Stearns

[rayheinrich]

...
I was never a huge fan of wcw, I find his verse slightly dull. Perhaps it is because I hate "profound" which I suppose is the draw for you.

'Profound' is like 'taste'; it varies with shoe size.

Which is my corruption of this old saying:
"Politics is like religion; it correlates with shoe size."

Which comes from the scientific slang for bad data:
Scientist A: "So how'd your experiment turn out?"
Scientist B: "The data is crap, the only thing it correlates with is shoe size.

So maybe it's not the same kind of 'profound' as you're thinking of;
this one happens unexpectedly like when:

You're walking across a dry stream bed, thousands of stones,
you bend down and pick one up, smooth and warm from the sun.

Three poems by William Carlos Williams for anyone who likes
slightly dull verse:

The Shadow

Soft as the bed in the earth
Where a stone has lain—
So soft, so smooth and so cool,
Spring closes me in
With her arms and her hands.

Rich as the smell
Of new earth on a stone,
That has lain, breathing
The damp through its pores—
Spring closes me in
With her blossomy hair;
Brings dark to my eyes.



The Thinker

My wife's new pink slippers
have gay pompons.
There is not a spot or a stain
on their satin toes or their sides.
All night they lie together
under her bed's edge.
Shivering I catch sight of them
and smile, in the morning.
Later I watch them
descending the stair,
hurrying through the doors
and round the table,
moving stiffly
with a shake of their gay pompons!
And I talk to them
in my secret mind
out of pure happiness.




(and my fav of fav's)

Between Walls

the back wings
of the

hospital where
nothing

will grow lie
cinders

In which shine
the broken

pieces of a green
bottle