“Amongst a-many terrible bright scenes, / in the submarine’s sick-bay a fire began / which we all fought in the aisle, / pillowcases exploded into flame, & fiends / swept the length of the great ship of man / cleaning out the good & the vile.” John Berryman (DS, 317)
no shy realization
through the night being abandoned
my father precious dark expanses i had not
before actually it was guilty answers
i was the guilty answer i was guilty at being away for
confident hours every precious day
turning away
it was guilt before
actually it was guilty answers
i wasn't anger i was away from
i was guilty for the night
guilt at distant bedlam actually
i felt like
i had gone
to stay
it was guilt at being away
it wasn't anger at not being
it wasn't anger at being son set
not being away from a father
it was guile sprung the net
“The effort to obtain an intelligible account of central reality is the effort that informs my dreams for poetry. I aspire not to be an obscure writer, nor to be, as it were, the blinded son, but in fact, to find some congruence between thr profoundest implications of voice, on the one hand, and the mortal clarity, on the other.” Allen Grossman
a unifying intersection
the poet adds his sight
remembers the long line
of memories rare poetry
is a musical achievement
poetry of prose the book
of another writer
writes his vocation
into existence
the poet then like a fine
wined philosopher will fill
his mind unlaboredly
one represents apparent statements
by the capacity of the wild world of
the creatureliness of the reader
serve as poet and achieve
bravery through the impossible
bomb a harvard with engagement
Grossman, Allen R, Mark Halliday, Allen R. Grossman, and Allen R. Grossman. The Sighted Singer: Two Works on Poetry for Readers and Writers. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992. Page 97. Print.
