to advance towards a goal that was a breach of central planning before it ever reached the stage of being commissioned. Once in a while poets find this out for themselves, so much the better for the goodies and snoopies. [It's really hard to satisfy everybody!] Unpaved roads, some poets find these irresistible: without a care in the world words like to think the world is their oyster card — indeed "God is a Londoner", on his way to collect his pension. Interested in a close call? Think about poetry and dial, no not nine-nine-nine but a sleeping tablet. Language is always strolling along the seafront — the tide, one of these moments fresh air refills the lungs with sounds, may only come in if there are enough lines to catch, defend or earth. When words migrate to the page the scope of desire — the influence of concepts on exorcism — refloats a bronze statue in formaldehyde. Who would have thought that the difference between the ancients and the moderns is the difference between angels and merchants. I thought that both groups saddle time up with "industrial quantities of carbon footprints". "Or the like" or and the like both "enter and exit through the eyes". That much we know. Words, whatever their size, find the page a useful place to take a deep breath because doing voluntary work without a home base robs confidence of its tricks, alerts the authorities to reclaim the street party or no party and taps poets on the shoulder so that they might lose their balance and concentration. Arthritis tapes the mouth, tears the eyes and tortures the hand: poets born free end up in bondage; if not culture, language; if not language, peers; if not peers, the page. The mirrors of screen and page reflect both.