The Only True Antecedents For Poetry Poem by Dennis Ryan

March 11,2005

"The continuous work of our life is to build death."
- Michel de Montaigne

These poems are coming in true reciprocity,
in vital relation, in twos, threes, and fours,
so why do I beat my breast,
why do these poems scream in outrage at the sun,
and why does this hand lift this pen, if only momentarily?
What is composition anyway?
Is it life and death?It isn't separate:
composition and life and composition and death
are lovers pair-tangled in the bedsheets.
The only true antecedents for poetry are these.
Constant travelling companions, life and death know none.