CONFETTI

Mother and father
making love in
the past is like
a poem that

improves over time
without having to
change a single
word. The mere

mention of infinity
forces the dreamer
to kneel inside
himself while confetti

rains down upon
his head.

EXTRANEOUS

Events extraneous to
a poem can rearrange
the meaning of its
words. For example,

the value of anything
depends on who
is saying what and
on why they are

not dancing instead.
They should be
dancing. It says
so in the poem,

and the poem is never
wrong about dancing.

BETTER

Any country you
can love or leave
is a country no
one in his right

mind would want
to visit. You
might as well
end up in Texas

or Arizona and
get shot by
someone who
doesn't have

anything better
to do.

STUFF

To speak of a
subject is to risk
affirming what
cannot be correctly

understood. Silence
is its own reward.
It cannot pronounce
anyone's name. A

work of art trying
too hard to understand
itself is in danger of
turning into stuff

that can be used
for almost anything.

UNFINISHED

The sense in which
every symphony
(every work of art)
is unfinished is the

sense in which
nothing is all
there is. If the
work were in fact

finished, we would
have no interest
in it. Or we would
have no choice but

to throw eggs at
it until it stopped.

EXPERIMENTAL

The monkeys we
sent into space
wept like grown
men upon their

return. Their thoughts
weighed less than the
thoughts weighing
upon our minds. We

bred our national genius
with our poet laureate
and obtained a poem
whose DNA matched

the DNA of our
national criminal.

FINISHED

Some poets are not
above being understood,
provided any work
done on the surface

is allowed to stir
the deeper meaning
underneath. Gold,
confident of its

value, hides itself
in hard-to-find
pockets of greed.
I wasn't finished

when I said that,
but now I am.