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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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COMPLICATED
Why is everything more complicated?And yet the glorious and the sublime have faded?We admire the complex. In fact, we are awed by it.Hypnosis of the cloaked fiend who falls into a poetry fit!Mysteries...
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IT IS REMARKABLE, ROSALINDA
It is remarkable, Rosalinda. It is the group itself, group formation itself, group belonging itself, which matters above all else. Groups can form instantaneously eclipsing family, country, religion,...
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ROSALINDA IS GOING TO FITCHBURG?
“Rosalinda is going to Fitchburg?” I asked myself,and with a strange burst of pleasure, I laughed. Rosalinda isn’t going to Fitchburg.That wasn’t Rosalinda sitting in front of me,unless she has dyed...
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ARMS
I am terrified they will take my arms from me."Don't be terrified. Your brain will sleep. Your eyes won't see."I am terrified the devil will force me to lookat the tongs red from the fire, and the...
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MAKE YOU SCARED
Radical human theory has not gone far enoughexplaining psychological truths pertaining to hate and love.We reflect our environment. We are influenced by it.This is not radical at all. We are the...
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FROM THE LONG CORRIDORS OF MY FEEBLE UNDERSTANDING
From the long corridors of my feeble understanding,I note shape and size and futureof a world I may enter and stay,this shoreline, music, in the brightness of a slightly anxious day.The sun, trembling...
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THE PERFECTIONIST
The perfectionist in the face of imperfectionis heaven contaminated by hell.Because I want it to fit but it will not fit,I'm a criminal, as well. Plato said ingenuity and desire are the essence of...
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THE ART IS NOT THE ART
The art is not the art but the world destroying everything but itself and what are we to do? I wish I could believe things the way you do. The art is not the art but sharing lunch at the museum...
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LIGHT DOES NOT SEE LIGHT
In total darkness light lives.Light isn’t happy, even as it gives.Light didn’t mean to get mixed up with heat.Light out-runs heat in the dialogue between sun and earth. Light is as fast as our dearest...
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I’M SORRY I WAS GOOD
History will not let us rinse our glass,Rosalinda. The dried content in the bottom of the cup?It must live there forever,flavoring the drink. They feel their truth, but it counters what they...
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WHAT IS A MIRACLE?
As I pondered reports of the world's corruption, how widespreadand wasteful,I was overwhelmed. Then, simply,it came to me.Good is a miracle.Good is another word for miracle.Evil is inevitable.(In our...
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POETS, STOP WRITING ON LOVE AND WAR
You are heroes navigating traffic, waiting for the bus, heaving plant soil in the Home Depot, talking to victims of freak accidents on shuttles, a camera man filming the Pops on July 4th came crashing...
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AFTER IT REPEATS, IT NEVER REPEATS AGAIN
Everyone wants what keeps repeating:Warmth and light in the middle of the night,Films which play for free and there’s always seating.I will be immortal, but I don’t know when.What is the soul?After it...
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WEEPING, UNABLE TO FINISH DOVER BEACH
When, in beauty, we grasp the world,it is always the beauty of the sea.All poets sound the same singing of the ocean.Reading from a volume aloud, Melville, Tennyson, Marianne Moore.It was all the same...
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POLITICAL IMBECILITY
Political imbecility is very easy to explain. Two things are involved: facts and emotion. In every issue (inevitably complex) not all the facts are available (for instance, we think C02 is bad, when...
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MACHINERY ALWAYS WINS
There is only one behavior which triumphs. It begins with unemotional poetry which becomes habitual in the questioner. The goal is simple. Do things faster. Destinations are laid out for us in their...
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I WOULD USE WORDS
I would use words more magnificent to make my poems more magnificent, why shouldn’t I? But not words she wouldn’t understand, I’d rather die! The shiny satin of a La Belle Epoque duchess. A cello, an...
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KNOWING WHAT EVERYONE KNOWS
Knowing what everyone knows makes us sad: The death of all of us; waiting for that. And the knowledge that knowledge, therefore, is bad. Give me the advantageous secret! Secret knowledge is the only...
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THE BEAUTIFUL IS NOT HUMAN
The beautiful is not human.For some humans, this is OK.A simple bench. I sat facing the harborin the early part of a spring day. A mile, or two, to the other shore.I was a statue (with only my neck...
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JERK
The impulse to be a rhyming jerk, Rosalinda, was the beginning of my literary work. The noble sighing of a Shakespeare play startled the day within my day and made my long night linguistic, turning...
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THE POET IS SECRETLY A NOVELIST
I can't believe I notice I do this. A poem I'll write raises questions,failing because it has too much to say---which forces me to write another.I write three poems a daywhich fail in their own unique...
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I DON’T KNOW WHAT IT MEANS
Why do they look to poetsto say what it means?I have no idea what anything is,except nostalgic, hidden feelingswhich occasionally use loveto say with bad poetry what my life was.Not only that, the...
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MADNESS AND SANITY
The soul is the human placewhere madness and sanity coexist.Who doesn't need madness? We all do.Especially the child who learns for the first time---do you remember when you found out?---all the...
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THE SAME INTELLIGENCE
The same intelligence, contemplating stupid things or marvelous things, is either stupid or marvelous. I am not smarter than her, but exiled here among rivers and mountains I construct happiness in...
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SLEEP LIKELY TO CONTINUE
The chorus of voices haven’t had a real conversation in years. When I was a kid, I preferred zoos to museums and coarse talk to operas. but I matured—is that the right word?— and prefer slightly...
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IF IT’S GOING IT’S ALREADY GONE
Whenever you see it approaching,time to cover up your lawn.Inspiration doesn’t work like that.If it’s going it’s already gone. This poem is really hopeless.It was years ago when I turned her on.I knew...
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WHERE’S WALDO?
The longer a civilization successfully flourishes,the more imbeciles—working within structuresbuilt up over time by the geniuses—can flourish.It was no surprise to me, then,to read the study showing...
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WHEN THIS IS BAD, GOD IS NOT WRONG
When this is bad, God is not wrong—this has little to do with belief in a deity.Rather, it denotes my philosophy.This means I explain the imperfect and the partialwith arguments philosophical and...
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MY MUSE CAME TO ME IN THE EARLY EVENING
My muse came to me in the early evening.I was alone. The day had been a festival in Maywhere I had seen many friends.My muse told memy poetry must say what poetry is. Her argument was this:“God and...
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NOTHING IS GOOD OR HAPPY
Nothing is good or happy.Tomorrow (or in five minutes)our happiness ends. Poetryis all we have. Nothing is good or happy.But in your dream, wasn't the fear therefalse? It was. Your dream's worrywas...
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IMAGERY
Bored and ready to kill,lacking a ready and practical will,society invented poetry,the kind refined and beautiful,which society shares peacefully.Our best families have done it for five hundred...
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MODERNISM
The authorized personnel of poetrywere inclined to both over-estimateand under-estimate, poetry.Loose or stuffy,for all the wrong reasonsthey thought poetry was pretty cool.For many of them, love...
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