Quick One Before I Go
Quick One Before I Go
by David Lehman
There comes a time in every man’s life
when he thinks: I have never had a single
original thought in my life
including this one & therefore I shall
eliminate all ideas from my poems
which shall consist of cats, rice, rain
baseball cards, fire escapes, hanging plants
red brick houses where I shall give up booze
and organized religion even if it means
despair is a logical possibility that can’t
be disproved I shall concentrate on the five
senses and what they half perceive and half
create, the green street signs with white
letters on them the body next to mine
asleep while I think these thoughts
that I want to eliminate like nostalgia
0 was there ever a man who felt as I do
like a pronoun out of step with all the other
floating signifiers no things but in words
another great one. no i never have any very meaningful criticisms bc that’s just not me, but i love this. this reminds me of derealizing, which i think is a painful but necessary blatant sudden abstraction of everything that’s so uncomfortable, just how nature intends for it to be, but you survive.