The Poetry Project

YET THE WOR(L)D CAN STILL BE VERY PRETTY

Evelyn Reilly

Self sets out on a perilous journey
juggling attributes of selflessness
in wheels of multiplying palms

It worked so hard to evade
the quagmires of objectivity
the fogs of interiority
the candelabras of consumer desire

Perhaps it’s good the extinction
of aspects of the language
certain subjections of the subject
supposed agreements of gender
other failures of imaginative sympathy

Self follows a thread of narrativity
only to crash against the glass
of non-transparent communication
The shock continues at least a century

Spectacularly too late in cultural history
this fucking elegiac mode
The same with the grief and the charm

You on the street with your technopad of self-possession
Self accidently just downloaded
your entire social history
8 other Selves “like” this

Only 8? That’s poetry for you

Still the wo(r)ld can be very pretty
There’s a river here
a dappled surface

The biodegradability of these thought patterns
Animality in the best sense of the word
Everyone keeps moving

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