Genius

Dorothea Lasky

  If I believed in genius, then I’d say
Yes I am one
But I don’t believe, believe in it
Nor intelligence
Or all that
Why? Because it is fostered
Determined
It is not born 
It is not a magical spell
There is no muse
There are only the wild wild forces
That are allowed in
The strange angels 
The cold head
The cold head of the poem
Blown right off
Into another’s head
And the things that made that happen
Like wealth? Yeah sure
Like wealth
Of course, like wealth
And time and money (not just wealth)
And rich art to immerse one’s self in
And life 
Horrible life, and the sweet things, too
And freedom
And being told it is ok to feel
And to feel like you are a great person
Because, Goddamn you, everyone is
A person and everyone can be a great person
Of course, they can
If they want to be
But knowing a thing
Knowledge 
And language
Knowledge and language
Are nothing
They are sounds
Made from the animal
To alert, to tend to
To make happen
Big ideas 
Are things to build 
To construct
We are one thing
It is easy to understand
This is easy to understand
Genius is easy to understand
It means to build
Evil is the opposite
Although genius and evil can come together
Evil is the torn down
Not feeling great
Feeling like death is the plight of the individual
It’s not
Genius is for everyone
The stars are for everyone
Dark blood is an infinite regress
To black infinity 
Which is so dark it is one light
To feel means not to see
To see is not to feel
To know is nothing
And genius is not knowing
It is feeling
It is feeling out
It is feeling out you out there
It is feeling out oblivion