its a sin when success complains


Three poems by Marianne Moore

Poetry

I, too, dislike it.
Reading it, however, with a perfect comtempt for it, one discovers in
it, after all, a place for the genuine.

I may, I might, I must

If you will tellme why the fen
appears impassable, I then
will tell you why I think that I
can get across it if I try.

Love in America

Whatever it is, it's a passion --
a benign dementia that should be
engulfing America, fed in a way
the opposite of the way
in which the Minotaur was fed.
It's a midas of tenderness;
from the heart;
nothing else. From one with ability
to bear being misunderstood --
take the blame, with "nobility
that is action," identifying itself with
pioneer unperfunctoriness

without brazenness or
bigness of overgrown
undergrown shallowness.

Whatever it is, let it be without
affectation.

Yes, yes, yes, yes.