Fragment of a poem by Robert Haas

The squalor of mind
is formlessness,
informis,

the Romans said of ugliness,
it has no form,
a man’s misery, bleached skies,

the war between desire
and dailiness. I thought
this morning of Wallace Stevens

walking equably to work . . .

“Songs to Survive the Summer,” Praise (Ecco Press, 1979)

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