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What it Look Like, a poem by Terrance Hayes - oscar

Dear Ol' Dirty Bastard: I too like it raw, I don't especially care for Duke Ellington at a birthday party. I care less and less about the shapes of shapes because forms change and nothing is more durable than feeling. My uncle used the money I gave him to buy a few vials of what looked like candy after the party where my grandma sang in an outfit that was obviously made for a West African king. My motto is Never mistake what it is for what it looks like. My generosity, for example, is mostly a form of vanity. A bandanna is a useful handkerchief, but a handkerchief is a useless-ass bandanna. This only looks like a footnote in my report concerning the party. Trill stands for what is truly real though it may be hidden by the houses just over the hills between us, by the hands on the bars between us. That picture of my grandmother with my uncle when he was a baby is not trill. What it is is the feeling felt seeing garbagemen drift along the predawn avenues,...

Out, Out�, a poem by Robert Frost

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The buzz-saw snarled and rattled in the yard And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood, Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it. And from there those that lifted eyes could count Five mountain ranges one behind the other Under the sunset far into Vermont. And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled, As it ran light, or had to bear a load. And nothing happened: day was all but done. Call it a day, I wish they might have said To please the boy by giving him the half hour That a boy counts so much when saved from work. His sister stood beside them in her apron To tell them �Supper.� At the word, the saw, As if to prove saws knew what supper meant, Leaped out at the boy�s hand, or seemed to leap� He must have given the hand. However it was, Neither refused the meeting. But the hand! The boy�s first outcry was a rueful laugh, As he swung toward them holding up the hand Half in appeal, but half as if to keep The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all� Since ...

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