I want the force

I want nothing

There is a genre of poetry that I call "New Yorker poetry," and about 2⁄3 to 3⁄4 of the poems published in that magazine belong to this genre. The chief req's are that it immerse the reader in mundanity and darkness, provide a glimpse of some problems the character is facing, use only one or two strong images, and that it end very swiftly with something akin to "a dust of sunlight, a flurry of birds' wings." Perhaps 1⁄4 or 1⁄5 of poems published in the New Yorker do in fact close with a flurry of birds' wings, but nevermind that. Redemption in the form of ubiquitous nature, a reward for awakening to those birds when they flap. The poem, a reminder: to be attentive, to listen.

The poem above indulges in those (attractive) poetics, but rises above them. Rather than use the trick of "gray, gray, gray, gray, life," it keeps up a continual dialogue on the speaker's relationship and the love he imagines: a struggle between this present love and a wanted one, made difficult because words don't say what they mean, catching as they do in ruts of pre-established meaning. When, at the end, freedom turns into "the sound of water poured in a bowl," we've reached redemption, for listening.