Classic and Contemporary Poetry
PATTERNS, by JAMES OPPENHEIM Poet's Biography First Line: Would you lay a pattern on life and say, thus shall ye live? Last Line: For the only sin is death, and the only virtue to be altogether alive and your own authentic self. Subject(s): Death; Growth; Life; Order; Self; Sin; Dead, The | ||||||||
WOULD you lay a pattern on life and say, thus shall ye live? I tell you that is a denial of life: I say that thus we pour our spirits in a mould, and they cake, and die... Thus, indeed, we become the good and the respectable: Thus we neither lie nor steal, and we commit neither murder nor adultery: But truly when I look at the holy ones, the pillars of society, I am fain to go and get drunk or go talk with publicans and sinners... I want to go to the man who quickens me: I want the gift of life; the flame of his spirit eating along the tinder of my heart: I want to feel the floodgates within flung open and the tides pouring through me: I want to take what I am and bring it to fruit. Quicken me, and I will grow: Touch me with flame, and the blossoms will open and the fruit appear... Call forth in me a creator, and the god will answer... And then if I commit what you call a sin, Better so... It will not be a sin: it will be a mere breaking of your patterns: For the only sin is death, and the only virtue to be altogether alive and your own authentic self. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A FRIEND KILLED IN THE WAR by ANTHONY HECHT FOR JAMES MERRILL: AN ADIEU by ANTHONY HECHT TARANTULA: OR THE DANCE OF DEATH by ANTHONY HECHT CHAMPS D?ÇÖHONNEUR by ERNEST HEMINGWAY NOTE TO REALITY by TONY HOAGLAND |
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