The Secret Of Quality Is Love Poem by Robert Ronnow

Which is it: you can't get started unless
you're riding some current bigger than your reporting
      voice
or the best time to write is when you don't have much
      to say
and without plenty to say about everything you'll get
      better right away.

Form is very often a betrayal of reality.
Although we are initially drawn to poems by their
      passion and urgency
we are convinced by the formal means invented
for their impelling motives. Every accidental crack
      or dent.

Not just mildly disquieted but actively repelled.
Running for the River Styx, the doors of Hell pell mell,
there must be a crack, deep and unmendable, in the
      poet
that the poet must forever try to mend. Or not.

While mortal poets imitate, immortal poets steal.
That's plagiarism. Fortunately the public feels
less strongly about poetry than television,
communism and aging gracefully through meditation.

Now I'm being silly. My silly indefatigable lusting,
silly sadness, silly arguing and silly trusting.
All I do not know about our nation's history, wars
and what showering the people you love with love does.

Ransacking apothegms, algorithms
and selling the loot as memes,
dissemblings. Bearing fardels
with the warrior's skull.