Poems are what ideas feel like.
Karl Shapiro
Some blister the mind like an endless
afternoon of August heat, others own
the chaste clarity of winter sunsets
distilled through naked birch.
Some, tense as crossbows in siege,
fly to the mark with desperate speed
unerringly accurate, precise and quick
Yet others bob idly on the mind’s
currents, like Monet’s bateau atelier
with no destination but moment meeting
eye in all shimmering radiance.
Ideas can be light as spring clouds, double
and triple somersaulting above March’s
envy tinged fields, or leaden as the stone
walls of possession. They’re doubt’s nettles,
porcupine quills of rancor and fear, or
love’s cool caress. They’re lightning bolt
jabs below the belt, or a storm cleared sky
that augurs heaven’s gate, swinging open
on the sturdy hinges of one infinite idea.
