The Poet’s Third Lesson

The old poet picked among the plates
scattered everywhere in the room, each
with the ruins of past meals.

He found one, almost clean
and set his sandwich on it.
“The only math a poet needs is subtraction.

Chipping away until all that is left,
is an essence.”

About this poem

By now regular readers know that these are very loosely (very loosely indeed) based on conversations with my very first poetry teacher, a southern version of Oscar Wilde, had Wilde lived to an old age. So the lessons, and the memories are a good forty years old.

Probably worthless as memories, but fun to think on as poetry.

Tom