A Monologue <br /> <br />Think about it at will: there is that <br />Which is the commentary; there's that other, <br />Which may be called the immaculate <br />Conception of its essence in itself. <br />It is necessary to distinguish the weights <br />Of the two methods lest the first smother <br />The second, the second be speechless (without the first). <br />I was saying this more briefly the other day <br />But one must be explicit as well as brief. <br />When I was a small boy I lived at home <br />For nine years in that part of old Kentucky <br />Where the mountains fringe the Blue Grass, <br />The old men shot at one another for luck; <br />It made me think I was like none of them. <br />At twelve I was determined to shoot only <br />For honor; at twenty not to shoot at all; <br />I know at thirty-three that one must shoot <br />As often as one gets the rare chance- <br />In killing there is more than commentary. <br />One's sense of the proper decoration alters <br />But there's a kind of lust feeds on itself <br />Unspoken to, unspeaking; subterranean <br />As a black river full of eyeless fish <br />Heavy with spawn; with a passion for time <br />Longer than the arteries of a cave.<br /><br />Allen Tate<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-meaning-of-life-24/
