From Elsewhere

Not in the poet
George Barker

Not in the poet is the poem or
even the poetry. It is hiding behind
a broken wall or a geranium
or walking around pretending to be blind
seeking a home that it cannot find.

Into the ego that has emptied out
everything except its abstract being
and left only a shell, the poem then
moves silently, forseeing
its purpose is to haunt the shell like singing.