Poetry, Rosalinda, will not help your causes.
Poetry is not speech, but the delicate pauses
Between the speech which finds its way
In blinding light or darkness—saying what it says by what it doesn’t say.
Poetry dignifies its subject. The poet is a stupid ape
Who invades poetry with talk of murder, acid attacks, and rape—
“Rape is bad” was never, and will never be said, in a poem—
Not because the statement isn’t true, or shouldn’t be known;
When you say the bad is bad, it’s not a poem.
When you put such things in poems, vain and stupid ape,
You seek to dignify yourself—“look at me! I’m against rape!”
Other stupid apes, who seek to praise themselves, give you prizes,
Further dignifying the poetry which merely repeats what poetry despises.
Everything has a dual nature: what it is, and the container of what it is;
The flower does amazing things—but in the appearance of a flower;
In pain, an hour seems infinite; in pleasure, an hour doesn’t seem like an hour;
The hour of pleasure went by so fast
Dear love is more than what it was—fear belongs to a distant past,
But the hour—the hour—is fresh and new,
And will always be an hour—exactly an hour. Despite me. Despite you.
The poem is the subject; it cannot be
Who you are, and no matter how much I love, have anything to do with me.