Failures in Infinitives Comments
why am i doing this? Failure
to keep my work in order so as
to be able to find things
to paint the house
to earn enough money to live on
to reorganize the house so as
to be able to paint the house &
to be able to find things and
earn enough money so as
to be able to put books together
to publish works and books
to have time
to answer mail & phone calls
to wash the windows
to make the kitchen better to work in
to have the money to buy a simple radio
to listen to while working in the kitchen
to know enough to do grownups work in the world
to transcend my attitude
to an enforced poverty
to be able to expect my checks
to arrive on time in the mail
to not always expect that they will not
to forget my mother's attitudes on humility or
to continue
to assume them without suffering
to forget how my mother taunted my father
about money, my sister about i cant say it
failure to forget mother and father enough
to be older, to forget them
to forget my obsessive uncle
to remember them some other way
to remember their bigotry accurately
to cease to dream about lions which always is
to dream about them, I put my hand in the lion's mouth
to assuage its anger, this is not a failure
to notice that's how they were; failure
to repot the plants
to be neat
to create & maintain clear surfaces
to let a couch or a chair be a place for sitting down
and not a table
to let a table be a place for eating & not a desk
to listen to more popular music
to learn the lyrics
to not need money so as
to be able to write all the time
to not have to pay rent, con ed or telephone bills
to forget parents' and uncle's early deaths so as
to be free of expecting care; failure
to love objects
to find them valuable in any way; failure
to preserve objects
to buy them and
to now let them fall by the wayside; failure
to think of poems as objects
to think of the body as an object; failure
to believe; failure
to know nothing; failure
to know everything; failure
to remember how to spell failure; failure
to believe the dictionary & that there is anything
to teach; failure
to teach properly; failure
to believe in teaching
to just think that everybody knows everything
which is not my failure; I know everyone does; failure
to see not everyone believes this knowing and
to think we cannot last till the success of knowing
to wash all the dishes only takes ten minutes
to write a thousand poems in an hour
to do an epic, open the unwashed window
to let in you know who and
to spirit thoughts and poems away from concerns
to just let us know, we will
to paint your ceilings & walls for free
...
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Citing from her Bio: Mayer's poetry often challenges poetic conventions by experimenting with form and stream-of-consciousness; readers have compared her to Gertrude Stein, Dadaist writers, and James Joyce.
Congratulations, dear Poetess Bernadette, to be chosen by Poem Hunter and Editors as The Modern Poem Of The Day..5 Stars Full for this tiny Epic poem. It's time now for me to learn something new and that is from you through this cute poem. Thank you so much!
My Comment for YOU in the form of A Poem I just submitted now Tuesday 8 Oct 2019 has the Title: To Bernadette Mayer: " Successes In Present Tenses And All There Is…." - Poem by Sylvia Frances Chan, Thank you so much for reading my poem for you, wherever you are dear great poetess, with the best wishes, Sylvia Frances Chan, Dutch poetess, The Netherlands.
to forget how my mother taunted my father about money, my sister about i cant say it failure to forget mother and father enough........./// great writing, greatly penned FAILURES IN INFINITIVES
to create & maintain clear surfaces to let a couch or a chair be a place for sitting down and not a table wonderful poem great great great writings 10+++++++++++
to listen to more popular music to learn the lyrics to not need money so as to be able to write all the time........................... may it be the poets good choice but its the question to the man who fights to keep own existence by doing such farce means of living. Good right. Thanks.
to repot the plants to be neat to create & maintain clear surfaces to let a couch or a chair be a place for sitting down.. making a poem out of daily routine and expressing the wishes in a poetic form. tony
A brilliant expression has been made by you on Failure taking a long list. Thanks and congratulations for being selected this poem as the modern poem of the poem of the day.
Striking work...making great use of anaphora. The line about writing a thousand poems in an hour made me laugh..I've just managed to write over 1,000 complete poems. It has taken me over 30 years to achieve this...obviously I must try harder!
Success and failure are relative terms.It depends how we view them. Every body goes through success and failure.Sometimes we judge people as successful or a failure by our own perspective. A great poem. Congratulations for being selected Poet of the Day!
Number 2) : My Comment for YOU in the form of A Poem I just submitted now Tuesday 8 Oct 2019 has the Title: Successes In Present Tenses And All There Is…. - Poem by Sylvia Frances Chan for Bernadette Mayer. Thank you so much, wherever you are dear great poetess, with the best wishes, Sylvia Frances Chan, Dutch poetess, The Netherlands.
I just wrote a COMMENT for this: The Modern Poem Of The Day by Bernadette Mayer. CONGRATULATIONS on being chosen as the MPOTD. Hurray! God's Blessings in Abundance for you. As my comment for this absolute longest TMPOTD I submitted just a few minutes ago, a Poem for you as my completest comment, dated 8 Oct 2019
These words explain how much pressure you put on yourself. Interesting. May you stop and smell the rose. Thank You
It must have taken you a long time to think of this list..what patience,
I had enough of this one about a third of the way through. And even in that span there were errors—in transcription? The author’s? -GK
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7/19/2025 4:49:32 AM # 1.0.0
Awesome