I have always aspired to a more spacious form
that would be free from the claims of poetry or prose
and would let us understand each other without exposing
the author or reader to sublime agonies.

In the very essence of poetry there is something indecent:
a thing is brought forth which we didn't know we had in us,
so we blink our eyes, as if a tiger had sprung out
and stood in the light, lashing his tail.

That's why poetry is rightly said to be dictated by a daimonion,
though its an exaggeration to maintain that he must be an angel.

At last, my old inveterate foe,
No opposition shalt thou know.
Since I by struggling, can obtain
Nothing, but encrease of pain,
I will att last, no more do soe,
Tho' I confesse, I have apply'd
Sweet mirth, and musick, and have try'd
A thousand other arts beside,
To drive thee from my darken'd breast,
Thou, who hast banish'd all my rest.
But, though sometimes, a short repreive they gave,
Unable they, and far too weak, to save;
All arts to quell, did but augment thy force,
As rivers check'd, break with a wilder course.

Did you know that Evian spelled backwards is naive?
I myself was unaware of this fact until last Tuesday night
when John Ashbery, Marc Cohen, and Eugene Richie
gave a poetry reading and I introduced them
to an audience that already knew them,
and there were bottles of Evian at the table.
As air to the lungs of a drowning man was
a glass of this water to my dry lips. I recommend it
to you, a lover of palindromes, who will also
be glad to learn that JA read us three "chapters"
of his new poem, "Girls on the Run," a twelve-

We have too much exhibitionism
and not enough voyeurism
in poetry we have plenty of bass
and not enough treble, more amber
beer than the frat boys can drink but
less red wine than meets the lip
in this beaker of the best Bordeaux,
too much thesis, too little antithesis
and way too much New York Times
in poetry we've had too much isolationism
and too few foreign entanglements
we need more Baudelaire on the quai
d'Anjou more olive trees and umbrella pines
fewer leafless branches on the rue Auguste Comte

Nothing is given which is not taken.

Little or nothing is taken which is not freely desired,
freely, truly and fully.

"You would not seek me if you had not found me": this is
true of all that is supremely desired and admired...

"An enigma is an animal," said the hurried, harried
schoolboy:

And a horse divided against itself cannot stand;

And a moron is a man who believes in having too many
wives: what harm is there in that?

O the endless fecundity of poetry is equaled

When such a day, blesst the Arcadian plaine,
Warm without Sun, and shady without rain,
Fann'd by an air, that scarsly bent the flowers,
Or wav'd the woodbines, on the summer bowers,
The Nymphs disorder'd beauty cou'd not fear,
Nor ruffling winds uncurl'd the Shepheards hair,
On the fresh grasse, they trod their measures light,
And a long Evening made, from noon, to night.
Come then my Dafnis, from those cares descend
Which better may the winter season spend.
Come, and the pleasures of the feilds, survey,

Holding with shaking hands a letter from some
Official – high up he says in the Ministry,
I note that I am invited to Birmingham,
There pedagogues to address for a decent fee.
'We like to meet,' he goes on, 'men eminent
In the field of letters each year,' and that's well put,
Though I find his words not wholly relevant
To this red-eyed fellow whose mouth tastes rank as soot.
No doubt what he's thinking of is poetry
When 'Thomas Blackburn' he writes, and not the fuss
A life makes when it has no symmetry,

How can you, my Lord, thus delight to torment all
The Peers of realm about cheapening their corn,
When you know, if one hasn't a very high rental,
'Tis hardly worth while being very high born?

Why bore them so rudely, each night of your life,
On a question, my Lord, there's so much to abhor in?
A question - like asking one, "How is your wife?" --
At once so confounded domestic and foreign.

As to weavers, no matter how poorly they feast;
But Peers, and such animals, fed up for show,
(Like the well-physick'd elephant, lately deceas'd,)

A poet is born
A poet dies
And all that lies between
is us
and the world

And the world lies about it
making as if it had got his message
even though it is poetry
but most of the world wishing
it could just forget about him
and his awful strange prophecies


Along with all the other strange things
he said about the world
which were all too true
and which made them fear him
more than they loved him
though he spoke much of love

Along with all the alarms he sounded
which turned out to be false

So how is life with your new bloke?
Simpler, I bet. Just one stroke
of his quivering oar and the skin
of the Thames goes into a spin,

eh? How is life with an oarsman? Better?
More in--out? Athletic? Wetter?
When you hear the moan of the rowlocks,
do you urge him on like a cox?

Tell me, is he bright enough to find
that memo-pad you call a mind?
Or has he contrived to bring you out--
given you an in-tray and an out?

How did I ever fall for a paper-clip?
How could I ever listen to office gossip