Tim Barrus Poetry
but what is poetry/
i have a small plot of land back in the big woods where i grow things/ secret things, things humming a little bit, sometimes in a thin minor key, humming impatiently in whispers that i have returned i have returned/ to sit here and write things, secret things, in my secret notebooks i would call it poetry but the literary police would arrest me (they have been wanting to for some time) because i am supposed to call it prose/ but i do not know what prose is, and i have called it poetry i did not call it nonfiction i called it poetry and poetry is never real where are the rules for the standards at the weights and measures division of the national institute of standards and technology poetry sub-office agency bureau programs providing industries and innovators with a common language that facilitates truth, trade, titillation, and simplifies transactions enabling poets to work together toward greater common poetic goals that cut across disciplines and borders whatever the fuck that means/ it means it’s poetry if i say it’s fucking poetry/ and if i write — i have a small plot of land back in the big woods where i grow things — it does not mean dope/ well, not necessarily dope/ it means this is poetry and i get to write it my way/ i could be growing and probably am growing petunias because i love petunias and am the sort of poet who would write ten petunia poems a day/ there’s a pig who comes back here, back to my still in the big woods where i make moonshine and grow dope, and he has a friend (honest to god you should see them together) who is a goat, and i did contemplate fixing my fence to keep the animals out until i realized i liked them here so i let the fence rot and there are big holes the animals can get through, and i feed them cheese, and we have great cheese and moonshine parties and please don’t tell the other writers because they will show up with their weights and their standards poetry sub-office agency bureau programs providing industries and innovators with a common language that facilitates truth, trade, titillation, and simplifies transactions enabling writers to work together toward greater common poetic goals that cut across disciplines and borders whatever the fuck that means/ it means it’s poetry if i say it’s fucking poetry/ i have a small plot of land back in the big woods where i grow things and listen to the still-warm whispers from a tar-calked tin/ i will get to that fence when i get to it/