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I GET HIGH
I get high when I write a poem you will enjoy.And it’s the simple goal which pleases me: I imagine people feel a lot of anxietywhen they begin a poem, and maybe I do, toobut it’s profound to think...
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AFTER WRITING ‘I GET HIGH’
It takes 15 lines for a poem to make a reader say"this poem sums up life."Fewer lines can make an impact---a reader might say to himself, "amazing."---but it will be a jewel held by a case,not the...
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BECAUSE WE WERE DIFFICULT
Because we were difficult it was perfect for it.We quarreled immediately. The sudden force of our emotions is why we didn’t talk for years.Actually, we never talked. We expostulated, sighed, sang.We...
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THE COMFORT OF INSANITY
The comfort of insanity is what some of us lean into now and then. I have a friend who is a Kansas City Chief fan and reality cannot offend him, I am not allowed to offend him. I cannot offend him but...
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THE COMMUTERS
Some guy is talking his head off in the enormous train station (as the pigeons fly by and scrounge for food.)He doesn't like people. He's fine! But they are disgusting and rude.I wonder: is he quiet...
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WHAT YOU THINK OF ME IS NOT ME
What you think of me is not me.You don't know my math. And God reads my poetry.This is what the good writer knows.God is reading him even when there's weeping inside the house and it snows.My mother...
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THE BEST WRITERS
The best writers don’t take what they write seriously. They don’t describe what the audience has already seen. The best writers give specific audiences funny poetry and they laugh before you know what...
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YOU WILL BE THE DAY WE ALL WANTED
To _____ Because your day was like that---Either one we remembered, Far away and hardly seen in a museum, Or, beginning always for usEven if we missed the brightness announcing youSurrounding every...
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SORROW IS ATTACHED TO EVERY FACT
Is it good or bad that I act---and ruin every previous fact?How fast did you act?Is velocity alone a fact?To pretend I wasn't here todaychanges every yesterday---and every one of those days was...
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QUICKENING OF ALPHA
If beauty is immortal and loneliness is worse than death, those seeking compassion and companionship will totally ruin poetry. Alcohol changes the brain. You block beauty’s subtlety even as, dreaming...
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POETRY HATES SPORTS
What am I to do? Sports hates poetry and I cannot relaxin either place. Competitive sweattaking place beneath the emotional bethas no place where nightingales sing and moons wax.I like poetry and...
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CAN WE BE HONEST?
Can we be honest for a moment?You are the greatest churchAnd the greatest fountain of perversion at the same time And for every mortal this is true.You be honest with me.I'll be honest with you.You...
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MORE REAL THAN THE BEAUTIFUL
Five thousand years after the plentiful became more real than the beautiful,the fish population doubling one morning after all the fish were fished,marking the beginning of what the sailor scientists...
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ARM, WINTER
Arm, winter. Warmth has made advancesclose to your domain. Those are martial dances.Arm, mighty ice.The sun isn’t nice.Wake up, winter. You cannot lie fallow anymore.Sprouts are bursting. That’s not a...
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IT PRETTY MUCH GOES LIKE THIS
You have a torrid affair with a blonde man at 39Who breaks your heart. Having his child,The most beautiful girl in the world,You move on to your lesbian loverWho leaves you when she is 45 And you are...
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WHEN THE MORAL AND THE CREATURELY AGREE
When the moral and the creaturely agree."I won't have sex with you. You offended me."What is the story of Eden? One of creatures. Now I see.The creature is exiled and condemned. Animals have no...
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THESE ROLES, THESE ARRANGEMENTS
These roles, these arrangementshave nothing at all to do with love.You could mention the death of your parents.A hint that your wife is leaving and you're thrown back into need and its shame.You do...
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MY DREAMS ALLOW ME TO SEE I’M NOT A NICE PERSON
Or that's how I reflect on what that deliberate torture meant,People torturing each other as I observed, stoically.But it's my reflective nature that shows me what I'm not, probably.People who meet me...
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THE POETRY OF THE POET
What he leaves out takes our breath away.What he doesn’t worry about is the genius.It’s a sign he won’t use signsto reflect on the sorrowful nature of the whole thing.Sadness is all about what he...
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AND NEVER CAN
Now I am satisfied. By writing this poem, the blood has left my head(Too much thought!)And returned to my arms,Where comfortable in my extremities,I can sleep. Thanks to this ideal deviceMy veins are...
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NOTHING LOVES
Nothing lovesBut it loves tomorrow.Be kind to loveFacing puzzling sorrow.Be kind to love, but do not love.You cannot love. How can you loveEternal afternoons Eternally tomorrow?She tried on hatsAll...
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SONGS OF THOMAS BRADY
Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts remarked on the last hit Brian Jones played on: “[it] was recorded on Keith’s cassette with a 1930 toy drum kit…” And Keith Richards: “The basic track of that was...
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EVIL HAS TOO MANY QUESTIONS TO ANSWER ABOUT ITS COMPLICATED GOD
Evil has too many questions to answer about its complicated god.Your priest keeps wading into politics---don't you think that's odd?The referee has more and more rules that contradict each other.The...
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FORGIVE YOURSELF
Forgive yourself for not keeping up with all the details.The room is a mess. But at least the heat's on.You just wrote one of those wise poemsAdvocating simplicity, but look at your dangerous tower of...
