The Point Restaurant — Image by kenne
A restaurant stands on the Sea of Cortez at Puerto Peñasco, Sonora, Mexico. In its own way, it’s an answer to Robert Phillips’ poem “What’s The Point” in his book of poetry, “Spinach Days.”
I had the honor of meeting Bob on several occasions. One occasion was at a poetry reading just after publication of “Spinach Days” in 2000. In my copy of his book, he wrote:
For Kenne —
Good to see you again —
& all good wishes for
your own work.
— Bob Phillips
Little did we know that I would write a follow-up to his poem a few years later. My poem titled “The Point is . . .” that I posted on my Yahoo-360 blog in 2005. Yahoo did away with the service in 2008, which is when I started publishing my blog on WordPress.
For days after taking the above photo, “the point” concept kept running through my head. As I often do on Sunday morning, I read poems from some of the books of poetry I have. This morning’s selection was “Spinach Days,” then all the prices started coming together.
However, finding my poem was not easy since it was a posting on my old blog. After searching, I found it with others in a Word document containing other 360 poems under the title, “Will we ever wake,” a title Word gave the document.
What is the Point?
The Point Is . . .
Knowing when to say no,
especially the “hard” no.
Not a point in time,
which has no beginning and no end.
E.T.’s finger and
Obi-Wan Kenobi’s beam of light.
The place we reach
each time we act, the point of no return.
Not the end,
nor is it the beginning.
What we don’t get
when we are told to use common sense.
A place we go
when we decide we are there.
Where we are
when we decide to give up.
Something that we starch
when we don’t get the point.
A corrective statement
used to express your view of truth.
Blank when we act without hesitation,
to destroy the point.
A teacher’s finger,
used to drive home the point.
A moment in time,
if there is a beginning and an end.
Poetic license when deviating
from the norm to make your point.
Where you are when you are exhausted,
or when you decide to give up.
What you want to improve,
writing is your weak point.
What you gain or lose
when being judged.
What you pay when closing a deal,
causing the buyer to feel taken.
Measurement of quality,
the more points, the more expensive.
The circles’ people go in
to make the point
A work of art in Seurat’s dots
and digital photography’s pixels.
What is missing in Gehry’s titanium-wrapped
curves of the Guggenheim Bilbao.
What you don’t want to reach when driving
your motorcycle through the Texas hill country.
The one-finger salute to the sky
sharing the joy of victory.
What the rude nitwit doesn’t get
When making a cell phone call in the theater.
The top of a cap symbolizes the
Opposite characteristic of a point.
It is a bright, usually moveable blinking indicator
on a display in which you can find the spot.
Waiting for the pot to reach the boiling point,
“Only pots know the boiling points of their broths.”
Is what we follow in the stock market,
“Currently, the market is up fifty points.”
Great points and non-
🙂
Reblogged this on Becoming is Superior to Being and commented:
Recently learned of Robert Phillips’s death, January 21, 2022. — kennnne