Not a metapoem
Poetry November 20th, 2007
With just seventeen
syllables, three lines, you’d think
this would be easy.
Not a sestina,
perpetuating itself
like a blind weaver,
or a stodgy old
sonnet, sticking to fourteen
guns, the infantry.
Evil villanelles
and that whore terza rima
are easier tamed
than a plain haiku,
moment of awakening,
poet’s nirvana.
But frigging Basho
just breathes, and a universe
appears in his pen.
Form is emptiness.
Zen teaches impermanence,
interdependence,
so with just one breath
this poem does not exist.
And neither do you.