heard 2

The great poets, of whichever gender and when,

Have a way with words considered to the last syllable

Or let loose upon the breath as if thought doesn't figure,

But of course it does, buried or not,

Shaped or not, picked to the seams or hurled pell-mell.

Do you think they think themselves "great"?

Or does that thought never figure,

Except with those who don't know the discipline of pell-mell

Or the chaos of syllabic exactitude?

School or misrule,

It's in the line,

Or above, below it,

Entering in or tailing away.

And the single word?

Heard.