On the New Poetry
for Blossom Dearie
by GREG PURCELL
It must be stupid.
It must benefit our friends and benefactors in the least offensive way.
It must close ranks on the unknown.
It must switch to merely geologic time, which may be too much.
It must know that to be attentive is to kill.
It must know that a gimmick is as fine as any shape.
It must know that the videogame Panzer Dragoon Orta is better, because it is lurid
and can be judged by its mechanics.
It must know that the animals will die with us.
It must know good wine like Clayton Eshelman not at all.
It must know that ineffectual anger follows the times.
It must use heightened poetic diction even among mixed company, for heightened diction
displays that idiocy which connects us to the common animal life.
For the animals know their heightened diction and are the stupidest on earth.
