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Denise Levertov - Goodbye To Tolerance
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Genial poets, pink-faced 
earnest wits— 
you have given the world 
some choice morsels, 
gobbets of language presented 
as one presents T-bone steak 
and Cherries Jubilee. 
Goodbye, goodbye, 
I don’t care 
if I never taste your fine food again, 
neutral fellows, seers of every side. 
Tolerance, what crimes 
are committed in your name. 


And you, good women, bakers of nicest bread, 
blood donors. Your crumbs 
choke me, I would not want 
a drop of your blood in me, it is pumped 
by weak hearts, perfect pulses that never 
falter: irresponsive 
to nightmare reality. 


It is my brothers, my sisters, 
whose blood spurts out and stops 
forever 
because you choose to believe it is not your business. 


Goodbye, goodbye, 
your poems 
shut their little mouths, 
your loaves grow moldy, 
a gulf has split 
the ground between us, 
and you won’t wave, you’re looking 
another way. 
We shan’t meet again— 
unless you leap it, leaving 
behind you the cherished 
worms of your dispassion, 
your pallid ironies, 
your jovial, murderous, 
wry-humored balanced judgment, 
leap over, un- 
balanced? ... then 
how our fanatic tears 
would flow and mingle 
for joy ...
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