bullpenned

from QUANTUM CHAOS & POEMS:
A MANIFEST (O) ATION

by Cara Benson

Why a poem.

Why not:

Waste of time, energy, materials
Distraction from the real business of living
Cannot emulate reality -- nature's knock-off
Only emulates...
Engenders alienation and obfuscation
Poor man's philosophy
Mother will worry for your future
It will upset the status quo
Fosters solipsism
Fosters elitism
Fosters confidence to write in anyone with an ex-boyfriend, a
mother, or a therapist (it's a given if subject possess all three)
Doesn't sell product
Is barely product itself
BORING!
Unsuccessful attempts at escapism (TV = better)
Difficult / impossible to quantify
Breed flies in bottles*
Weren't those anarchy black coats reading Bukowski or
somebody other like that?
(your reason here________________)
(and maybe here________________________, too)


*(Wittgenstein was said to have thought much philosophy was generating its
own conundrums to solve. Philosophers were not necessarily brighter than most
folks, merely more capable of trapping themselves in linguistic confusion. It was
a matter of, he said, "language gone on holiday." He believed it the philosopher's
duty to "show the fly out of the bottle"; to relieve the mind of confusion.)

George Oppen:
A simple poetic undertaking: to see if life is livable,
to make life livable. Without lying.

Jack Kerouac:
I myself have difficulty covering up my bullshit lies.



*

Quantum Chaos & Poems was published by BookThug in 2008. Cara Benson's latest collection, a series of prose-poems, is called (MADE). She talks about it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTVgNNtmPGY.

Cara lives in NY State, not city, without a TV.