But Let’s be Honest

Collage Poetry

Garrison Keillor

But let’s be honest
I felt obliged to read
and I would laugh and laugh reading
Did you read about, etc., etc.
and so on and so forth.
I simply must know
and so on and so forth
I’ll leave [that] vague and unnamed
No use beating a dead horse.
and now at last clear answers are available.
Which, by the way, is fascinating,
I guess I understand why
My point is this:
We’re hopelessly imperfect and messy and human
avoidance will be impossible.
Let’s be honest about that.
and I feel bad for half a minute
Here’s the thing:
We all do the very best we can.
I intend to live in the immediate present
if I can figure out where that is
I refuse to waste my time
it seems more difficult to do so today
the deliberate practice of saving my own sanity.
The world we live in is the world we focus on.
where our attention is placed we can always choose.
threaten to stop paying attention.
too many of our citizens paid no attention to anything [anyway]
and so we go on to other things.
a place to escape the realities
that we all wished we could live in
determined to defend the indefensible.
what a gross waste of my time it was.
Let's take a step back here.
a welcome relief from time to time
Last time I checked.
If past is prologue, we already know what is in store.

Snippets mostly from comments on a Garrison Keillor post