Poems, like lives, are doing what we can
And very different from what we know.
They start surprisingly, like blood in bones.
The unlucky wake up bleeding at the nose
For no reason they can see; a shallow cut
Elicits from them the disquieting jet
Of blood, of blood; they usually die.
But poets thrive on it, as if the muses
(Like Dr. ……………. in some worn-out memoir)
Found bleeding adequate for anything;
Becoming in time, almost, autonomous.
It would be nice if this were all.
Dried, or preserved in jars, and certified
By experts of some bureau of the State,
It would be found invaluable, like pots,
To show all sorts of things about an age:
What the people worshiped, whom they ate.
For centuries the reconstructed cultures
That festered uncertainly in someone’s heart
Would pale and warp among the glances
And dessication of a gallery
Where children in coveralls would falter:
“The diseases glitter darkly, like a jewel.”
One sees der Ubermensch endow
A Chair of Paleohaemolysis.
And one can work it out in terms of tears.
But blood is nothing, tears are nothing: pain,
The evil the dumb schools traverse like a sea
Are equally the ground of everything, the Cause
The humblest of our cries comes huddling from.
The poem is not distinguished in its source;
The wise will class its nurture with a qualm;
And who has comprehended the determiners
That smoke like dry ice from the witches’ brew:
The spirit curling from the careful page
To call the hair up on another age?
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