So, they may film art films
in such esoteric terms that

only the truly enlightened
could understand Ingmar

Bergman’s films, but that
is nothing next to the poems

esoteric, obscure, cryptic,
abstruse and recherché,

that grace the poetry page
day after day, laughing at

us to figure them out like
the most complicated cross-

word puzzles ever devised
to confuse humankind in the

NYT’s. And then there are
those who say, “Why and what

the hey? I just want to say
something fairly clever and

understandable come what may.”
And so they do and so do I,

and this little poem is
the result of asking “why.”