Man and Camel by Mark Strand
"Two Horses" breaks the pattern (but the pattern will reassert itself later) of interest, talk-talk, quiet, the end.
Sadly, it replaces it with talk-talk, talk-talk, talk-talk, the end.
This poem simply never gets going.
On a warm night in June
I went to the lake, got on all fours
and drank like an animal.
I dunno. There really isn't much there to tug a person into the world of the poem.
A few lines later, Strand writes:
Then I thought they might have
known me
in another life--the one in which I was a poet.
Does Strand have a sense that his skills are dwindling? Perhaps this flat affect is the most such a prosaic poet can bring to bear on the topic.
