to the ladies false as the gorgeous poem

is a line from lisa robertson's _the men_; I underlined it not because I think badly of the elegant ladies but because there is an indictment here of the elegant poem. a fine poem. a fancy poem.

(on another note, I never really liked the word "ladies" (laddies, I like). ladies drink tea in lieu of coffee, ladies handwash their hose and hang them delicately up to dry, ladies do their hair every morning, ladies go to cocktail bars where men in button up shirts say, "hello ladies" and they smile.)

nope. I don't want to be a lady. or a writer of gorgeous poems. or I do want to be a writer of gorgeous poems but what I have to understand is that what is really gorgeous requires the profane. I don't want to write a "lady" poem. Oh! a lady poem! that sounds awful. I want to pull my poem out of the earth and let the mud slough off.