Poem #3

POEM FOR CORNELIS VLEESKENS.

You haven't changed.

The years went by, and you didn't change.

Oh, the hair is thinner,

but the voice is still distinct,

the poems as good, or better.

(One I read the other day

almost moved me to tears -

only good poems do that.)

Poetry's in our DNA,

some elusive thread

making us see the world

differently.

Its in the eyes.

People see it in your eyes,

eyes unmasking everything.

That's why we're looked at strangely.

People admire poets,

but they fear them too.

I don't have to tell you that.

This poetry writing business,

you can't rip it out once it gets inside your head.

A muse turns up.

something makes you angry,
you glimpse a leaf about to fall
from an English beech misplanted
in the Antipodes,

the past creeps back

and wants you to remember,

so it all starts off again,

one line comes and then another

and then another

and words come tumbling from your mouth

in the middle of the night

as you stumble to find the light-switch

and paper and pen

to get it all down before its gone.

After that,

you can breathe.

Sometimes I sit crying at the computer,

trying to get this stuff out.

And I can hear the gods laughing in the sky

or wherever they're kept nowadays.