They say romantic love must be
manufactured by poetry,
in songs, and such.
It doesn't really exist.
We've all heard this, and after some thought,
I think it's true.
I know someone's reading this and it better be you.
There is the indifference I feel,
and in those cases, love certainly isn't real.
Yet indifference makes me mad with romantic love.
The only difference
is now it's your indifference;
it's your indifference I feel---
and then---isn't that funny?---love is real.
I know someone's reading this and it better be you.
Yes, there are moments when attraction is mutual,
but that's because of sex---that's not romantic love.
Indifference is obedient to something more profound.
It has something to do with the Doppler effect,
the memory of someone disappearing. And sound.
I know someone's reading this and it better be you.
The amount of indifference in the world is positively astounding.
It protects our feelings.
Plus the world is vast, enthusiasm is limited.
What do you think of my indifference theory?
Tell me how it's false. Or give voice to how it's true.
I know someone's reading this and it better be you.
You think the world is wrong---
which is right, you are supposed to think the world is wrong---
because virtue is invisible.
Anxiety tortures you and you ignore it.
As Edgar Poe and T.S. Eliot
described the superior poet,
escaping emotion is art.
We need the beautiful stoic.
Yes, truly, virtue is invisible.
Virtue's courage doesn't make a sound.
They would be virtuous if they came around.
They would find it here if they came here,
quietly standing its ground.
Their virtue, when displayed,
gets more and more insane.
What is this parade, parading on the train?
Poetry held the hyacinths. Poetry made it plain.
What weather forecast is this, forbidding all the rain?
They want their virtue recorded,
but this is not where virtue is supposed to go.
In Lincoln it remained hidden.
All the mother can say:
"I know, I know, I know."
Most poets are doing something else
you would rather not be involved with,
like a stranger who suddenly starts talking to you---
and immediately you need to listen,
as you need to determine quickly whether or not
they are crazy.
Most poetry is either crazy,
which you don't like, or boring,
which is even worse.
Most poets bank on the fact
that you like words, which you do.
But most of them lecture. Oh God are you through?
Most poets are just fooling around.
The best ones have sense inside their sense,
sound inside their sound.
“I was feeling rather seasick as the ceiling flew away.” —Procol Harum
Not being glorious,
glory was allowed to you for a short time.
I checked. Not once were you mentioned in my rhyme.
Not being glorious,
you went back to your old habits, when
the culture changed---
and life fell into bad taste, again.
I listened to that song your band wrote
in awe one afternoon.
You stole it from Bach, didn't you?
All sunny days will be forgotten soon.
Not being glorious---
and even common things: nudity, a harmony which descends,
poems, can be glorious---
you rally, sadly, as your song, draped in glory, ends.
Do you think it won't always be the same?
It will always be the same.
The thing which started you will never stop.
The mind which you had is staying.
You were made more precisely than you know.
The voices which knit the world together
are precisely your own.
Believe, or not believe, according to hopes
populating you and stretching
too far to know.
You don't know French, but "pour moi" nonetheless resonated.
You heard the nearly forgotten French singer
romantically sing that phrase enthusiastically.
Standing at the refrigerator, you wept,
thinking on life generally:
for me, for me, for me.
Judgment is always a mistake,
even when it's correct.
In that moment there is a break
between the world and its world,
Every instance of seeing, a mistake.
The world is simply the world
and there is no separation at all.
What temporarily triumphs in judgment
will finally tear and appall.
The villain knows this---
judging nonetheless,
in some poetic mode---
complimenting the dress.
We want there to be seeing.
Oh sad being!
Einstein had, like all of us,
with the instinct of a perfect golf swing,
an ancient, universal, need.
Light, he realized, isn't fast.
Light is speed.
The thing needs me more than I need it. The bullshit needs the poet more than the poet needs the bullshit, if I may be so bold, your honor. The caffeinated middle class anxiously reads the horror in the poetry of the intoxicated rich and poor. But I drink nothing but water, your honor. I know what your honor is for.
In the eating and fornicating realm,
poets never know what to do.
Everyone wants particular things
and they want to be wanted, too.
In the eating and fornicating realm,
poets focus on the higher things:
upper branches moving slightly in the wind,
a bird there which sings.
In the eating and fornicating realm,
we hold our image in our hands;
we experience heartbreak afterwards
which none of us quite understands.
In the eating and fornicating realm,
asking only for ourselves
in the form of another person---
our reason dies as it delves.
In the eating and fornicating realm,
a beautiful, wayward boy
laughed and for that laugh was hated---
sorrow destroyed by aimless joy.
August had five clouds.
I counted them one day.
The sun certainly attracted crowds
that August you went away.
May had four dreams.
What was significant about each one was the same.
It was you in each one.
And I was always to blame.
June had three plans.
I leaned in closer to hear what you said.
A lively yellow band played
on the pier when you fled.
July made happy circles.
You began to grow distant, just as I had feared.
Gossip was just beyond my reach
the summer you disappeared.
They should be able to see the issue from all sides
and distinguish the sincere actor from the plant.
They might possibly spy the gist through the mist
but they can't.
You've been speaking with them for hours.
You refute the platform, the ideas and the chant.
They try to remember the facts you gave them
but they can't.
The foreign policy which crippled Cathay,
The document that was forged, the dictator's rant.
They should be able to connect the dots
but they can't.
When I started, I was not a poet.
She opened the door with a toothbrush in her hand.
"You always have a toothbrush," I said.
"And you always comment on it."
Everyone assumes he is gay,
but my girlfriend makes him pant.
Both love me. Oh they should love me; both should love me
but they can't.
My kisses did not wound her.
My poems didn't even make her sad.
Do you remember the innocence of nineteen sixty five?
The love I poured on her was not harmful at all, it turned out.
They found my lover alive.
I could make billions with a placebo vaccine
for a secret virus affecting the already sick.
Millions would be vaccinated---because thousands would refuse.
Human nature would play into my hands.
Love rewarded me similarly.
It wasn't just my poetry.
We do something because others don't want us to do it.
At the time we don't know we are doing it for that reason.
Her friends talked to her about the poetry.
Objectivity finally prevailed.
We loved because it wasn't right---
but we didn't need to know this.
Do we need insights?
No. We need love, and what if it's fake?
As long as we swoon. As long as we ache.
Pretty likes to be pretty,
adopting the fashions of the city,
but beauty gets revenge.
The female race as a whole
is patient and good. This took its toll
when beauty got revenge.
The men were conquered
after they conquered. Men
lost interest in children
when beauty took revenge.
When beauty took revenge,
they no longer asked, who will have children?
"Not me, not me,"
whispered bad poetry and modernity.
The men said not a word.
Why should they? That would be absurd.
No one said a word
when beauty took revenge.
Women worked at beautiful.
They thought men asked, don't we need children?
The error of gender. No,
it was the world.
Scarriet 