Palinode X

Palinode X


You must understand
no one

is tortured here
unwillingly.

The man who abandoned
his parents

at their hour of need
climbs up

the grinding stone
with wailing

abandonment.
The corporate

raider, for his greed,
throws up

his hands for the handcuffs
and screeches joyfully

as he is whipped.
And dashing for the cliff-edge

the double agent
flings her

beautiful body
over a field of knives.

They are all
literalists,

sensualists of a stripe,
artists.

The weeping and gnashing
of teeth

in the outermost
darkness,

those retractions are
the poets.


The above palinode is a retraction of this ode (Part 7).


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