the smallest poem
the smallest poem in the book comes humbly here
in favour of a curling air
that just eased through the door,
brushed by the cat, and bifurcated through
four table legs, before
it flurried to the burner, where
in passing through the roof it had been
UTTERLY TRANSFORMED, CHANGED IN FIRE,
to dissipate in higher layers,
and shower soot: all lives are brief.
We need the strategies of rhetoric and common sense,
reading poems in the present tense.
in favour of a curling air
that just eased through the door,
brushed by the cat, and bifurcated through
four table legs, before
it flurried to the burner, where
in passing through the roof it had been
UTTERLY TRANSFORMED, CHANGED IN FIRE,
to dissipate in higher layers,
and shower soot: all lives are brief.
We need the strategies of rhetoric and common sense,
reading poems in the present tense.
Poetrymagazines note: This poem with be included in a forthcoming book by Michael Haslam called 'A Sinner Saved by Grace', due to be published by Arc Press in 2005.
Page(s) 16
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