POEM FOR TODAY. Miller Williams
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_Williams Let Me Tell You how to do it from the beginning. First notice everything: the stain on the wallpaper of the vacant house, the mothball smell of a Greyhound toilet. Miss nothing. Memorize it. You cannot twist the fact you do not know. Remember The blond girl you saw in the bar. Put a scar on her breast. Say she left home to get away from her father. Invent whatever will support your line. Leave out the rest. Use metaphors: The mayor is a pig is a metaphor which is not to suggest it is not a fact. Which is irrelevant. Nothing is less important than a fact. Be suspicious of any word you learned and were proud of learning. It will go bad. It will fall off the page. When your father lies in the last light and your mother cries for him, listen to the sound of her crying. When your father dies take notes somewhere inside. If there is a heaven he will forgive you if the line you found was a good one. It does not have to be worth the dying. by Mi...