The Gracehoper was always jigging ajog, hoppy on akkant of his joyicity.

James Joyce, Finnegans Wake

 

Complain with the full force of a Jesuit priest

Whine like a man who knows he's out of time

Casuistry and sophistry work together perfectly.

But poetry's more about the wine than the whining

About seeking to express the inexpressible

Whilst complaining about just how difficult it is.

A true poet makes the difficult oh-so easy

Can turn water into wine in a half-truncated line,

Caesuras soar in words and never return

Or bore the reader into interminable snores.

I must learn how to never compromise.

Pull out his eyes! Oh! pull out his eyes!

Apologise! Apologise!

I will not apologise if it cost me my life.

I will never apologise. I laugh in the face

Of all these crypto-fascists of left or right

Full of the certainty and zeal of the empty-headed

Authoritarians of race or religion or accent or class.

Don't like being offended?

Go! spit in the face of all the stupidities

Of the human race.

Sniff out intelligence, wherever it may linger,

Avoid all the premature gravediggers,

All those flingers of plurabillities,

All those who condemn those who try

To shift the shade, to seek the good in the heart of darkness,

To break free from this all-abiding stupidity.