i.

Exhausted by talk
of the only happy life

ii.

Lao Tsu! You are hardly on my mind.

iii. (churchgoing)

Their babies scream as I walk in
quietly

iv.

I answer in 8 words
longer thoughtful letters

***

I wrote the poem above in 1977; it is also going to incorporated in the "religious poem" that I have been commissioned to write by David Shapiro.


***

I picked up a copy of the Chicago Review (special issue on Dorn). An added bonus was Andrea Brady's completely devastating dismantling of Don Paterson's introduction to a recent anthology of British poetry. It's the best skewering of the conservative view of poetry I've seen recently.