If you are good, you are followed by envy;
but bad gets you loved, for the bad needs love and poetry,
so why shouldn’t we all be bad?
The good is the way the sky looks
when a thin cloud, barely containing the sun,
covers the immensity of the sky and light is everywhere
as if the sky were one great sun, the sun not seen.
Good, we are invisible, for good’s the invisible part—
We live on the surface of that sheen—
a good holding holidays together, though it’s mistaken for abstraction.
I made the mistake of appearing to you once;
my light threw parts of your face into shadow,
lighting up other parts too well, so you looked ugly.
This doesn’t stop me from worshiping you;
I love you to this day.
Invisible, I write the wrong kind of poetry.
I don’t like the others. What did you expect me to say?
You must not be a voluntary, complaining, slave
to every pleasure which flatters you.
Those chosen for prison are blessed:
the poetry which shatters you.