A Drop of Spicer

I’d like to start my week with a short poem by Jack Spicer, I think you should too;

Thing Language

This ocean, humiliating in its disguises
Tougher than anything.
No one listens to poetry. The ocean
Does not mean to be listened to. A drop
Or crash of water. It means
Nothing.
It
Is bread and butter
Pepper and salt. The death
That young men hope for. Aimlessly
It pounds the shore. White and aimless signals. No
One listens to poetry.

my vocabulary did this to me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer

3 Comments Add yours

  1. Arti says:

    No one listens to poetry… interesting thought. After reading Dubliners, I feel Joyce might just have found the way to be heard, he disguised it as prose. You’re welcome to stop by the pond and throw in a pebble to make a few ripples. 😉

    1. Sigrun says:

      I’m very impressed by your Joyce reading, even if I have read most of “Ulysses”, Joyce still seems somehow inaccessible to me.

      In some strange way “Thing Language” is kind of liberating; poetry is like the ocean, it does what it has to do, and just like some people have to swim, others love to drown in poetry.

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