Gabriel Bodeen @gabe@qoto.org

It's a short poem but god I love its lines and I wish I could find a way to use them in conversation! e.g.:

> I love the way you wear your
> face, how you ride this life.
...
> Forgive my word-churn, my
> drift, the ways this text message
> has gotten all frothy.

Text: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/56098/sea-foam-palace

Audio: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/play/76714

Thrash no more 'gainst the storm in your skull
though drops splash, pool and spill unheedful
they culture a crop of facts and lies.
Farm your mind. Grow where you memorize.
Cut neat, plumb canals new 'cross the plain.
Place outlets for fateful floods to drain.
Dig cisterns to outlast the dry spells.
Level the obstinate sundry hills.
Bury old quagmires in barren earth.
Dredge or dam old beds by plan and worth.
Thus make swift the thought-stream's coursing tao,
effortless to flow from "How?" to how.

Be most mistrustful of a man unjust till
by tears or time or toil
he proves robustly that truly he must be
loving and lasting and loyal.