BILL YARROW

Bill Yarrow’s work, in addition to appearing in Mini MAG #0001, #002, and #006, has appeared in Central Park, Confrontation, Berkeley Poets Cooperative, The Literary Review, Poem, Midstream, Hayotzer, DuPage ArtsLife, and The Antigonish Review. His essay on Boswell’s Life of Johnson appears in Irma Lustig’s collection Boswell: Citizen of the World, Man of Letters.

--------

AT THE TOP OF MY VOICE!

1. Do not trust the silent people who know what needs to be said. Their hearts are clogged with craft!
2. Revolution is a holy concept. "Revolution for the Hell of It" is blasphemy!
3. The most miserable life is tolerable as long as your feet are warm. The most enviable life becomes unbearable if your fingers are ice. Torture begins at extremes!
4. Trying to keep in mind everything we know about life makes living life way too hard!
5. A man says, "I could care less." He means he couldn't care less. We say the opposite of what we mean because we don't understand original sin. The original sin was sarcasm!
6. Hedonism: The body is necessary. Religion: The body is necessary but not sufficient. Mysticism: The body is unnecessary-but not insufficient!
7. A poem is an intelligent graffito. Intelligent graffiti-not poetry!
8. My emotions, my thinking, my confusions are not organized in time. My chronology is not me!
9. An appeal to morals is an appeal to the emotions-of the mind!
10. I don't drink-I'm just enthusiastic!
11. The discreet charm-of the hopelessly naïve!
12. Our worst enemy?-not believing we have enemies!
13. Neither total freedom nor severe oppression but a chaffing constriction is the optimum condition for the production of lasting art!
14. We are blemished-by perfection!
15. Things break, things get lost; things get fixed, things are found. Not all things!
16. I am alive in water. I drown in the air!
17. Too hot to think. Too cold to breathe!
18. Failure enervates our courage. Rejection withers the soul!
19. Hard to believe? No. Hard to accept? Yes!
20. The wages of guilt?-impotence!
21. Life provides intense happiness only as a defense-against more intense despair!
22. There's a rotten form of everything!
23. The appetite is not invincible!
24. Every day-a lesson!
25. Wherever you get off the path-that's your destination!
26. I like my salad as I like my motivation-naked!
27. How many book or film fantasies have made people's lives more miserable than they were to begin with? Which fantasy is the worst? The return of the dead? Unpunished revenge? Triumphant love? Impossible rescue? Easy success!
28. Our earliest heroes-Hercules, Odysseus, Oedipus-were riddle solvers. Our latest heroes?-celebrities!
29. The mind doesn't breathe. Thinking doesn't walk!
30. The unvarnished self lies; the painted self speaks true!
31. There's nothing in the world that doesn't repay attention, but the only thing that rewards attention is ego!
32. We are enticed by beauty, but we return to mind!
33. There are people who give and expect nothing in return-except the respect of the world!
34. You can't take back what you've given. Why? Because the act of receiving changes the gift!
35. We gain sophistication as we age. The allure of sophistication? The seduction of death!
36. Time doesn't enlighten. Out of clarities, time makes mysteries!
37. If I am myself, I am impossible. If I am impossible, I am impossible to accept. If I accept myself, I am not being myself!
38. To thine own self be true? Don't make me laugh!
39. Know thyself? A waste of time!
40. We think horror is physical violence; horror is human relations!
41. The temptation is toward-savage habit!
42. Despair, Eliot's drug-replaced by Ecstasy. The world as Wasteland? A better metaphor. Into the Mosh Pit!
43. After four centuries of American Puritanism, delicious rhymes (finally!) with lubricious.
44. Eros´ is eros´ is eros´!
45. Don't punish the human; punish the inhumane!
46. Therapy is draining the inner bathwater. Resuscitate the drowned child!
47. If we knew less, others could teach us more. Know less!
48. Stake acclaim!
49. You want to save the world? Admit your mistakes!
50. There's no life outside-of living!

--------

DWI

Damaged Without Injury
Dancing Without It
Decided With Integrity
Deep Wisdom Institute
Depths Within Instinct
Delayed Without Information
Deliberation Without Idea
Delicious With Invective
Delivered With Insolence
Deployed With Imagination
Deported Without Investigation
Deposited With Interest
Detonated With Intent
Devoted Works Incorporated
Diddling With Infection
Divided With Integers
Do Walk Inside
Document Without Imprint
Does Without It
Doesn't Watch It
Dogs With Infestation
Doing What's Innocent
Don't Wash Interior
Don't Worry It
Done With Impunity
Done With It
Done Without Irony
Doubtful Wishes Incapacitated
Dowagers With Impetigo
Down With Isms
Drenched With Incivility
Dude Wants It
Dude With Insouciance
Dumb With Intelligence
Dust Works In