On versifying

I am surprised and
pleased by the success of my
humble poetry.

(But I learn that I was wrong
to name it waka renga:

waka is the verse
form "three lines followed by two;"
renga the way of

its composition, as a
Gesellschaftsspiel for poets:

A writes the first verse,
B the second, C the third,
and on back to A.)

Your apprecation pleases
me all the more because it

refutes the lesson
of a dozen classrooms, that
I cannot compose

poetry: my attempts were
all gently deprecated.

But is this really
poetry or just oddly
punctuated prose?

I had thought to write a mutual on-line friend to ask about her. After two months of (mostly) silence, letters unanswered—I was uneasy, wondering what had happened or what I had said. "I'm not asking for details," I'd say, "just tell me that she is well and happy; that this silence only means that she is busy."

That works just as well in prose,
I find, and the other way:

Well, we are again
working more or less together
on more or less the

same project; but it's not the
one that we agreed to.

seems to me to be
neither better nor worse than
deliberate verse.

I don't know whether to be
pleased that I always write verse

unaware, even
when I think it prose; or to
be disappointed

that the sound of my so-called
poetry is that of my

fingertips tapping
out syllables on the top
of my desk.