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We are a public forum committed to collective reasoning and the imagination of a more just world. Join today to help us keep the discussion of ideas free and open to everyone, and enjoy member benefits like our quarterly books.
what would be more agreeable, to be Jean whose blue eyes are a running stream
over small obstructions (until Jeanette lights the blue candles)
or Paul "breathlessly eager" to "enjoy her favorable comment," e.g.,
that his face in the late apple-juice light was almost too much beauty,
like bark chopped off a cedar or a yellow bee
ticking clockwise on a red clover—not less choice
than that? (certainly she was pleased to be at dinner
with one so breathlessly eager.) or regard Jeanette, who thinks
happiness a swaying bridge and not unlike. (sit near her, Paul, she's
taken a liking to you.) a flag on which I sew a sprinkler's mathematics
tells how much can be locally told of waters formerly infuriate.
what would be more agreeable, to be Jeanette's white neck lit by Paul?
well, she wants Jean now, cold Jean—stupid Jeanette—
whereas Paul—vain, drunk, and stupid—wants everyone.
reader, I know you miss the romantic master-pieces of yesteryear,
you're like thinking how can anything come to be now, distinct,
like to an orange bee on pink clover. yes, they all drum on "like,"
the likenesses, as if to hear the discriminate/indiscriminate rain.
Calvin Bedient’s fifth book of poems, The Breathing Place, will be published next year by Omnidawn. He is the founder and coeditor of Lana Turner: A Journal of Poetry & Opinion.
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