3 STEPS, Toledo, Ohio | THE MAN AT THE DOOR

EVERY PATTERN is a path; Every path is a story; And every story, a stream, not of water, but of relationship, of meaning.

So we have a flow of meaning. Just like water, the flow of meaning is neither mine nor yours. It just is. We "dip" into it, both individually, and collectively, without giving it a single thought.

Form, in both poetry and music, for me, emerges out of this movement.

THE MAN AT THE DOOR cuts a special form, a kind of simple dance, with 8-step phrases.

For me, the basic measure in poetry is not the line, but the breath, or phrase. The phrase here is composed of, then, 8-steps.

It's a very austere form, somehow seeming well-matched to the content, or, as we started, the flow of meaning.

THE MAN AT THE DOOR

Between me and the poem there
is a door and a man who guards
the door. He thinks he has a clear
image of who to let inside.

For years now, we have tried to be
friends, but he's a demanding critic,
saying he just wants to help and
that every house must have a door.

But he has no love in his heart.

He watches over the playground
of my fantasy like a mean
priest prods his boys from the open
field back into the one-room school.

And he neither rests nor sleeps.
I look out my window into
nameless landscapes, thinking I sense
the faint figure of a new friend.

But the man at the door says no.

So here I sit, alone in my house.
I dare not even try. Songs I
might have sung lie mute and dumb like
children who were never allowed to speak.

| download THE MAN AT THE DOOR mp3 [2.1 Mb] |

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