WORLD POETRY DAY AT PAPER POETRY

Threshold

Standing there for a while

Image by Author

Every time, when I look at something I had written after a while, I used to think, “Is this an evolved form of poetry, or was the very first piece I wrote — the one I instantly threw into the trash — the masterpiece I will never be able to surpass?”

But wait, who writes poetry for the sake of poetry? It is written for the poet — the most sadistic creature, feeding on pain, whether their own or someone else’s.

Maybe poetry is psychedelic. The real question is whether we have the power to write something that can change anything at all. If not the world, then maybe the reader — or at least the poet!

So what is this, really? An attempt to discover something beyond poetry, or just another way of writing pain?

How many pages is this string going to hold?

I make a new paper,
tearing the ones I have written —
about everything,
making sense of nothing.

Tearing them
feels like an end —
the end —
that always looked like
a tranquil, white, straight line traveling
from where I was
to where I wanted to be.