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      January 6, 2022HiddenWard Kelley

      Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) worked on his masterpiece, “The Divine Comedy,” up to the very day of his death. Legend has it the last thirteen cantos would have been lost if Dante had not appeared in a dream to his son, Jacopo, to explain where the cantos were hidden.

      I have summoned myself forth
      into this foliation of the mind,
      the layers of your mind, my son,
      to see if it is possible to move
      a thought or two from one soul
      to another, one separated by this
      strange corn cob of existences; I
      know of no other analogy for this
      kernel-less vortex of innate
      vegetable matter that appears to
      bind the two halves of a soul,
      which is why it is so difficult
      to convey a thought to another soul: it is
      nearly impossible to talk to your very
      own half. But a son, a son, it just might
      be possible … yet …
      I nearly forgot what I wanted.

      from Issue #15 - Summer 2001

      Ward Kelley

      “Poetry took me by the proverbial scruff of the neck and began a passionate affair which included all the nuances of love, such as infatuation, anger, lust, apathy; then at least there came a year where we both broke free into a certain sublimation, and I learned, after 35 years, that the art lies in uncovering how to allow the poems to write themselves.”

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