Vasko Popa, Proud Error
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Vasko Popa - Proud Error

Once upon a time there was an error
So ridiculous so minute
No one could have paid attention to it
It couldn’t stand
To see or hear itself
It made up all sorts of nonsense
Just to prove
That it really didn’t exist
It imagined a space
To fit all its proofs in
And time to guard its proofs
And the world to witness them
All that [...]

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The Man Rock by Russell Edson

The Man Rock
A man is a rock in a garden of chairs and waits a longtime to be over.
It is easier for a rock in a garden than a man inside his mother. He decided to be a rock when he got outside.
A rock asks only what is a rock.
A rock waits to be a [...]

Dream Song #14 by John Berryman

Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so. After
all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns, we
ourselves flash and yearn, and moreover my mother
told me as a boy (repeatingly) ‘Ever to confess
you’re bored means you have no
Inner Resources.’ I conclude now I have no inner
resources, because I am heavy bored. Peoples bore
me, literature [...]

Ape by Russell Edson

Ape
You haven’t finished your ape, said mother to father, who had monkey hair and blood on his whiskers.
I’ve had enough monkey, cried father.
You didn’t eat the hands, and I went to all the trouble to make onion rings for its fingers, said mother.
I’ll just nibble on its forehead, and then I’ve had enough, said father.
I [...]

Vasko Popa, Proud Error

Once upon a time there was an error
So ridiculous so minute
No one could have paid attention to it
It couldn’t stand
To see or hear itself
It made up all sorts of nonsense
Just to prove
That it really didn’t exist
It imagined a space
To fit all its proofs in
And time to guard its proofs
And the world to witness them
All that [...]