The poet and the critic sit beside each other. Sometimes they hold hands. Sometimes they speak to each other. It is always night, though, and the moon is never a visitor. I know, says the critic nodding sagely, unsure of the word. Together they make a sentence. The poet, without realising, verbs. The critic courts the noun. They both want to build a world out of language, but the poet leaps from pod to pod, and the critic sits making a careful register of the trail. The poet doesn’t seek permission, the critic does, though, and in that seeking, the poet helps. Their strategic alliance is not temporary. It sits at the heart of a history of writing. It is not devoid of blood, not empty of drama.
Often times, the critic slips into the poet’s room, leaves a flower beside the beside. The poet meets the world in fragments, strings them together, only to throw them asunder with a devastating stanza. Did you know that the word stanza has roots in the Italian word for room? a place to be. The poet doesn’t carry the burden of meaning, but the poet knows without knowing, and that is enough, for now. Is it not? The critic must make a golden chain of the fragments. Both the poet and the critic like to watch, It is in their nature to be silent. The poet lights a cigarette, and slips into the compound of sensations without realising. The critic must stand outside what is real, his shadow alive with the breath of the present, even as he watches what could have been real many years ago. Both watch from the same place. They sit in the same room, but the ink is slightly different. The poet prefers a primary colour, or an orange, maybe. The critic always writes in black.
The poet mocks metaphor, the way a little child mocks his teenage heartburn, the juvenile way Calvin teased Susie to mask how much he liked her. The poet meets the world in medias res, the critic looks at the time. The poets walks the city searching for the words that will tell him the way to the bazaar. The critic sits waiting. He likes the sound of the bargain.
When the poet and the critic sit down for a meal, they speak about change, and about time, because they seldom get the chance. Memory is the fickle fool who comes to serve them. The poet listens to the sound of bustle, before lowering his spoon. The critic smiles.
I hope you are doing well, and this winter is kind. If you like what you read, do consider ‘buying me a coffee’.
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