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ONE PARADISE PREVENTS ANOTHER
I’m happy it worked out the way it did. Yes it hurt me to lose my lover.But look what happened.One paradise prevents another. It could have been nice for them, working for themselves. But I would have...
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DO YOU MEAN?
Do you mean you weren’t picking on me? “No, we just want information from you. We want to seeyour poetry. We can’t help it if everyone born after 1972 is paranoid. As angels,we can only do so much...
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NOW LIVING IN A SWEET SPOT OF FAME AND POETRY
The internetWill make this poet famous yet.What happens to famewhen you have a prominent nose but no one recognizes your nose or name?Where does literary fame go?(I knew it was him but the three...
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LIFE IS A PROBLEM
Life is a problem. This is what our dramatic literature says.Speak to the painter, who solves perspective, or the architect,who uses all things to make your life comfortable.Screw the poet, even if...
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AFFECTION AND ROUTINE
My dog knows what we all need to know. If he bites you, you might think he’s mean. But I love my boy, I know he’s good. I sense his love. He knows affection and routine. Every morning after my wife...
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ONE OF THE GREAT PARADOXES OF LOVE
Love is more religious than religion, for isn’t the one we lovelike the Christ we finally betray?Let me see if I can be a little more plain:Listen to the atheist speak out loud to the one he loveswhen...
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THE SIMPLE PART OF THE COMPLEX
The simple part of the complex allows us to hold complexity in our hand.(Some find this to be a metaphor for apples and poems.)To escape the complex, this is what you need to understand.Comfortable...
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SIMPLICITY
Be sweet and clear. As if you were talking to a child.When the child-like process is mucked up by lawyersand web-site designers, directions are confusing,wasting billions. The floor over the floor is...
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THOSE YEARS
Those years! When she was young! Looking back at them now feeds this poem for emotional reasons alone. Those years were neither literary nor amazing. I cannot make them so. I was clumsy in love, then,...
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OSCAR ME
Reality is always bigger than the event.But look at this ingenious elevation of the part!The event bigger than reality is the soul of our propaganda and our art.Plato was right. Both the greatest...
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THE POET SOMETIMES WRITES THINGS THAT AREN’T TRUE
The poet sometimes writes things that aren't true.But that's not the same when I speak untruthfully to you.It isn't that I actually tell you a lie.I simply let what I should mention silently drift...
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OBEYING AUTHORITY WITH RESENTMENT
Obeying authority with resentmentor escaping authority with glee.I’m not inclined to be like that.My feelings on authority are complex.That isn’t me.I feel sorry for the captain or the teacherwho...
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NO CLOSE BASKETBALL GAME IS TRUE
The police went off in someone else's eyes. Cops need to be here before we start counting the money. The government will pay once we figure out the divisions in a day. Lawyers mean bad 80s movies and...
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I CAUGHT MY FRIEND LYING
She lied to me about the one I loved the most.As kindly as she was to me, she only loved a ghost.Having lost their mothers,Paul and John were sad when writing what we think is a happy song.Joy is when...
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IF YOU MUST HATE ME
If you must hate me--- don't forget me. You must hate me! If you don't remember me how can you hate me properly? You don't want me to love you (but I do)---this will make it easy to hate me.It causes...
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SCARRIET march madness 2025 PROPAGANDA POETRY
PROPAGANDA is meant very broadly here—from political poetry which one doesn’t like to poetry which is not political enough, and therefore guilty to a certain politically minded reader for that reason...
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SOON I’LL TELL YOU
Damn conversation’s overrated. Socratic dialogue is synthetic conversation. Wisdom is impossible when we keep getting interrupted by a friend’s ego. The format of conversation itself destroys...
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I SENT HER DOWN
I sent her down to the chuckling streamsfilled with faint mirages and dreamswhere no one could see her or teach her---due entirely to my arrogant despair,who loved her and loved her and loved...
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THERE IS NOTHING LEFT TO DO
I am going to leave my bed early and place my hands on my temples. I’m going to pull on my athletic socks and after practice, play the game and miss the game winning shot in front of family and...
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THOSE WHO KNOW
Those who knowshame those who don't---though it would be betterif what they knew were not known.You know what I mean. Remember when you knew?And your helpless groan? Shamed into knowing---events...
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NOW I DON’T LIKE POETRY
Now I don't like poetry. Why did I ever like poetry? I wouldn't be surprised if it were for a vile reason, like those who become Christian just so they might be forgiven. I might forgive wishing to be...
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IF I DON’T CARE ABOUT THAT
If I don’t care about that will I care about you? Yes I think I will eliminate every distraction, that’s what I need to do, the weather, the little things which touch my heart, routines and hobbies...
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MAYBE SOME DAY
Maybe some day, in the towers I found, you and I can look around, you replete with the vanity of India, white silk in a film shown near Russia, the high pitched whine of feminine singing which should...
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BOREDOM
Boredom doesn’t really belong in poetrybut that’s changed in the last century.Poetry has moved from flowers to honesty.Boredom (Berryman) pops up more recently.If we admit poetry is boring, we may as...
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REMEMBER
Remember when we amused ourselves in stupid parts of the city? It didn’t matter where we were. I thought you were pretty. You didn’t say much about me so I didn’t know. You were beautiful—but you were...
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I HATE EVERYTHING I’M THINKING ABOUT
If you hate everythingyou are thinking about,lying in bed with yourself,the only helpis to think even more.If there is nothing there, not a good vacation or prayer,be philosophical. Ask, "what is...
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