12 March 2023

By Philip Kuepper

Homer suggests Homer.
I read the once spoken
epic. I think the painter’s
fisherman with his catch
in his dory rowing before the coming
storm. I think
Greece and America rowing
in the storm of history,
Ancient Greece, contemporary America,
rowing through six thousand
years of time, wave upon wave
of hours breaking
on Infinity’s shore. Homer
suggests Homer suggests Shakespeare,
the painter landing on Bermuda,
and landing Bermuda on canvas,
Prospero, the fisherman, with his catch
of magic, with his catch
of Ariel he releases back
into the ever-changing sea,
Prospero/Ariel, Circe/Odysseus.
Homer suggest Homer suggests
Shakespeare suggests Whitman,
leaves of grass the Aegean of the Plains
the wind rows as it blows in
off the rocketlike Rockies,
earth launching itself toward the celestial.
Out of the spoken rows the written
word landing on the page.
The written word paints the canvas of the page.
I eat the catch of poetry.

(2 March 2023)