Modern Painting and Poetry
True poetry creates emotions. Lack
Of feeling means the lines have flunked the test:
Some silhouette of poetry that’s black
And white but isn’t like the wounded west
At moonset, that is what the failure means.
An elegance of words and force of thought
The verses might deploy, but they’re stage scenes
Without the tragic hero. They are rot.
You might as well paint canvasses with blobs
Of gesso philosophically full
Of modernistic meaning in great globs,
Demanding explanation just to pull
The legs of critics and credulous eyes.
But poetry is like wide open thighs.