33 Comments

Great. Very David L-- only the tortured get to heaven or at least the only heaven worth getting to. Gotta be an homage or at least a companion piece to Bob Kaufman's poem "Camus, I want to know"

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Wonderful poem, but please correct final line's first word; Of should be Or, unless Lerner intended a close that seems awkward in its phrasing. If I'm wrong, so be it, but it stole some of the poem's power for me with a grammatical distraction at the end. Thanks for listening.

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You're not alone in that distraction. It really put on the brakes for me too. At least it came at the end.

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I fixed it over 24 hours ago. It’s one letter out of thousands upon thousands of words I post a week. It’s bound to happen every now and then.

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my brain simply corrected it - amazing poem. TY for your incredible knowledge sharing!!!

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Irksome, isn't it. Some of us were so engaged in this beautiful poem, this tiny error sounded like fingernails on a blackboard in our brains.

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Who gets to color the sky? Will ponder that question the rest of my life.

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Lerner had no fear, freely crashing the gates of decorum with his color saturated, brilliant, god-dazzling word-paint. Thank you for sharing this poem

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how many pairs of shoes does it take to

walk to infinity. Ok!

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This poem is a stunner. I've got some killer VHS footage of David Lerner reading in San Francisco's Cafe Babar that will be included in my (still in-progress) feature documentary, 'Julia Vinograd: Between Spirit and Stone.' Bucky Sinister, who is quoted at the bottom of today's post, is a featured interviewee in the film.

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Hit me right between my eyes! Wow

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Wonderful and very timely questions...

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Will God let me write in paradise?

Right questions asked

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Fantastic gem of a poem, thank you.

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The clip ...

The wheat...

The pigment.

Blue Eyes.

& Red Strands of hair.

....

Moderns....

The timeless appeal, to Be, the person usually passed on.

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The kind of poetry that does what poetry does best, evokes, liberates and hurls you down into the ashes. Great stuff.

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...and when no hope was left in sight...

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This dimension is only a glimpse of paradise. Selfishness prevails trampling undisturbed on fragile souls like Vincent's He has no answers to such questions. He paints. We, then, if we are are blessed, see something far more beautiful. Some do. The rest make obscene amounts on Vincent's pain.

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Wow...this really moved me...every sentence gave me a vivid picture in my mind...thanks for sharing;definitely made my day...

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Really cool imagery!

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