Because I Don't Confront You
Because I don't confront you
doesn't mean this tree
doesn't know how to stand up to the wind.
If I bend like a river reed in a current
I'll still be here
long after the current has passed.
To the unenlightened it's inconceivable
there's nothing to win
because both opposites are empty.
Take empty from empty it's still empty.
No reason to put a gun to your head to check it out.
Just because you've got a trigger
like the first crescent of the moon
doesn't mean you have to pull it.
Three for three.
Blood and cartridges.
Strange lipstick.
But you're still banking on the one that's empty.
Those that have the power to hurt
but will do none.
Shakespeare.
Sonnet 94.
Lonely advice to those who never take it.
And it's not hard to imagine
better things to do in the world
than trade barbs and stingers
with third world killer bees.
And there's nothing unholier than a holy war.
Or a faith that festers
because it doesn't know
how to clean a wound properly.
Even maggots make better nurses than that.
And besides
as unlikely as it seems at times
I'd rather be loved than right.
I don't want to lie down with a woman at night
like a body count.
You say I'm not in touch with reality
as if reality were some kind of guillotine
you expected me to stick my neck out for
swanning on the block.
No.
I don't stay in touch much
with French executioners.
But I can see the world as you see it.
A snakepit with the occasional apple-tree.
You think of reality as a hard medicine
you have to wince like a lemon to take
but if you ask me
the way you put it
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poem by Patrick White
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