Structure & Surprise

Structure and Surprise

If—the facts
are all

plot—and
the plot, simply details,

and if
words are just hollow magic

tricks to make the wind more
reliable and appear more
solid than it really is,

and—what if?
even our bravest

intentions
to be totally
literary—only

are shards?
of some shattered shared
soul of a soundless-in-vast-perpetuity universe,

which moves forever
toward frozen oblivion,
without ever really changing shape—

Then what?—what’s left? in the
landscape, I wonder,
to survey.

I see—only

epiphany!—crumbling
architecture, yes,
but some
pretty

cool gargoyles leftover.

*

How could it be that I failed to share this?!

The above is a poem by friend and fellow student Dan Smart, who is publishing the products of his amazing, multi-year, poem/day project over at his blog, Rhythm Is the Instrument. “Structure and Surprise” is just one of (holy $#!+) over a thousand poems, and like so many of ’em, it, among many other things, loves and plays with turns. Enjoy! (And then do check out Dan’s blog for many, MANY more great poems and turns–)