Sports bloopers

All C has an O
No O has a C

There can be but one possible explanation
Some evil god wishes to do us harm

An ancient philosopher lay upon his death bed
Just days into the great festival
His sister pleaded with him not to choose this time to die
While all the city was flown with gaiety

The old man consented then to take a spoonful of honey
And at midnight on the final day
As the noise of the revels had just subsided
He passed quietly away

Cmu palogiae als Fresouerzib Melnick

Frecs
Frogewssan ghohg iduoeeirsa
Frogewsann berghonsipgan
Cmaata als ceren iduei
Mbrees caan gloglik ro
Garabnans
Thoeiisu
meon-s
Frogmantoe
Cvmwoflux
Alls dineded ntia-cvmwoflux
Gnecks
Thfetts
Stitdorsthan
Thoiia
Gwist alzthem shent grallai
Swaetver uoiy cmaapa
Sfein whswik meiea
Alls seimzehn sif havnap zgu
Smae xtloa caan secripft eloi
Meb smea xtlioa cann legripft inse
Fnailmaent onjui jrocept
Pmist sla gaerpigerm
Haal jui
Haal melniciana
Haal effrent
Mi kaoy

            And he that Attis’ image hangs between
            That staring fury and the blind lush leaf
            May know not what he knows, but knows not grief.
–Yeats

I spent a sleepless night vacillating
In the name of art for its own sake shall I let it stand
Like that guy who took a bullet to the arm
Or delete it in the interest of public safety

For I fear the inexperienced will get the wrong idea
And I feel guilt for my fears as cowardice the greatest sin
And I feel a humbling pang that I express myself inaccurately
And I regret my taking the easy way of self-expression

And I know full well that it’s more than expression
That there are no bright lines and that’s a good thing
As cuisine is art not medicine
But the anemic patient enjoys a meal rich in iron

And writing for some people is compulsion
And therefore a sign of psychological distress
Especially the compiling of lists
Though any genre can sustain humor pathos eros and attack

And in this you resemble me Dear Young Reader
In this all are hypocrites and hypocrites are cowards
For we pretend to believe in the efficacy of disclaimers
I’m a decadent but at least I know that I’m a decadent

When I was young I was completely daunted by Jimi Hendrix
I could learn nothing from such a prodigious monster
But Clapton no lesser artist alluded to Blue Moon
A jazzy humorous trick you see in the preceding stanza

And I spent a sleepless decade and a half
Berating myself as not Hendrix or Clapton
Or Keats or Yeats or Dickinson or Whitman
Or George Eliot or Shakespeare and four lines can’t contain them

I am good but not great and that’s okay
I’m okay
Because good in the aesthetic realm is beauty
And good in the realm of states of things is truth

But good in the moral realm means doing right by persons
And when I think of the persons I know and love
I think first of their suffering
And then of the suffering of absolutely everybody

Including I daresay myself
And one can get past grieving for natural causes
But the world of people is horrible
Because people hurt people with malice and neglect

Including I daresay myself
I am a rather elderly man
And I have committed hostile and neglectful acts
But mostly against myself let it be said

And so I break the fallacious bright line
That separates art from therapy
And I have believed that the expression of true feeling
Would through alchemy become beautiful

And I here confess that as a function of a therapeutic regimen
I have aimed to suppress or otherwise attenuate
The coercive voice implanted in childhood
Of the Portable Emperor

And so yesterday I imagined that by giving the PE the podium
He
For he is masculine would expose his own incapacity
His own ridiculousness

On the other hand
I fear that the inexperienced will get exactly the right idea
That the imperial voice is omnipotent albeit with an ironic disclaimer
But why should I present as the right idea such a blatant falsehood

While in fact the only emperor
Is the emperor of ice-cream
You see what I did there
I mean beauty is truth and truth beauty

Good like math facts is beyond space and time
Good like beauty and truth feels good a by-product no doubt
Pleasure is good ice-cream is good
Though richer in fat than in iron

