Endings

A good poem should have a slap -upside -the -head ending. Labelling it masculine or feminine, soft or hard seems inane. Poetry shouldn't end for you all neat and tidy and nice--this is poetry not a romance novel..the reader should be going along pulled into the story then WHAM! surprise..that 's what makes a poem endure , in my head anyway.. I really appreciate a writer who doesn't condescend to me and respects me as a reader enough to shock me.
Human beings have been walking around the earth telling each other their stories since the first cave paintings and probably before that. A poem tells a story. We want to hear a new story. So if the ending surprises us, perhaps that is what makes the story new. It is a disappointment if a reader gets to the ending before his/her eyes actually READ all the words the writer wrote and loses interest. Doesn't bother to read it all the way through.