Bashing Czeslaw Milosz

Czeslaw Milosz does not write many bad poems.
But the bastard did write one of the worst poems
about Texas ever. I hear there is an arrest warrant
for him in Williamson County, Texas ( this county
is the home base for the Klan in Tejas). Anyway,
here is the poem, you be the judge, jury and executioner.

Texas

I came back from Texas.
I had been reading my poems there.
Nowhere else than in America do they pay so well
for reading poems.
Next to my signature I put the date 2000.

Old age clings to my feet like dense pitch.
The mind resists, but that signifies consciousness.
And what can I do with it, unveil it to whom?
The best strategy is to say nothing.

I have experienced the shame of the recollected illusion
of loving, hating, aspiring, striving.
And now I can hardly believe
that I managed to live through life.

by Czeslaw Milosz

Ok, ok! I’ll come clean. Milosz has indeed written
a second lousy, unforgiveable poem. I’m going to post it
here, but please do not tell anyone else about it. I don’t
want the Euro Trash Poets to come after my ass.
Here’s the other stinking poem:

To Robert Lowell

I had no right to talk of you that way,
Robert. An émigré’s envy
Must have prompted me to mock
Your long depressions, weeks of terror.
Presumed vacations in the safety of the wards.
It was not from pride in my normalcy.
Insanity, I knew, was insinuating itself
In a thin thread into my very being
And only waited for my permission
To carry me into its murky regions.
And I was watchful. Like a lame man.
I used to walk upright to hide my affliction.
You didn’t have to. For you it was permitted.
Not for me, a refugee on this continent
Where so many newcomers vanished without a trace.
Forgive me my mistake. Your will was of no use
Against an illness that held you like a stigma.
And beneath my anger was the vanity,
Unjustifiable, of the humiliated. A bit belated,
I write to you across what separates us:
Gestures, conventions, idioms, mores.

by Czeslaw Milosz

Orale! Even, you, shy readers, must admit that the
ending sucks!