You're Going to Argue with This Guy?

But I cannot believe that the expression of one’s ideas has anything to do with the making of literature. I don’t believe that ideas are a novelist’s problem. Ideas should be left to the people who have ideas—philosophers, politicians, teachers. Artists can be extremely dull in terms of what they believe, what they say, and what they do in their lives. Writers don’t think. . . . It was [William Carlos] Williams who said that "The poet’s intelligence is made manifest in his poem." If one is a writer one must work with words, and the words have to be set down in such a way that something beautiful is made.

Gilbert Sorrentino, in this interview.

What If

You don't get the full effect, no, without Lucinda's weary whisky voice, but Crusher does what he can . . .

I shudder to think
What it would mean
If the president wore pink
Or if a prostitute was queen

What would happen then
How would the world change
If thick became thin
And the world was rearranged

If the rains brought down the moon
And daylight was feared
And the sun rose too soon
And then just disappeared

If dogs became kings
And the Pope chewed gum
And hobos had wings
And God was a bum

If houses became trees
And flowers turned to stone
And there were no families
And people lived alone

If buildings started laughing
And windows cried
And feet started clapping
And out came inside

If mountains fell in slivers
And the sky began to bleed
And blood filled up the rivers
And prisoners were freed

If the stars fell apart
And the ocean dried up
And the world was one big heart
And decided to stop

If children grew up happier
And they could run with the wolves
And they never felt trapped
Or hungry or unloved

If cats walked on water
And birds had bank accounts
And we loved one another
In equal amounts