Prologue

I am revisiting/revising my 2005 book, The Gods As They Are, On Their Planets, for a new 2018 edition. Here is the new version of the opening poem.

PROLOGUE

A fountain pen,

     a yellow legal pad,

a cup of tea, a symphony —

these set the stage.

The empty page is one

     of an eternity of silences,

     the start of an infinite line

          of rambling letters.

The pen is ordinance,

     cannoning lines and dots

     onto the ruled pages.

This page is but a clearing,

     the tablet a wilderness.

     Guidelines are there,

          but they are not a map:

     the short line finds its measure,

     the long one cascading over.

Fall in — you’ll find

     no bottom, no sense

of beginnings and endings.

You’ll find yourself

in a Black Forest of poems.

Wolves lurk within —

     no compass

will help you navigate.

You may slip on a comma,

wind up alone and desolate

because a colon misled you.

Three dots will send you flying

into a waiting sink-hole.

Here is some danger,

yet some reward: poems

may change you forever.

I mean to change you forever.

It is too late to turn back.

I’ve got you, guest,

in my little book.

I will not leave you behind.

Here is my hand.

Read on!