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Recorded Reading (2:38): https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/rvfonnht6e64e0tujg1tw/What-Is-It.wav?rlkey=lgonsj747zs8ius3fhfs4ueuj&dl=0

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What Is It?

This is not about the past
Not about personal power
This manifested was to last
Beyond the transient petty hour

This is about accuracy
Something called the truth
Something all but nonexistent
To our grim and troubled youth

Nor is that truth complete until
An earnest effort is begun
To harness all our loving will
To including everyone

If we ever wish to see
Our culture rise its hate above
Then our truth can only be
The sterling truth of love

Everyone who knows me well
Also humorously knows
That when it comes to daily life
I can’t even pick my nose,

Can’t scratch my own darn elbow,
Can’t safely cross the street —
About as ditzy and as dumb
As any girl that you might meet!

I do have this redeeming
Contributive skill:
I harnessed have integrity
To my every ounce of will

As you are when performing yours
I but do my job, forsooth,
When I called on am
By circumstance to tell the truth

I tell it very thoroughly
For I will tell it once, not twice
What I want is to go back to
Being, as well as playing, nice

I don’t have the resources
By any stretch imag’nable
To help in any other way
Than those intangible

There is no need, some future day,
To prove I also can be wrong —
My shortcomings make the refrain
Of my own constant funny song

But when it comes to get a check
On love’s reality
I am as solid as a rock
You can count on me

Don’t feel the need they’re valueless
Aught truths I see to say
I lack most every other skill
A high price for this gift I pay

Ay, pay ~ and oft soon afterward ~
For present tolerance is small
For microcoscopical amounts of
Any loving truth at all

Perhaps I have wrapped clumsily
This present that I give
It’s awkward in its shape and weight
But it might help you happ’ier live

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This poet is physically disabled. Public housing being insufficient to her medical and creative needs, she is presently living, in order to continue working, in her minivan, publishing all of her works using one thumb on the touch screen of her smartphone, surviving at an income of a fraction of her nation’s poverty level. She would treasure any donation you might care to offer ~ http://www.UgiftABLE.com ● #72D-31S.

Please be aware that it takes several days for the poet to be notified of contributions. International patrons please contact the poet via email or post a comment for the necessary numbers.

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