Poetry Month: Day Seventeen

A quote journal poem for Sunday.  As I re-read over my old journals, it is good to read the things I wanted to remind me.










John Tagliabue



Will you stop for a while, stop trying to pull yourself

     together

for some clear "meaning" - some momentary summary?

     no one

can have poetry or dances, prayers or climaxes all day;

     the ordinary

blankness of little dramatic consciousness is good for the

     health sometimes,

only Dostoevsky can be Dostoevskian at such long

     long tumultuous stretches;

look what that intensity did to poor great Van Gogh!;

     linger, lunge,

scrounge and be stupid, that doesn't take much centering

     of one's forces;

as wise Whitman said "lounge and invite the soul."  Get

     enough sleep;

and not only because (as Cocteau said) "poetry is the

     literature of sleep";

be a dumb bell for a few minutes at least; we don't want

     Sunday church bells

     ringing constantly.

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