Of right Of wrong Of up Of down Of who Of how Of when Of one Of then Of if Of in Of out Of feel Of friend Of it Of now, or: Born 100 Years Ago Today

SELF-PORTRAIT Robert Creeley He wants to be a brutal old man, an aggressive old man, as dull, as brutal as the emptiness around him. He doesn't want compromise, nor ever to be nice to anyone. Just mean, and final in his brutal, his total, rejection of it all. He tried the sweet, the gentle, the "oh, let's hold hands together" and it was awful, dull, brutally inconsequential. Now he'll stand on his own dwindling legs. His arms, his skin, shrink daily. And he loves, but hates equally. --- Born 100 years ago today. Wouldn't read like I read if I hadn't read Creeley in my twenties, need to read him more that just once a year, dammit Creeley interviewed 91 poems here. Six more poems below the fold: INSIDE MY HEAD inside my head Inside my head a common room, a common place, a common tune, a common wealth, a common doom inside my head. I close my eyes. The horses run. Vast are the skies, and blue my passing thoughts’ surprise inside my head. What is this space here found to be, what is this…