Why Do You Love the Poem? Charles Bernstein

 

Why Do You Love the Poem?

Charles Bernstein

For the sentiment. — Then you don’t love the poem you love the sentiment. For the message. — Then you don’t love the poem you love the message. For the music. — Then you don’t love the poem you love the music. For the spirit. — Then you don’t love the poem you love the spirit. For the intelligence. — Then you don’t love the poem you love the intelligence.  For the courage. — Then you don’t love the poem you love the courage. For the inspiration. — Then you don’t love the poem you love the inspiration.  For the emotion. — Then you don’t love the poem you love the emotion.  For the vocabulary. — Then you don’t love the poem you love the vocabulary.  For the poet. — Then you don’t love the poem you love the poet. For the meaning. — Then you don’t love the poem you love the meaning. For what it stands for. — Then you don’t love the poem you love what it stands for. For the words. — Then you don’t love the poem you love the words. For the syntax. — Then you don’t love the poem you love the syntax. For the politics. — Then you don’t love the poem you love the politics. For the beauty. — Then you don’t love the poem you love the beauty. For the outrage. — Then you don’t love the poem you love the outrage. For the tenderness. — Then you don’t love the poem you love the tenderness. For the hope. — Then you don’t love the poem you love the hope.  For itself. — Then you love the poem.

Dada poem2

 And I laugh at the same time.

I laugh and I laugh at my face.

You knew better than you did it?

It is our shame that we are freedom of the world.

It sounds like a good idea to be disgusted by the world of freedom.

If you're going into the world of your own experience,

You are amazing!

This shame that you don't have to be disgusted by your own opinion?

It was nothing but shameful.

If I laugh at the moment I laugh,

It is a lot of freedom.

You have no idea of freedom of being in any country!

For a Coming Extinction BY W. S. MERWIN

For a Coming Extinction

BY W. S. MERWIN

Gray whale

Now that we are sending you to The End

That great god

Tell him 

That we who follow you invented forgiveness

And forgive nothing

I write as though you could understand

And I could say it

One must always pretend something

Among the dying

When you have left the seas nodding on their stalks

Empty of you

Tell him that we were made

On another day

The bewilderment will diminish like an echo

Winding along your inner mountains

Unheard by us

And find its way out

Leaving behind it the future

Dead

And ours

When you will not see again

The whale calves trying the light

Consider what you will find in the black garden

And its court

The sea cows the Great Auks the gorillas

The irreplaceable hosts ranged countless

And fore-ordaining as stars

Our sacrifices

Join your word to theirs

Tell him

That it is we who are important