Responds To The Critics

Breathtaking, dude.

At first
I thought you were just taking an enjoyable stab
at this! Taking a whack at criticism, at trying to
criticize how I am trying to do
this. And that's what I was wanting!
- or expecting, really. A stab, a crack,
a whack at a lark, a shot whistling by
in the dark - possibly wide. And in fact,
I guess that is probably what you did do. Or try to,

Because it does read - quite enjoyably!
- as effortless as the day I was born. For me,
anyway.

Yet goodness. So far from expectation
- the result dwarfs whatever it was
I was expecting! A reading
that feels perfectly serious,
and is internally-consistent,
soberly-observed, and entirely-supported from
within the text. What's more, you break it down
so clearly and with such telling detail and effect
that it feels not merely persuasive, but authoritative.

You have effortlessly (?) broken down
and drawn out a bell-like reading
from a poem I myself was having trouble with,
a poem I pretty much wrote in one go, in
a fugue state, oh it wasn't meaningless! The poem

It wasn't some nonsense tossed-off, it was
a definite emotional response to a moment
and a strong feeling, and I meant
the poem quite strongly!

But I couldn't put into words what I meant, or
what what I meant meant,
except by means of the poem's words.

Which is usually how it is, if you know what it's like.

I couldn't put the meaning into additional words. And so
I sort of just left it behind, "ta-da! a poem! Nothing
more to see here" - but when you
liked it,
I started to wonder

if what I had put in there was in there?
And maybe, what else was in there. What, precisely,
was in there? I began reading it myself
different ways, wondering whether it was
a blank screen with some well-placed
furniture and imagery upon which
all sorts of valid interpretations
and feelings could play, flit into
existence, projected into solidity
through the magic of simply seeing it?

Or was it something as specific
and visceral as the hot taste of iron from a tongue bitten
twice in the same place, hard?

Either would have been fine, to be honest. But
I had kind of lost my own way out of the poem.
So hearing that you had an angle in, I wanted
to hear what your angle was. Thank you,

for the serious response.