I’ve had it up to here with you
You better straighten up and fly right
You better get yourself squared away
You better get your shit together
You better get with the program
You better get some self-esteem
You better seize the opportunity
You better strike while the iron is hot
You better leave well enough alone
You better know when you’re well off
You better know who your friends are
You better hold your enemies closer
You better know your rights
You better know thyself
You better get humble
You better stop bragging
You better have a little pride
You better start walking the walk
You better subject yourself to ruthless critique
You better inaugurate a program of self-improvement and stick to it
You better start using conventional punctuation
You better hold yourself to a higher standard
You better make yourself shipshape and Bristol fashion
You better fulfill your commitment
You better keep your promise
You better live up to your potential
You better achieve
You better rebel
You better conform
You better speak truth to power
You better stop fearing death
You better stop calling death soft names
You better rage against the dying of the light
You better stop making allusions to impress intellectual snobbery
You better get some help for your problem
You better suppress your symptoms
You better cultivate a cheerful demeanor
You better don the convivial mask
You better figure it out
You better stop composing those pieces you falsely call poems
You better stop padding your resume
You better stop feeling inadequate
You better stop wanting people to like you
You better stop claiming knowledge you don’t possess
You better stop harboring the Cartesian ghost
You better stop flaunting gratuitous displays of erudition
You better stop exposing your ignorance
You better stop trying to obey
You better stop bargaining
You better stop wondering what will suffice
You better stop misquoting the greats
You better stop ascending into the seventh heaven
You better stop descending for a season in hell
You better stop lying cheating and stealing
You better stop remembering insults slights and injuries
You better stop nursing grudges
You better stop self-diagnosing
You better stop self-medicating
You better stop self-pleasuring
You better stop playing games
You better stop trying to appease your tormentors
You better eat right get plenty of rest and stay in school
You better stop haunting the places where unpleasantness occurred
You better stop laying it on so thickly
You better stop coming on so strong
You better stop strutting around like Mr Perfect
You better stop employing superlatives
You better stop acting so cowardly
You better control yourself
You better stop picking at it
You better stop kidding yourself
You better stop getting mad
You better stop getting even
You better stop doing unto yourself what you would never do unto others
You better stop watching reading or listening to the news
You better stop falling into a bottomless pit of depression
You better stop indulging in suicidal ideation
You better stop multitasking
You better stop making mistakes
You better stop making excuses
You better stop beating yourself up
You better stop seeking the approval of those you consider contemptible
You better stop thinking of people as your enemies
You better stop giving your enemies an opening
You better stop wishing for fame
You better stop envying the fortunate
You better stop kowtowing to the lords of guilt worry and indecision
You better stop making yourself scarce when there’s work to be done
You better stop disrespecting your betters
You better stop making those stupid lists
You better stop lifting with your back
You better stop spilling the pills all over the floor
You better stop jumping to conclusions
You better stop overreacting
You better stop using typography for emphasis
You better eschew the dash
You better stop banging around when people are trying to concentrate
You better stop rattling on about nothing very important
You better stop popping off about matters you don’t understand
You better stop issuing commands
You better stop performing onerous tasks poorly
You better stop giving such a bad example
You better stop living in a dream world
You better stop taking yourself so seriously
You better stop giving free rein to nasty impulses
You better stop gilding the lily
You better stop putting yourself through this ordeal
You better stop adopting narcissistic poses
You better stop projecting sublimating fixating and transferring
You better stop globalizing
You better stop fortune-telling
You better stop cherry-picking
You better stop fence-mending
You better stop apple-polishing
You better stop meddling
You better stop being insensitive to the needs of others
You better stop waxing nostalgic
You better stop fearing the father
You better stop grieving for the father who died a decade ago
You better stop failing
You better stop being so self-conscious
You better start being more self-conscious
You better clean up your mess
You better heed my warning
You better discover some means of purging
You better hit upon a better way of doing things
You better employ a systematic approach
You better trust your intuition
Why don’t you watch where you’re going
You better do the things that must be done
You better stop doing the things you like to do
You better avoid manic episodes
You better improve your powers of observation
You better wake up and smell the coffee
You better think about what you’ve done
You better examine your conscience
You better do penance
You better get a handle on your situation
You better manage your affairs
You better find some sense of responsibility
You better
You better eliminate your preconceptions
You better correct your misapprehensions
You better overcome your addiction
You better substitute healthy habits for your bad ones
You better see yourself as others see you
You better get your head out of the clouds
You better tug your forelock
You better tip your hat
You better bend your knee
You better bow your head
You better start wearing a hat
You better outgrow this sickly confessional mode
You better strike a balance
You better exercise reason
You better learn some discipline
You better stop rock-throwing
You better stop mud-slinging
You better stop name-calling
You better stop acting like a lunatic an idiot a boor a tyrant a poser
A loser a supplicant a slattern a redneck a cripple a victim
A dim bulb a spoiled brat a weak entry a dirty hippie
A rat a bitch a toad a worm a blowfly a leech a pig
A sick puppy a scared rabbit
A miserable worthless piece of shit
You better prioritize your agenda
You better get organized
You better plan for every eventuality
You better start acting right
You better quit while you’re ahead

