Plans Deranged by Time: The Poetry of George Fetherling

Confusion of Themes Not of Motives

Confusion of Themes Not of Motives Poems should be wisdom or be love. Deficient in one I am overstocked in the other and it must remain my secret that the inventory will be yours coming to you someday as a puzzling bequest. The worst sort of ignorance is the kind that bears my name. It belongs to a prisoner who’s locked out and not in not knowing any possible answers to the questions I ache to ask, simple questions, the sort that work their way up through the membranes in a lifetime of having breakfast. I was young and narrow without you because I was without you and the narrowness survived the youth till your appearing cured it. The middle years were those of anguish and desire. I thought a great deal about Art Deco as one of the culture’s finest moments to which you have remained true so tall sleek streamlined, elegant in your simplicity of line acknowledging the machine you rebel against but respecting it as the hunter does the animal he singles out: a private matter between creatures just like the subject at hand. Your palette of earth tones should be viewed in full sunlight. You are terra cotta with trim of muted silver. You are my landmark. The Poetry of George Fetherling / 53 ...