Poem Poem by Donald Justice

Poem

Rating: 3.3


This poem is not addressed to you.
You may come into it briefly,
But no one will find you here, no one.
You will have changed before the poem will.

Even while you sit there, unmovable,
You have begun to vanish. And it does not matter.
The poem will go on without you.
It has the spurious glamor of certain voids.

It is not sad, really, only empty.
Once perhaps it was sad, no one knows why.
It prefers to remember nothing.
Nostalgias were peeled from it long ago.

Your type of beauty has no place here.
Night is the sky over this poem.
It is too black for stars.
And do not look for any illumination.

You neither can nor should understand what it means.
Listen, it comes with out guitar,
Neither in rags nor any purple fashion.
And there is nothing in it to comfort you.

Close your eyes, yawn. It will be over soon.
You will forge the poem, but not before
It has forgotten you. And it does not matter.
It has been most beautiful in its erasures.

O bleached mirrors! Oceans of the drowned!
Nor is one silence equal to another.
And it does not matter what you think.
This poem is not addressed to you.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Susan Williams 03 November 2015

There is so much pain in this man yet he draws me to his poetry like a moth to the flame

32 1 Reply
Amelia Parris 02 March 2010

I think you mean: Close your eyes, yawn. It will be over soon. You will forget the poem, but not before It has forgotten you. And it does not matter. It has been most beautiful in its erasures.

2 5 Reply
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