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Joanna Newsom

Inflammatory Writ

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Oh, where is your inflammatory writ
Your text that would incite a light, be lit
Our music deserving devotion unswerving
Cry "Do I deserve her?" with unflagging fervor
Well, no you do not, if you cannot get over it

But what's it mean when suddenly we're spent, tell me true
Ambition came and reared its head, and went far from you
Even mollusks have weddings, though solemn and leaden
But you dirge for the dead, take no jam on your bread
Just a supper of salt and a waltz through your empty bed

And all at once it came to me
And I wrote and hunched 'till four-thirty
But that vestal light
It burns out with the night
In spite of all the time that we spent on it
One bedraggled ghost of a sonnet
While outside, the wild boars root
Without bending a bough underfoot
Oh it breaks my heart
I don't know how they do it
So don't ask me

And as for my inflammatory writ
Well, I wrote it an I was not inflamed one bit
Advice from the master derailed that disaster
He said "Hand that pen over to me, poetaster!"
While across the great plains, keening lovely and awful
Ululate the last Great American Novels
An unlawful lot, left to stutter and freeze, floodlit
But at least they didn't run, to their undying credit

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Joanna Newsom

Inflammatory Writ

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