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*Creeley. Echoes 1982. no page numbers

Here is a little chapbook published by the Toothpaste Press that just happens to include several of Creeley's best poems. There is not a clunker in the book. Take "Stone":

Be as careful, as rational,
as you will but know
nothing of such kind is true

more than fits the skin
and so covers what's within
with another soft covering

that can leave the bones alone,
that can be as it will alone,
and stays as quiet, as stable, as stone.


What I like here is the mixture of sententiousness--the poem is giving well-meant advice--and the impossibility of following the advice. You can be careful, wise, but it makes no difference beyond a certain point. You are stuck in your own skin.