Qiviut - What a poet should write about

What a poet should write about
  
  
  Until now
  
  I have never written a poem
that had in it the word abyss.
I never employ usage akin to this:
  
in any tale I have spun, on sea or on loam,
what my five senses were shown is all that beguiles--
alongside my pathos, a trifle of thought -- wiles,
and, as is my wont, locales I supped fare sustenant,
deeds I dispatched, moreo'er for each a determinant,
the era in which I walk this hardpan,
and kindred souls beknownst to this man.
  
The river Styx never flowed, took hazard
from my quilled pen, nor has Mordred, a wizard,
a troll, gargoyle, shinto priest or monk. Key
has been omitting kung-fu and tropes of Bruce Lee
with staves. Knaves has an origin
I was never urged to use. Heroin
has not captured the base of the spine
and given a jolt to any reader of mine.
  
  Still
  
No one ever smokes a cigarette
  that I write about.
  
No delight is coded in my words
  for the male act
  of taking women, deflowering
  states, congress
  (in juvenile invention)
  with a nun or two
  lesbians.
  
In none of my writing
  will I ever be disengaged
  while watching something suffer.
  
Unless the people left to live, feel pain,
  no person should ever die in a poem
  written by me.
  
Me
is something a poet should write about,
some say, but
  
me is worthless without you,
  you, the reader, ripening my poem,
  adding meaning, assuring my images
  avoid eternity suspended in a vacuum,
  promising my metaphor sent as ping
  can find the resonance of your pong --
you give my ponderings a poem's standing,
  
not  
  in some pastoral platonic platitude,
  in a blind bargain of ruinous romantic love,
  in a caricature of the poem I am meant to write:
  ladies and lords tangled in intrigue's web
  driven to suicide in early morning pacts.
The quietening still of the very early morning
  
is noted by this poet, certainly,
  but this long breath of crisp air,
  the witnessing of these deep hours,
  is closely tied to hours' long actuality,
  coming at day's very outset or at the closing.
  The heartening pleasure of warm embraces,
too, is noted, but this beloved mercy
  
is tendered in family, is selfless with friends,
  acknowledges the want of this poet alone,
  if lacking fight: it is a fight to eat,
  to be housed, to get clothing, to educate kids.
  There is a strife for life and then one must
  strive to thrive, to day-to-day have the soul
enriched beyond Coca-Cola artistry,
  
And, I say,
something a poet should write about is
that, is
  
being.
  
  
  
                                         July 2, 1977

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