( me / via )

Greatest Female Poets.

"Last Words

Forgive me for not writing sober,
I mean sooner, but I almost don't
dare see what I write, I keep mating mistakes,
I mean making, and I'm wandering
if I've inherited what
my father's got.
I first understood it when he tried
to introduce me to somebunny:
'This is my doctor,' he said,
then didn't say more, 'my daughter.'
The man kindly nodded
out the door.
I thought: is this dimension
what I'm headed for?
I mean dementia.
Not Alzheimer's, but the kind he has,
possessive aphasia: oh that's good,
I meant to say progressive.
Talk about euthanasia!
I mean euphemasia,
nice words inside your head not there,
and it's not progress at all.
No, he's up against the boil
after years now of a sad, slow wall
and he's so hungry,
I mean angry.
Me too. I need to get my rhymes in
while I still mean. I mean can."

—Mary Jo Salter via Maryann Corbett

"...that strange, devious and slippery personage, crawling with indefinable nationalities who is called, or claims to be called, Ivan Illich.."

Poetry is when language enters hauntedness. (via)

A good selection of rhetorical terms with examples. (Via.)