Cusp Baby

We will never know our capabilities.

We will not be pushed to break.

We will not see the edge of the earth.

We will not find the spot marked “Here

     there be Monsters.”

We will not struggle with faulty classical thought.

We will never find a place to call home.

We will never suffer purple fits of depression.

We will not confuse choice with preference.

We will not confuse preference with will.

We will never abide will when want will do.

We will not seek attentions.

We will not again hunt mice at three a.m.

We will avoid cities with frightening names such as “Devil’s Lark,”

     “Alberta,” and “Athens.”

We will never side with the Spartans in their timeless struggles.

We will never stand on Gibraltar’s rock.

We will never miss the experience.

We will not be bored by repetition.

We will not be bored by repetition.

We will not be distressed by split infinitives.

We will not consider split infinitives metaphors.

We will never be indentured slaves to formalism.

We will never find formalism daunting in its preciseness.

We will never consider preciseness a quality to desire.

We will not measure wood for a house frame.

We will not accurately balance a checkbook.

We will not consider poetry a revolt.

We will not consider the implications of poetry suffering

     from social functions.

We will not consider Strand a bad imitation of Stevens

     no matter what certain disparagers tell us.

We will not consider Strand a good poet

     no matter what certain apostates tell us.

We will not consider Strand.

We will not cash in our chips.

We will not count our eggs.

We will never count meter before syntax.

We will not count didacticism as a deadly sin.

We will not mix our blues.

We will not run from oncoming waves.

We will not hide from the difficult questions.

We will not clarify if we are referring to music or to color.

We will not decide between tidal waves 

     or waves of emotion.

We will not let you find us in our garden.

We will not ring the tricycle bell.

We will not wipe our feet before we come in.

We will not run on forever.

We will not avoid puddles or mud holes.

We will never consider the implications of abusing punctuation.

We will never enjoy the sonorous effects of tarpaulined trampolines,

     no matter our personal inclination.

We will never again use the words ‘crux,’ ‘nadir,’ ‘zenith,’

     or ‘crush,’ without just and righteous cause.

We will not “let other pens dwell on guilt and misery.”

We will not let Ms. Jane Austen tell us what to do.

We will not walk away from our piano lessons again.

We will not take piano lessons again.

We will not quibble over the choice of ivory for the white keys.

We will never confuse Erato for Calliope again when discussing 

     the muses.

We will never confuse Poetics for Rhetorics again when discussing

     the confusions such distinctions bring.

We will not more than once or twice confuse our distractions 

     with our muses.  Or vice versa.

We will not question the rough beast.

We will not become confused in our perplexities.

We will not blurt out your name in our confusion.

We will not be perplexed when we blurt out your name.

We will not follow completely the logic of the Tractatus.

We will not follow completely the logic of the Gospels.

We will never know the complete number of the Gospels.

We will not distinguish between John and Thomas.

We will not bare in mind our homonyms and 

     they’re repercussions.

We will not be tried.

We will not be blue.

We will not be borrowed.

We will not be true.

We will not hunt despair nor dwell in the house of abiding sanctity.

We will not plead not guilty nor for our sanity.

We will not claim to have heard when you called.

We will not return your call.

We will not heed all our days our own rhythms, 

     our own seditious acts of memory,

We will not heed the moment we meant something,

     we will never know what something meant.

We will not fall into the traps of glory that New Formalism

     proposes to offer.

We will not fall into the glorious traps that come

     from the Old Formalisms.

We will never walk the fence.

Our hands on our hearts, we will never

     be still,

     be stopped.

© 2007-08/12 – Mark A. Douglas – All Rights Reserved