Granfalloon
meom-b
Maglev
Altria
Chwads
Prolly
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
Chud
Kleenex
Gote
Abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz&
Hafta
Lang
Mondegreen
Euery
Gwine
Methimpikehoses
Comintern
Xerox
Radiclibs
Poli sci
Yuzz
Runcible
Sanscreed
Shadooby
Nonox
Stripet
Leet
Agenbite
Outgrabe
Soxes
Millying
Elavil
Mansplain
Uneeda
Pwn
Flurge
Slithy
Brylcreem
Frilch
Perne

Bits of paper
The tops of pens
My own spinal column

All the regulatory signs
All the people who have suffered
All the ravages of time
All the heavenly bodies
All the aromas
All the solvents
All the statistics
All the systems
All the chance operations
All the accords
All the accommodations
All the fundamental disagreements
All the webs
All the films
All the television programs
All the photographs
All the musical compositions
All the folk tales
All the etiological myths
All the lapidary epigrams
All the breathless accounts
All the expostulations
All the replies
All the jingles
All the memos
All the menus
All the dwellings
All the garments
All the geological formations
All the verbose formulations
All the periphrases
All the items of food
All the items of drink
All the smiles of satisfaction
All the frowns of frustration
All the grimaces of discomfort
All the means of transportation
All the media of communication
All the warning signs
All the lengthy texts
All the novels
All the poems
All the low purple hums
All the plays
All the letters home
All the missives delivered and undelivered
All the sporting events
All the lullabyes
All the reveilles
All the surgical interventions
All the blemishes
All the legislatures
All the microorganisms
All the sneezes
All the groceries
All the ingredients
All the concoctions
All the plants
All the animals
All the mythical creatures
All the meteorological events
All the quizzes
All the public buildings
All the drawings
All the paintings
All the sculptures
All the playthings
All the overtures
All the futile attempts at comprehensiveness

