The View

See the sunset view below? The house sold for $445,000 at auction. The state appraisal is $373,000. We were there with our miserable little bidder card and hopeless wish, and so were many others. The same house without the view would be $195,000-$210,000. So how much is the view worth? Sunsets over water are for sale. So many things that used to be free become expensive in a crowded world. Poetry is now crowding the world. What to do? Where is the value system? What is it all about? When is the last time you read a poem that had and still has an impact on your life? Has any poem changed direction in your life?

Flower Light

An old pen and ink drawing.

Poetry Equals Time

Nice view. Views like this are expensive. Is it worth working really hard to have a view like this? Writing a poem is really expensive, too. The time taken to write a poem is time not doing something else. If the hours to write a poem are added up, say, twenty hours, how much was spent in writing that poem? How much is twenty hours sitting around the house? Add up the mortgage, the bills, the phone, the electric, the internet, all of it, and if you want to write five more poems this month, it is a lot of time. Poetry equals time.

On the Wire

All the poetry world today seems to be little factions divided into groups, each group a network of people who work together to be a part of something bigger and better in the poetry world. Members tend to be belongers, and nestle themselves on telephone wires between telephone poles, rustling their feathers, being cozy, praising the weather.