no matter what you tell yourself
alice olds ellington
The flowers of evil deck out underneath
your skin. You are a weed down there,
a dandelion at best. Oh, I wish I were
a dandelion and not a roast goose! How
impossible it is to be like a book of optimism.
Like the book that tells you you have the power
to choose and that's all you need to know in
40 pages. I trust poetry much more. At least,
it does not try to conquer anything. It tries
to describe anything. Sometimes, poetry
succeeds in moving me to the sun. Sometimes
it has pathos which I understand down in my
small marrow. This kind of truth I can stand.
The other, the kind that tells you it's easy,
I hate that.