All the lists

All the logical reasons for it ever to end
All the tables of the law
All the periodic tables
All the legal proceedings
All the sequences
All the break-in periods
All the durations
All the spatial determinants
All the instruments of measurement
All the apparatus of experimentation
All the doctrines
All the beliefs
All the paraphernalia
All the cultural practices
All the public performances
All the private performances
All the spontaneous overflows of powerful feelings
All the proper names
All the gestures
All the sabbaticals
All the holy days of obligation
All the weddings
All the funerals
All the rites of initiation
All the perfect jewels
All the ways out
All the bodies of water
All the chemical compounds
All the technological devices
All the devices that generate lists
All the extinct species
All the ineffable properties of the number five
All the mundane properties of the number seven
All the leaves on the tulip tree
All the people who have enjoyed moments of happiness
All the extravagant purchases
All the exorbitant demands
All the mirrors
All the lamps
All the thresholds
All the kinks
All the cracks
All the spills
All the bugs
All the glitches
All the tyrants
All the disruptions of the status quo
All the announcements
All the advertisements
All the educational institutions
All the inscriptions
All the ceremonies
All the addresses to personified abstractions
All the floors of elevators upon which one awakens
All the clubs
All the cabals
All the parties
All the teen-beat combos
All the associations
All the organizations
All the families nuclear and extended
All the guilds
All the fraternal orders
All the states of enmity
All the sharkhunt fights
All the oppositions
All the alliances
All the ministries
All the concealments
All the disclosures
All the admissions
All the confessions
All the concessions
All the professions
All the conundrums
All the consecrations
All the transubstantiations
All the desecrations
All the coercions
All the commandments
All the precepts
All the guidelines
All the bylaws
All the guilt trips
All the pennances
All the occasions upon which an infant laughed
All the tears
All the plans
All the magic casements
All the anagrams palindromes and homophones
All the serendipitous discoveries
All the linguistic signs
All the spatters
All the puddles
All the smears
All the stains
All the shocks
All the arbitrary decrees
All the mottled discolorations
All the Rorschach blots
All the surfaces
All the depths
All the subject headings
All the colorless green ideas
All the numbers
All the home furnishings
All the trades their gear and tackle and trim
All the wounds
All the triumphs
All the sacrifices
All the points of interest

All the gritty realistic portrayals of everyday life
All the wistful evocations of imaginary paradises
All the containers
All the multitudes
All the farm implements
All the metamorphoses
All the serious matters
All the superficial trivialities
All the instances of regeneration
All the instances of decay
All the instances of equilibrium
All the profuse strains of unpremeditated verse
All the intermezzos
All the objects of analysis
All the informational signs
All the footsteps on the stairs
All the gases
All the rationales
All the forms
All the ferrules
All the instances of wrongdoing
All the instances of aid to the afflicted
All the postures

All the apparatus of investigation
All the apparatus of torture
All the coinages
All the cliches
All the solecisms
All the malfunctions
All the miscarriages of justice
All the castings
All the flaws
All the heroes
All the victors
All the victims
All the foul discharges
All the experiences of ennui
All the bodily functions
All the diseases
All the organs
All the telsons
All the secretions
All the cascades
All the gushes
All the trickles
All the slow leaks
All the blockages
All the flows
All the filters
All the loaves
All the fishes
All the migrations
All the criminal acts
All the garrotes
All the gimlets
All the acts of kindness
All the thanks but no thanks
All the patrons
All the bins
All the keys
All the shelves
All the drawers
All the pigeon holes
All the pulverulent prisons
All the mechanisms for attachment
All the mechanisms for separation
All the stressors
All the divisions
All the denials
All the promises kept and unkept
All the prayers answered and unanswered
All the empty questions
All the burning issues
All the worn paths
All the litanies
All the tours de force
All the scenic vistas
All the distant prospects
All the sunsets
All the sunrises
All the synonyms
All the liquids
All the industries
All the inventories
All the iterations of the seasons
All the sentimental journeys
All the sentimental educations
All the denunciations of sentimentality
All the crusts
All the mantles
All the cores
All the violent releases of pressure
All the unexpected patterns to be encountered in the digits of pi
All the sonorities
All the cacophonies
All the shadows cast by spiders
All the birdsongs
All the monkeysongs
All the artsongs
All the raindrops
All the snowflakes
All the grains of sand
All the flowers born to blush unseen
All the languages
All the bargains
All the totalities
All the partialities
All the intermittences
All the taxonomies
All the ancestors
All the roads tracks tunnels and bridges
All the barrels the bottoms of which are scraped
All the broken things
All the raw materials
All the comfortable spots
All the waiting rooms
All the blurs
All the departments
All the processing centers
All the situations
All the pellucid images

