Throw Death,God,Truth,Etc Out Window/"The Whole Mess...Almost" Poem by Gregory Corso/

2 / 26 / 2014

Poem of the Day: The Whole Mess ... Almost BY GREGORY CORSO I ran up six flights of stairs to my small furnished room    opened the window and began throwing out those things most important in life First to go, Truth, squealing like a fink: "Don't! I'll tell awful things about you!" "Oh yeah? Well, I've nothing to hide ... OUT!" Then went God, glowering & whimpering in amazement:    "It's not my fault! I'm not the cause of it all!" "OUT!"    Then Love, cooing bribes: "You'll never know impotency!    All the girls on Vogue covers, all yours!" I pushed her fat ass out and screamed: "You always end up a bummer!" I picked up Faith Hope Charity all three clinging together: "Without us you'll surely die!" "With you I'm going nuts! Goodbye!" Then Beauty ... ah, Beauty— As I led her to the window I told her: "You I loved best in life ... but you're a killer; Beauty kills!"    Not really meaning to drop her I immediately ran downstairs getting there just in time to catch her    "You saved me!" she cried I put her down and told her: "Move on." Went back up those six flights went to the money there was no money to throw out. The only thing left in the room was Death    hiding beneath the kitchen sink: "I'm not real!" It cried "I'm just a rumor spread by life ... "    Laughing I threw it out, kitchen sink and all    and suddenly realized Humor was all that was left— All I could do with Humor was to say:    "Out the window with the window!" Gregory Corso, "The Whole Mess ... Almost" from Herald of the Autochthonic Spirit. Copyright © 1973, 1975, 1981 by Gregory Corso. Reprinted with the permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation. Source: Mindfield: New and Selected Poems (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1989) GREGORY CORSO Biography  More poems by this author

Why I Wake Early, a Happy Poem! by Mary Oliver

Why I Wake Early by Mary Oliver Hello, sun in my face. Hello, you who make the morning and spread it over the fields and into the faces of the tulips and the nodding morning glories, and into the windows of, even, the miserable and crotchety— best preacher that ever was, dear star, that just happens to be where you are in the universe to keep us from ever-darkness, to ease us with warm touching, to hold us in the great hands of light— good morning, good morning, good morning. Watch, now, how I start the day in happiness, in kindness. "Why I Wake Early" by Mary Oliver, from Why I Wake Early: New Poems. © Beacon Press, 2005. Reprinted with permission