Poets can’t even call
themselves poets anymore.
There always has to be something else,
some other business.
Lines can’t be straight
anymore, they must
succumb to curve
like the snake’s back,
bending repeatedly
from one dune in
the desert to another.
There is no almost straight.
Almost straight is the
embankment, marking
the cliff, over which
our poems run,
tumbling drunk,
with the final drops of faith.
The Writing of John B. Randall 