Circle Poems

-- Lew Welch

Whenever I have a day off, I write a new poem.

Does this mean you shouldn’t work, or that you

write best on your day off?

 

For example, this is the poem I wrote today.

 

 

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When he was 20, he understood some of the secrets of

life, and undertook to write them down so simply that

even an idiot could understand.

“For,” he reasoned, “if I can’t do that, I don’t

understand it myself.”

 

He proved himself right.

When he was 50, he didn’t understand it himself.

 

 

                                      *

 

 

“Why is it,” he said, “that no matter what you say,

a woman always takes it personally?”

 

“I never do,” she said.

 

 

                                      *

 

 

John said, “Then I met that short fat guy with the

neat little beard, with a name like dawn.”

 

“You mean George Abend?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Abend means evening.”

 

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