All the dingbats
All the wazoos
All the dorks
All the nerds
All the dweebs
All the diggers
All the greasers
All the hair hoppers
All the ducktails
All the beehives
All the pompadours
All the shags
All the mullets
All the buzzcuts
All the floobooberbabbooberbubs
All the jive turkeys
All the poltroons
All the persons of low estate
All the outlaws
All the loners
All the rebels
All the joiners
All the pleasers
All the haters
All the iconoclasts
All the heralds
All the mediators
All the provocateurs
All the whatevers
All the watchamacallems
All the punks
All the hepcats
All the hippies
All the furries
All the sceners
All the zoots
All the doots
All the hoots
All the feet
All the coots
All the geezers
All the churls
All the incroyables
All the levelers
All the militants
All the buccaneers
All the riot grrrls
All the actors
All the conductors
All the symbolists
All the impressionists
All the surrealists
All the academicians
All the martial artists
All the socialists
All the communists
All the fascists
All the know-nothings
All the blanks
All the invisible men
All the authors of unpublished masterpieces
All the bohos
All the dandies
All the belles
All the fops
All the gangstas
All the mobsters
All the goons
All the koopas
All the monsters
All the aliens
All the interstellar travelers
All the ghostbusters
All the flatfoots
All the gumshoes
All the bluenoses
All the bluestockings
All the blues
All the assassins
All the fabulous babes
All the floozies
All the wenches
All the debutantes
All the ingenues
All the ecdysiasts
All the topless cellists
All the pioneer women
All the wise old women
All the weird sisters
All the sweet little rock and rollers
All the invitations for the ladies of the town to keep a secret
All the hanged men
All the brides
All the gurus
All the ephebes
All the veterans
All the volunteers
All the giants
All the assholes
All the urbanites
All the narcissists
All the attention babies
All the utilitarians
All the pragmatists
All the logical positivists
All the Young Hegelians
All the post-structuralists
All the feminists
All the neo-Kantians
All the existentialists
All the anarchists
All the humanitarians
All the wealthy philanthropists
All the innovators
All the functionaries
All the killjoys
All the Luddites
All the suburbanites
All the vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods
All the wretched refuse of all the teeming shores
All the guests in the cheap seats
All the current or former slaves
All the people who have enslaved others
All the complacent bourgeoises
All the literati
All the cognoscenti
All the intelligentsia
All the bureaucrats
All the middle managers
All the proletarian agitators
All the job titles
All the labels
All the masks
All the stereotypes
All the blanket condemnations
All the sweeping generalizations
All the inexplicable outliers
All the fleeting ideations
All the wasted efforts
All the quite useless creations
All the gratuitous displays of erudition
All the plasmas
All the rhetorical devices
All the catalogues
All the indices
All the directions
All the verbs nouns pronouns adjectives adverbs conjunctions preposi
All the instructions
All the injunctions
All the permissions
All the freaks and capers of my cat Citrus
All the prohibitions
All the advisements
All the pleadings
All the scoldings
All the solids
All the terms
All the pegs
All the awls
All the sticks
All the sentences
All the ambiguities
All the comedic resolutions
All the sudden realizations of the hideous truth
All the humorous remarks
All the runcible spoons
All the lamentations
All the delusions
All the sources
All the derivations
All the roots of trees
All the horses in midstream
All the nonsense syllables
All the quotations
All the attributions
All the successful or unsuccessful attempts at deception
All the echoes and borrowings
All the geometrical figures
All the places
All the stations
All the apparitions
All the faces
All the crowds
All the petals
All the melancholy long withdrawing roars
All the colors
All the boughs
All the intoxicants
All the visions
All the judgments
All the worlds within worlds
All the worlds turned upside down
All the world-historical crazies
All the monuments of unageing intellect
All the ephemera
All the ineffectual tactics
All the herbs and spices
All the speeches that fall trippingly off the tongue
All the words that are hard to pronounce
All the hasps
All the ridges
All the symptoms
All the inspirations that come too quickly to be recorded
All the records
All the orations
All the ideas that seemed good at the time
All the blows
All the kisses
All the slings
All the arrows
All the dreams
All the rhyming words
All the memories
All the failures of memory
All the neurological disorders
All the certain slants of light
All the shivering intimations of mortality
All the celebrations
All the contraptions
All the embroidered fantails
All the doors of perception
All the processes
All the phenomena
All the noble defeats
All the deepest secret fears
All the items that appear in more than one list
All the things that are longer than than they are wide
All the finales
All the expressions of undying love
All the undying expressions of love

