3 December 2016

Why wasn’t I informed
poetry is just as often
not about lovely word
combinations, that behind
them can lie as much
horror as beauty.  I knew
Pegasus was the offspring
of Poseidon.  So far, fine.
Ah!  But I did not know with whom.
None other than the snake-haired
Medusa!, a horror beyond compare.
And, here, all along,
I have been mounted on
Poetry’s winged steed,
carried to heights of insuperable
beauty of thought and imagery.
And he is of her?!  At least
I, now, have an explanation
as to why my blacker moods,
which I keep from pushing me
over the edge, by connecting with
the Pythian Oracle who provides
balance.  Poseidon, so like
the sea he rules, at once
unsurpassed Pegasus-like
flights inspired!, as well as
Medusan depths of darkness,
so like the mind and bowels of poems.

Philip Kuepper
(23 November 2016)

Today Philip Kuepper and HTBS editor Göran R Buckhorn are signing books at Mystic Seaport Bookstore in Mystic, Connecticut. Read more here.