Ah, yes. Fame never got anyone off the hook, it seems. Some poignant evidence to be offered here in McGuane. There's a cutoff beyond which a certain number of people know you exist for various reasons, good or bad or with a notorious indifference. Said Spicer: @3My vocabulary did this to me@1. Meaning what he was, near death in an alcoholic ward. Crane or Cavafy. Alcohol as biography more surely than serial poems. I doubt it. We are drawn to where we end like water for reasons of character, volume, gravity, the sound we make in passing/not all the sounds we made in passing in one place -- a book. Each day's momentum of voice carrying backward and forward to the limits, beginning and end. We drink to enchant our voices, to heal them, to soothe with laughter, to glide awhile. My words kill, killed, me, my lord. Yes. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...YOUTH, DAY, OLD AGE AND NIGHT by WALT WHITMAN THE FORSAKEN by C. HAMILTON AIDE PEARLS OF THE FAITH: 57. AL-HAMID by EDWIN ARNOLD MEMORY'S VISIT by DEAN ALETTA BAILLIE A FARM NEAR ZILLEBEKE by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN EPITAPH ON ONE DROWNED IN THE SNOW by WILLIAM BROWNE (1591-1643) |