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Old lies

The ranks of poems
faltering digging in
so many written
acting aginst death
a kind of life-raft
(an obvious
conclusion to write)
but as each poem climbed
out and marched steadily
forward, half-smiling
at its own hackneyed
devices it laid
down a layer of future poems
potential poems
we're saying poems
because we can't face the
mud or history because
mud swallows the history
but the words

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