B Two Poems on Poetry

Two poems on poetry

1.

They were there, those words. That's what poets
do. Write what they (think they) believe. But
a moment passed. The rain blew against the window,
something passed. The moment was gone with the words.
But perhaps we, too, in the moment forget ourselves
into words until the passion of a moment constructs
another set of meanings which work as well.

This, the final betrayal: to know
what we say is other than we mean.

2.
(for Damien Hirst?)

We leave them lying like discarded tampaxes,
memories of what might have been. Of course,
as they are, they breed infection. Bacteria
multiply and life erupts. What once was dead
still lives.