The Poet Left at the Altar - Chapter 2

It seems Gods of Water and Air won't published this November after all. Kitsune Books is closing its doors shortly thereafter and the situation would orphan my book, taking it out of print after only a month and a half. So I have to accept this loss and move on. Here's another poem from the book that almost was -- maybe the once-and-future book? Thanks to Georgetown Review, which first published the poem.

Squabble

We squabble over a word’s meaning

and history’s precedents while outside,

contained in tidy pots, golden roses

open their blouses. Daisies spin around

bright wheels, each petal unique

as a last exclamation.

Squabble with life

when we could descend like Monet

into its round dot, open a door

and find a tiny gray feather

whose shaft is the perfect arc.

Squabble, when we could arch

like that? Be a tiny, shining spine’s

catenary curve.

I used to gather weeds

from the fields, their disorder

a squabble of vowels, but now see

wisdom in roundness, a floating truth

like a lily on a pond.

The fragility of the small press poetry community is on my mind in a new way after this experience. How many poets are publishing with operations that leave them buying their own books to sell, with chain bookstores emperiling the indepedents, many of whom won't carry poetry anymore because it doesn't sell. We live in a fragile poetry world, sustained, though by the sense of community that increases as the economic uncertainties close presses and booksellers down. What will save poetry? because it has survived throughout history and surely will never die. I think this medium in which you're reading, is poetry's new frontier. I hate to say it, but print is really dying. Perhaps to arise in a new form -- downloadable, printable eBooks of poetry? I have one on my phone already.