Poetry has no purpose.
None at all. It seems to be
some kind of emission from a busy mind,
a broken heart, a clouded memory,
a longed for future. It has no purpose
because it does not fulfill
any of these states.
The busy mind still toils,
the heart crumbles,
memories fail,
and the future eludes.
Poetry is a rope dropped into a coil
at the bottom of a dark pit; its usefulness
is hardly imaginable. Its words are
square wheels on a child’s go-cart
at the top of hill. It is an untamable wild animal
being chased around by a poet
with a vanity stick.
The purpose of poetry is that
of the disembodied spirit, cut from the palace
of heaven…and that purpose is,
to seek its purpose
before it dies by the writers pen
on the parchment of
humanity.
What is the purpose of poetry?
It is the most noble,
non-purposeful thing
to ever dawn upon
our awareness – no more,
and no less than a wine splashed peach sunset,
or the waterfall of blue sorbet,
the velvet catkins of a pussy willow
and the tappings
of your grandfathers ghost in the curio cabinet, or
the hearts quiver
in a lovers exhale…
Find the purpose of these, and then maybe
you’ll find your answer.
You are poetry’s purpose.