Against the Evidence: Selected Poems, 1934–1994

Lightly

Time has happened to me, minute hand on face of the earth. Earth is a happiness of its own as running water as flowing grass as the flight of birds. In This Dream I Do Not Exist In this dream I do not exist. This I know since it is my dream. How have I come to that conclusion when it is I who dream it? No one else thinks I do not exist but no one has enquired because no one knows I am dreaming. Therefore, since to myself I do not exist, it istrue simply because I say so. This, then, is the problem: when I cease to dream will I exist or not exist? I would like to become nothing for the pleasure of the great leap beyond being that becoming nothing alone can achieve. I can become nothing because I am something and I am something because it can lead to nothing. Can I ask of my life more than that it bring me to its transcendence, that I should be in search of it, as the work of being itself? My dream, then, of not existing is my being telling me where I must go and what I must welcome as the rounding out of my completeness. I say this in the best of health and in expectation of a long life. Lightly To look for meaning is as foolish as to find it. What does one make of a sea shell of such and such color and shape, an ear or a trumpet, rose and grey? It has been spat upon the shore out of the sea's mouth. Is this what we mean by our thinking? This, in wonder? So 777 that thought itself must pause, holding the shell lightly, letting it go lightly. I'm a Depressed Poem You are reading me now and thanks. I know I feel a bit better and if you will stay with me a little longer, perhaps take me home with you and introduce me to your friends, I could be delighted and change my tone. I lie in a desk drawer, hardly ever getting out to see the light and be held. It makes me feel so futile for having given birth to myself in anticipation. I miss a social life. I know I made myself for that. It was the start of me. I'm grateful that you let me talk as much as this. Youprobably understand , from experience; gone through something like ityourself which may be why you hold me this long. I've made you thoughtful and sad and now there are two of us. I think it'sfun. Hello A prominent poet receives a national award for the perfect form of his poems. Hello, drug addict, can you become a poem of perfect form? Hello, Mafia, can you become a poem of perfect form? Hello, schizoid person, can you become a poem of perfect form? Hello, raped girl, can you become a poem of perfect form? Hello, dead, napalmed man, can you become a poem ofperfect form? Hello, incinerated Jew, can you become a poem of perfectform? If you can't, then you don't deserve to live. You'redead, don't exist; we want clean earth; get out, get going, get lost. We have built a house for ourselves called the Perfect Form and we're trying to live in it, and if you can't take your napalmed body and your drug-addicted brain 772 | Poems of the 1970s ...