I

When one travels through a country, it is a country worth travelling through.
When one leaves a settled home town, one settles for another home town.
When one finishes writing a poem, one writes another poem.
If that is a joy, then that is a joy.
If one is drinking a beer, then one is drinking a beer.
If that is a pleasure, then it is a pleasure.
When I start talking like this, I keep talking like this.
When I eat franks & beans, then I eat franks & and I eat beans.
If one calls that joy, then it is joy.
When one uses one's life for material, then one's life becomes material.
When one wishes to invent a grammar, one feels free.
When one wishes to implant a new perception, one plants.
If one wishes to pound, one wishes to pound.
When one continues like this, then one is continuing like this.
When a potato speaks to another potato, it says, I don't want to be eaten.
When it says something else, it says, it was better in the dirt.
If one keeps going on like this, then one keeps going


II

If one strolls from fountains to lighthouses, one is not strolling from lighthouses to fountains.
If I speak of brackish water, I am not speaking about all the fish in the sea.
If I speak of algebra, which I won't, I am speaking of ideas I don't understand.
When I talk about the weather, well, I talk just fine about that.
If I talk about photography, I'm talking with a clue.
If I talk about theatre, I don't know what I'm talking about.
If I talk about poems, I shouldn't be talking.
When I write poems, I write poems.
If one writes poems, that is good enough.
If one wanders from fountains to lighthouses, from fountains to lighthouses one wanders.
If one wallows in melodrama then the heath & heather must burn.
When one goes quiet, one goes quiet.
If one gives oneself a 'writing exercise', one has a 'writing emergency'.
When one says 'emergency', a country sparks.
If one has a 'writing emergency', one ought to visit with friends.
If one writes a poem, then one writes a poem.
If one writes no poems, then one writes no poems.
If no one writes a poem, then no one writes a poem.
If one keeps saying 'one' then eventually no one knows which 'one' is meant.
If one keeps saying 'one', one means only oneself.
If one keeps saying 'one', everyone is meant.
Whenever I say 'we' someone raises an eyebrow and says, 'We are not we - my grandfather wasn't spurring horses into picket lines.'
If one travels from fountains to lighthouses, salmon still swim.
If one travels from lighthouses to fountains, salmon still swim.


III

I understand that art is only the sad tallying of deficits.
I know this thought seems obvious and logical to me.
I know I write my poems with this in mind.
I know people who speak openly about their poems are strangers to me.
I know I find critics strange because they have ideas about what a poem should be.
Once, I saw a French film where a man on a beach proposes to a woman on a beach: 'Madame,' he said, 'I would like to sleep with your daughter. It will be a poem I dedicate to you.'
I do not know what a poem is.
I know anyone who considers themselves to be an important poet has a hole in their head.
I know any kid can write poems.
I know teenagers write poems.
I know that I am an adult, still, I write poems.
I know every poem is an accounting of deficits.
I know I once wrote that I would carry the poem 'Snow' by Sarah Broom over the Alps to ensure its eternal existence in the hearts and minds of readers everywhere.
I know that every poem is sad.
I know I do not want to carry any more sadness over the Alps.
I understand I have lied to myself about how big the Alps are.
I know I write poems because I want to write poems.
I know, with this logic, I too am a mountaineer.


IV

The poem requires a visa to enter the United States of Aimlessness.
The poem requires a visa to enter the volunteer fire department.
The poem is stopped on the border of a sack of stoneground organic flour.
The poem is stopped on the border of subsidized child care.
The poem enforces it's own borders drawn straight from its own smugness.
The poem travels like a diplomat through a body.
The poem travels through my body and doesn't even nod hello.
The poem takes what it needs.
The poem needs years, a couple of minutes.
The poem is a piece of shit sometimes.
The poem is then deleted.
The poem is as dim-witted as the one who writes about it, talks about it.
The poem is as clever as one who reads labels at museums.
The poem doesn't need one's smart-alec, nor one's Pollyanna.
The poem turns a deaf ear to your praise, your critique.
The poem wants to be written, to be made.
The poem does not want to be written, to be made.
The poem is cottage cheese.
The poem wants to say, it was warmer inside the cow.
The poem wants to say, leave me alone, I'll be written when I'm in my right mind.
The poem wants to say, how would you know what I want and why would I ever speak to you?


V

I write when something comes
I write when something does not come
I write when something comes back
I write when something does not come back
I write when the t-shirt says 'I'm a muslim, not a bomb'
I write when the deficits
I write when the depths, the heights, the inbetweens
I write when the crushed lungs of free-divers, the flaming legs of fell runners
I write when these terminal pain junkies
I write when this self-neglect
I write when This
I write when the waving beauty of a field
I write when the shhhh, the silence
I write when the deficits
I write when the frosted front garden
I write when the heath burns
I write when the country burns
I write when children rock out in their high chairs
I write when rubber ducky brings the fun
I write when the love, the hate, the emptiness, the etcetera, etcetera, etcetera
I write when the snow-dusted dog stands clueless as the green man returns to red
I write when the circulation is healthy, the broadcast wide
I write when money is on the table


VI

I answer: I write by hand.
I answer: sometimes and partly and I don't order steak every night but I eat OK thank you very much.
I answer: any squat building, any skyscraper is more erotic than metaphor.
I answer: a still pond holds more of anything, more everything.
I answer: because of a faulty circuit.
I answer: a firefighter's festival in Dingwall offers more joy to the world.
I answer: a firefighter's festival in Dingwall doesn't take itself so seriously.
I answer: a firefighter's festival in Dingwall is less ludicrous than this act.
I answer with a question: why doesn't the novelist write a poem?
I answer: I do what teenagers do.
I answer: sometimes it does make me happy.
I answer: this is craft.
I answer: I make them by hand.

Translated by Ryan Van Winkle