The Full Stop Is the Void; All the Rest Moves Back and Forth from There

You write what you have to write,
What moves you to write, what writhes

In you so that your mind moves,
And you write what you can write,

From what you’ve read, what you’ve heard
It said that it is to write.

You’re one weird knot in a web
Of knots plain and strange. You look

Fine at dawn when the wind stirs,
When sweet peace sits crowned with smiles.

You look like death in the dark
Of an old house filled with webs.

You’re both. You write and you write.
Then you can make up the why.

These Are Not My Words, Nor Are We Yours

Who said it first?
Dead, dead so long
The trees that grew
On the grave died

And all their seeds’
Seeds’ seeds. Then some.
And here it is.
You said it, pal.

Not quite the way
It was meant, not
In the same tones,
But some of it.

Some part of this
Has not changed since
A gone tongue lisped,
I will say this.