A Poem Is A Window That Hangs

These People You Used To See Every Day, Friends Or Acquaintances, After A While They Become As Distant As Any Stranger, People You Suddenly Recall Late At Night--you Remember Something They Said Or Something Silly That Someone Once Did. For A Few Moments They Completely Occupy Your Mind; Then You Forget Them Again.

They Are Asleep. This Is The Condition They Prefer. They Are Afraid Of The World And Sleep Is A Way Of Dealing With Their Fear. Someday They Will Wake. Perhaps Something Frightful Will Happen. Indeed, There Is No Better Invitation To The Frightful Than Ignorance - That Is, Sleep. (29)

My Wife's Dying Upstairs And I Can't Do Anything About It. I Look In Her Face And I See The Memories There. I See How I Hurt Her And How I Said The Wrong Things And How I Got Angry And How I Wasn't The Man She Hoped I'd Be. I See That In Her Face And I See She's Going To Die With That. You Think I'm Not Preoccupied?

For The Past Thirty Years Or So, Much American Poetry Has Been Marked By An Earnestness That Rejects The Comic. This Has Nothing To Do With Seriousness. The Comic Can Be Very Serious. The Trouble With The Earnest Is That It Seeks To Be Commended. It Seeks To Be Praised For Its Intention More Than For What It Is Saying.

There's A Welsh Poet, R.s. Thomas. He Was A Very Crotchety, Strange Man, But His Poems Are Wonderful. He Was Nominated For The Nobel In The 1990s But Never Won.