Art is a desperate distortion <br />Of the between-spaces I seek to dwell in. <br />Poets may chance on their location. <br /> <br />To define is to desecrate. <br />Not 'stupendous, cute or awesome', <br />Nor 'foul and awful'; <br />The etiquette of words will stone me cold. <br /> <br />To crave the hurt of variant memory <br />Out of the stuff of actual events <br />And fashion an extravagance: that is too romantic. <br /> <br />The word was a mistake, because <br />It sought to shape the feeling. <br />Assign no labels to what we think we feel. <br /> <br />Words are blobs, of course. Cliche helps, <br />Sometimes it is better to have hackneyed lingo <br />Than pioneer a new idiom, with its <br />Hazard of obscurity or excessive intimacy. <br /> <br />I saw a Chinese painting, so sharp in outline, <br />I saw it avoided outline altogether. <br /> <br />Don't degenerate into a whimper. <br />The line that cuts: this, and not-this. <br />Don't label it or try name-calling. <br />The poet is his autobiography.<br /><br />Ananta Madhavan<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/poetry-to-find-words-between-spaces/