Baby when it comes to deep
I brought lunch
‘Cause I’m staying all day

Beware
Lest they whom you know to be true geniuses
Wreak awful retribution for your neglect

Melneess culd jusay emb pulrol
Clud jusay prulrol
Mensu
Mimbor sleesse Hsaste trayzomb
Lowayz
Kli dim crals somb breh
Somb bhleh
Vwaddis calmbombis
Ven heor

The purple hum as the panic subsides
The rabbit hole that fictional construct opens out
Into a world populated by motifs from the upper world
There’s Zelda that’s Halo
That’s Myst that’s Wolfenstein
Kill the Boss and be carried home in triumph

But a real undertaking like Pacman Tetris or Galaxian
Cannot be won but only prolonged
The luckiest player a set of initials
On a high score list and a dark purple hum

I can’t say I can’t
For I have been forbidden to do so
An injunction I can’t obey
And so I can’t say I can’t say I can’t

The great achieve perfection
As I have read in books
As for example the communion of
Sound and sense in poetry

Elegant lineation
Precise punctuation
Forceful diction
Verbs without nominalization

I can’t say I’m a bad person
I can’t even say I’m a bad poet
I can’t make it easy for the critics
The critics don’t seek to look to chase to find me

See any metaphors
Hear any images
Cobble any synaesthesia
Who’s this I I can’t say

I can’t imitate the great masters
I can’t perceive the method of their achievements
I can perceive the achievements barely
I can’t say that I am impotent

I can’t say that I never enjoy pleasure
I can’t conceive of purity
As for example of pleasure
Unmixed with pain

I can’t take action
I can’t rest assured of success
I can’t win
I can’t show up

I can’t stop myself from thieving
I can’t control impulse
I can’t give in to impulse
I can’t give in to enjoyment

Others have expressed the failure of the gift of speech
Others have described the crash of lofty ambitions
Others have detailed the anguish of ineffectual lovers ineffectual warriors
I can’t do that

These trees that promise continuity
This rainy weather that softens the light
These birds who murmur their ecstasy
This music forever new and as old as ruins

I can’t enumerate the stars we see
I can’t call to mind my favorite color
I can’t call to mind my mother’s face
I can’t draw a straight line

I can’t lacerate myself efficiently
I can’t draw blood from a poor turnip
I can’t avoid cliches or adjectives without insistence
I can’t remember my sins

I can’t say I can’t say I can’t say I can’t say I can’t say I can’t
You know what that means
Tomorrow never comes for the lazy worker
I can’t decide what I’m talking about

