I want to use this as the--
this is the way to sacrifice this poem, is to say this.
I just used this as something I come back to again and again.
The dull person speaking, myself at least in--
I'd like to say part of myself.
It's so hard up for diction, that he just
has one verb you know.
And then finally in the fourth sentence,
it gets wildly inventive.
It has another verb, and that great feeling
of going from a zero to zero plus a fraction
is the great creative feeling.
These poems are meant to be sacrificed,
for points to be made about what I suppose most of us
here have some kind of convergent interest
in, writing literature.
I think about it, because I look at what's here before me.
And I feel some kind of issue related here,
it's called "Fifteen."
"South of the bridge on 17th, I found back at the willows one
summer day, a motorcycle with engine
running as it lay on its side, ticking over slowly
in the high grass.
I was 15.
I admired all that pulsing gleam, the shiny flanks,
the demure headlights fringed where it lay.
I led it gently to the road, and stood with that companion
ready and friendly.
I was 15.
We could find the end of a road, meet the sky on our 17th.
I thought about hills, and patting the handle
got back a confident opinion.
On that bridge, we indulged a forward feeling, a tremble.
I was 15.
Thinking, back farther in the grass,
I found the owner just coming to where
he'd flipped over the rail.
He had blood on his hand, he was pale.
I helped him to his machine.
He ran his hand over it, called me good man.
Roared away, I stood there, 15."