poetry at the end of the world

poetic tactics to counter extraction  (alternatively: poetic tactics to train attention)

i.

I have tried to write this poem

at my yellow desk by the sea

I have tried to write this poem

in our red car by the mountains

I have tried to write this poem

in the dusty stairs beneath my parent’s home

in the clean, silent rooms of my lover’s family

on a plane across continents

on trains to past lives

I tried to write this poem last year

and the year before, and this week, and today

But the words

sit like weights

at the edge

of my tired tongue

And the tip of my leaking pen

And the edge of my dirty screen

What is the point of poetry when the words hold power

But not the kind that keep the lights on

And the bills paid

And the kids fed

And the parents retired

And the in-laws relieved

And the politicians in check

And the markets, always the markets, moving forward

What is the point of poetry

When it builds us stairs into the sky

But not the bricks beneath our feet?

And the roofs over our heads?

ii.

Adrienne said poetics are the “expressive, linguistic means by which we human beings survive and interpret our collective and individual lives”

Audre said poetry is how we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought

Anna told me that poets are careful with their words

The lesbians told me that poetry is a tactic for life

(But the lesbians lived in poverty in the 70s said Brynn)

(The 70s were a very hard time to be a lesbian)

(Would the 70s lesbian love the 21st century bisexual?)

(Will I live in poverty too?)

(Why does The Artist Way tell us to manifest being rich?)

(Does poetry have compound interest?)

Poetry is not a luxury

Rilke said poetry requires a descent into solitude and the desperation of necessity

CAConrad wants me to stand in front of my door, naked and unafraid

David wandered as lonely as a cloud

I have listened to men all my life

But Sisyphus pushed me down the hill

And out of earshot

iii.

Poetry allows us to say

“I do not know”

“I cannot see”

“I am incomplete”

And still, continue

And be made whole

iv.

poetry is a tactic

libraries are a tactic

long runs and

fresh air and

long meals

cold swims

long conversations and

fresh food

cold drinks

are a tactic

unions are a tactic

strikes are a tactic

cognitive dissonance

tactics

memory work

pirate archives

protest

silence

screens

stealth bombers are a tactic

if organisation is commitment

what are we committed to?

Are there more poets made when we

Stop a war? Or create one? 

v.

Let everything happen to you

Beauty and terror, empire and us

Just keep going – the words are maps

No feeling is final

I walked so silently, so silent, so slow

And sweet and sentimental that

My feet became ears and I heard the sound

Of the Texas sunset, pumpjack heartbeat

Moving millions of years of crushed ambition

Through the veins of the world

I tried to write this poem from the bottom of the sea

But the road less taken turned left at Mariana Trench

And because I could not stop for death

She kindly stopped for me

I carry your heart with me

In my five poems, my song of despair

The possibility of violence

The possibility of hope

The way the shadow of the sun

Hits bright, unpainted concrete

And an unfinished brick wall

Worship the strength and resilience of your own body.

Pray to no one and nothing but the warm glow of small joys

There is no altar here, we are not in church

Maybe abstraction is the tool we use

When the truth is too hard to say

So metaphor carves the outlines

And we color in the rest

Anne Lee Steele

Anthropologist.