Poem: “The Ghost of W.B.” by Mark Hinton
(copyright © m.a.h. hinton)
In honor of the 250th post of MontanaWriter I am posting here today one of my more abstruse poems. Forgive the indulgence.
Generally speaking when a poem is so abstruse as to be opaque it means the poet has not really done his or her job. It is like watching two teenagers laughing at private jokes that only they get. Chances are that even if you understood what the hell they were giggling about, it still wouldn’t be funny. The deeper and truer the thing, the more clear it should be. The fuzzier and the more obscure… the less true and real it probably is.
Yeats dabbled in the metaphysical, the spiritual, the esoteric and the magical. His poems occasionally touch upon such things, his prose work often does. 26 years ago now, I spent a year of my life as a Lutheran pastor and immersing myself in all things Yeats. On a beautiful autumn day it is time to let go of one of the poems about that time and place in my life. A poem that I have been working with off-and-on now for more than a quarter of a century.
Enjoy!
Reddo
The poem that once
appeared in this space
is being re-drafted
and re-typed.It will be re-posted
someday soon
at MontanaWriter.com.
Stay tuned!
____
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