I can’t irony
I can’t contradict myself
I am partial
I spill

Om shanti
That’s right
That’s right
Not a tender leaf trembles on the tulip tree
No logical requirement that it should ever end
Dwelling
Automatic
Quartz vibration
Appendices
Bam boom
Sibilant
Laying his finger aside of his nose
Large I contain
Gearhead
Impressionable
Misplaced optimism
Truly plastic
Westward expansion
Conundrum
Obverse
Organization
Airplane’s shadow
Sammy’s dead
Callous
Of the senses
Technical processes
Cerebration
Garish
Hot kitten
Blood-stained spoils
Indication
Within
Murmuring innumerable
The good foot
Embalmed
Metabolism
Zee zee zee
That’s right
Already
Alright
Uncle was a better dry cleaner
Vocal
Smell of burning
Good extension
Phloem
Seafoam
A pointing gesture swept from left to right
Effrent
Category
Boogie woogie
Replay
Rewind
At the buzzer
Cheers mate
Traffic as it were in a circle
Germ
Shadooby
With rainwater
Gust
Character
Somebody’s house is burning down down
That’s right
Soldier
Sailor
Masque
Career night
Airplanes ‘twas beauty killed the
Minute
Systematic
Throw it away
Sha la la la la la la la
Destiny
Without doing
Manifold
Evasion not suppression
See how the fates their gifts allot
Charm
Venus her zone
Vessel
What comes in
Medulla
Omnipotent reigneth
Sherry
Will he make it
Open form
Yeah
Om shanti shanti
That’s right

Your fragile mineral assemblage
Your watery solute
Here comes your dissolution

Your social practices
Your dependencies
Your fear of abandonment

Your many cravings
Never to be pleased
Your susceptibilities

Your senses gratified
Or offended
As the case may be

Your experiences
Your learned abilities
Your autonomic reflexes

Your hostilities
Ready at defense
Your struggle for existence

Poor humans
Not fastened to a dying animal
But the dying animal itself

Hear the voice that says
I may injure you
I’m a genius

Your life spanned the Twentieth Century
You lived at the center of that terrible epoch
Between the Spanish flu and chemotherapy
The crises political and economic
The vast carnival of death unthinkable in its scope
The charging forward of bewildering technology
You took the wounds shared in the triumph
Buried conflict within yourself within your family
Though conflict will not remain hidden forever
You tried to make yourself a poet in advanced old age
A painter applying color affirming goodness
At last you affirmed your love
You never neglected that
But you never told us how it felt
How it felt to be shot to pieces
To swim upon the ocean
The very waters aflame

People weep
They don’t just cry or bawl
Or raise vociferous lamentation

People shed tears
Grief in the body
Flowing out into the world

A great boxer famous
For the grimness of his visage
Remained undefeated
Until the match when he was felled
By a fatal blow

He smiled as he lay supine
And exclaimed in his dying words
At last I have learned how to lose

A sensitive
But mannered
Performance

When all is unsatisfactory
And things that are
Are worse than nothing

When windshear vitiates transportation
Aircraft fail to land safely
Cars are blown off the thoroughfare

When reports come in
Of the machinery of war
The chemistry the radioactivity of war

When weather moves
From amusingly changeable
To threateningly hostile

When memories invade
Of infestations and injustices
In sleepless nights alone

When doubts creep in
That the future might be even worse
Than the bitter past

When nothing is satisfactory
And nothing is worse
Than things that are

When emptiness worse than satedness
And vacancy worse than occupancy
Attend your projects

Then throw it out
Or carry it out

Say silently where we were when first we loved
And again speak only in words inaudible
Where we were when first we wept
And again where when our sorrow
Lay too deeply for expression

Time hides her machinery
Permitting only the sharpest turning points to show
Like babes peeping out from the bedclothes
And space so variously furnished
Like the shadow of an airplane passing over the landscape

Ah beloved
You punish me
With your martyrdom

The golden cup
Even so in which
We mix our memories

The pain we have caused
The pain we have suffered
The joys we happen upon

We lack language
To express
Our persistence

Why we remain
Or is it
Mere inertia

We are old
Dear beloved
Old and ignorant

A tulip tree
Vessel of peace
With three trunks

We could
Have chosen otherwise
The choice remains

And yet and yet
Daily we renew
Even on bad days

Daily we charge
Without a thought
The golden cup