Hello Carl,
           Thanks for your explanations of those points. I don´t know how interested you are in pursuing some of these further, if not then just ignore this. The point that I´d most like to pick up is where you write:



Often when I use the word "telly" I'm referring to information revealed
that the reader would not otherwise glean, information that ought to
have been shown. When the branches are bent low in that way, we know
it's a heavy burden to bear, so I'm not "telling" much. In other words,
there are differences between saying "a trial / much greater than the
self" and "He knew something was lacking. / Later he called it
confidence, / finally a form of trust." We have no basis for thinking
that he knew something was lacking -- less still that it had to do with
confidence or trust -- until suddenly, there it is before us. But we do
know the branches are heavy-laden.


I´m interested in the theory that you outline here and even more so in how we apply it. My problem starts with the questiion of how we define some of the terms you use. Let´s begin with an example you used yourself from my poem, `He knew something was lacking....´ You say that we have no basis for thinking that he knew something was lacking yet the previous line had ended with our hero engaged in the activity of dowsing and the whole poem is based on the metaphor of desire-as-stream. If he´s looking for water doesn´t this suggest he is aware that something is lacking and that the reader has been shown the justification for the comment before it is made? Or have I understood something differently to how to you meant it? If we go on to the second and third assertions - that confidence or trust was lacking - the question as I understand you is whether anything earlier in the poem indicates that there could have been such a lack between the couple.How about this: What is suggested by the stream - metaphor for desire - going underground? Isn´t it possible that this suggests the concealment of a desire? Isn´t it also possible that `chill the air with a dampness like fear´ not only enhances this interpretation but also provides an explanation for the concealment? If `he´ has dipped his feet in the flow of the stream-as-desire but has `slaked his thirst from furtive buckets´ drawn, presumably from the well fed by the underground stream of his desire, does not this suggest that `he´ harbours a desire which he is concealing from his lover out of fear but which he is gratifying in secret. If all this is admitted does it not amount to a justification for asserting later that he exhibited a lack of both confidence and trust?
I don´t know if I´m working along the right lines here. Is this the kind of `justification´ you were referring to? If it is, do you accept that it is contained within this poem or does my argument break down somewhere?
I´d like to take one more example, then I´ll finish. This time from your poem; the `antiseptic air´. You explained, in answer to my query, that air can be antiseptic if it is exceptionally clean or contains the smell of a cleaner. I have smelt fresh air many times; living in Finland and visiting Lapland many times, I must have smelt some of the cleanest air in the world. Anything less like antiseptic is difficult to imagine. And why should the air in your poem be flavoured by cleaning agents, unless you live near a soap factory. But all this is speculation. Nothing in the poem justifies this explanation. Does this not mean that you are breaking your own rule that assertions must be justified by what goes earlier?
This last question really brings us to the point I wished to make when I mentioned the difficulty of defining terms. You may well be thinking that your antiseptic air is not an assertion at all but an image. That it doesn´t need justifying as such. So what is an image and what is an assertion? Is it so simple that if we transpose `the air is antiseptic´ into `the antiseptic air´ we overcome all need to justify our assertions? And how do we define a statement in a poem which functions not at a literal level but at a metaphorical one? Is it showing or telling? Does it need to refer to something earlier or does it justify itself? You commented on the ending of my winter palace poem that `this feels nothing like being in love´ is just telling the reader my conclusion. I agree it is telling in the sense that it is a staement. But is it possible that within the poem this combination of words carries a quite different function and meaning to the literal one? Would that not then be metaphoric? 
This has become long enough. I´d like to hear your reaction to any of these points if you´re interested. By the way, have you come up with any of those references to stream-as-desire that you mentioned? I´d like to read some.



Best wishes,   Mike