gems hard one

AFTER BUYING A NEW PEN, I RECALL THE OLD CHINESE POETS


The loneliness of raindrops in a dirty puddle
Skipped over on the way to buy cigarettes at Super America.

Those old chinese poets that always see the world
Doubled in some sort of paralleled reflection.

They never need a Marlboro bad as heroin
A drug introverts take these days breathing

Its dragon smoke deep into their shy lungs
And later, after a few months, the needle

More solid than air slamming into the blood
Mixing with the very soul -- their heart

Their brain -- a needle tracing veins back
To the source. Becoming two things

The drug and the heart. The drug
And the brain. The drug against reflection

Of any puddle. The prick in flesh like a match
Lighted illuminated desire. I think, I'm glad

I never started smoking -- I mean -- because
I know I could never stop. The raindrops

In a puddle -- it must be said because I looked--
Reflect a light pole, a Buick, the curb, my shoes.

The only way to look is down. The old
Chinese poets know that puddles aren't

Reflecting anything that could possibly be
Mistaken for an answer. That's it

Just smoke curling like bus exhaust,
On seventh street, in early November.

-Larry Gavin

- this poet lives in southern minnesota
where he's lived most of his life
he teaches school and explores rivers and fields
with the continued earnestness of a young man
i'm told he's given to verse quite often

i hope he will not mind me
stealing his pome from
pemmican 2010

i typed the whole thing out
that must count for something