Difference and Sameness
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem
Each rose is slightly different yet the same
As all her sisters (or her brothers) on
The stems. Perhaps it might be quite a shame
If all were replicas, exact, upon
A pattern in a sky of Plato’s mind.
Perhaps the aim of difference is the point.
If all the blossoms were by Christ aligned
Like heaven’s golden streets, nothing disjoint
Would be allowed throughout the cosmos. All
Would be perfection everywhere. The end
Would be homogenized milk. Scarlett’s drawl
Would be universal. Nothing would blend
With it, as warp with woof. Only sameness
Would come as Christ’s result, only tameness.
Difference and Sameness Pressed By Zen to Their Logical End
The Eastern thinking in religions tells
Us samenesses and differences are . . .
The same. The monks and nuns in white-walled cells
Are lechers and the prostitutes not far
From holiness, in fact the same in red
Boudoirs where crucifixes are replaced
By dildos and the dominatrix. Bed
Of spilled out semen on the silk there traced
Upon the coarser sheets of convents is
The same, the same, the same. That’s even if
There is no semen trailing there, no jizz
On young nuns’ lips; the cum lies there, its whiff
To be inhaled in novice nostrils. Thought
Like this reduces common sense to nought.