Life is the ugly thing you see, and Death
Will never look you straight on in toward
Your living eye, and politics will get
Its grimy, sticky, jelly-sandwich-covered
Unwashed hands all o'er ev'rything, like phlegm.

But poetry will let you see it all,
And clearly, if only the rest of them
Will just be quiet for a moment's call.

A moment breathing now, a moment free
When nothing sneaks on it to interrupt
The waiting thoughts that have not come to be,
That come in forms that comfort just enough.

And just enough's enough but comfort though,
No, comfort never is, though we wish so.