"Those who love their own noise are impatient of everything else." --Thomas Merton
The losing of art I just might master;
forgetting what things with such intent
as if lost on the process of disaster
Murder a word a day. Curse the cluster
of syntax, sentience, and sibilants.
The losing of art I just might master.
Write about writing. Lose details farther,
faster: places and names. I mean it,
I mean loss like this is no disaster.
I could lose it (art being quite useless) or,
if need be, industry in imitation. I admit
the losing of art I just might master.
Hoard cities of information, lots of it, faster and vaster.
Leave like lovers leave, leave my last poems gently.
If I miss them, their loss is no disaster.
No! No, I can't lie (your filthy noise, your gesture
so disarming)--Oh! Come home before I'm content
to lose you. Losing words isn't too hard to master,
but such silence looks like (hear it!) like disaster.
(After Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art")
