EEL CHORD

Enough
fluid hokum,
molten dweeb.
Atop berg,
vine diva

davens

steam:

rusting fronds,
sweat lines
on sky
level. Stunned
mica blush.

--Thomas Fink (from After Taxes)

The sheer hilarity of this illustrates the Kenneth Koch motto I have in my blog description immediately to your left. Comedy is as cathartic, as cleansing, as tragedy. That such poetry should exist at all should fill us with wonder and awe and make us laugh out loud. ("Daven" means "to pray" in Yiddish, by the way. I had to look it up.) A little bit of Fink's poetry goes a long way. "Motel / with permanent no- / vacancy scowl: chipped latex." The exactitude of that, corrosive. A benchmark. Measure it against poets who subtract rather than add to the language. It's an ethical imperative for me. There is truth in my exaggerations.