3/4/12

Ginseng, Version 1


Some poems are impossible.
Some poems about poems 
     are impossible.
Some poems about poems about
     girls are impossible.
Some poems about poems about girls
Who are question marks
     are impossible.

Every line in a poem about a poem
     about a girl
Who is a question mark
     is false and therefore
     is impossible.
Every word in the line in the poem
     about a poem
     about a girl
Who is a question mark
     is a calamitous mistake
     and is false and therefore
     is impossible.
Every letter of every word
     ever written
     in the line
     in the poem
     about the poem
     he wrote
     about the girl
Who was a question mark
     before she left
     was a disastrous mistake
That was false
     from the beginning
     and therefore
     is impossible.

The next word produced
     by halting stroke
     in the line
     in the poem
     he wrote
     about the poem
     about the girl
Who was a question mark
     but who left
     after a disastrous period
     in a relationship
Pairing of human and human
     that is a calamitous mistake
     will be false
Will be poetic
     about a pain
     that no poem knows
     and therefore
     is impossible.

The last word produced
     in fevered slashes
     in the line
     in the poem
     about the poem
     he wrote about the girl
Who lied about question marks
     and periods
     and who left
     with no effort
     at staying
     in the pairing of
Human and human
     that is still a calamitous mistake
     but that produced
A beautiful accident
     that is still false
     that is not poetic
     but erases
Every line in every poem
     about a poem
     about a girl
Who abused punctuation
     when rewriting the pain
     that no poem knows
     is false, that no
     poem knows
     is false and therefore
Wants to be
     a poem about a poem
     about a girl
     in a time
     when lines and words
     and letters
To stop the poem
     about the poem
     will be impossible
     and the poem
     will grow older with me
     a fevered slash 
A period
A halting stroke
     of a question mark:
     false false false
false false.

© 2006/12 – Mark A. Douglas – All Rights Reserved

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