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And I Said To My Soul, Be LoudMadden me back to an afternoonI carry in menot like a woundbut like a will against a woundGive me again enough manto be the childchoosing my own annihilationsTo make of this severed limba wand to conjurea weapon to shatterdark matter of the dirt daubers' nestsgalaxies of glassWhacking glintsbash-dancing on the cellar's fireI am the sound the sun would makeif the sun could make a soundand the gasp of rotstabbed from the compost's lumpen living deathis meO my life my war in a jarI shake you and shake youand may the best ant winFor I am come a whirlwind of wasted thingsand I will ride this tantrum back to Goduntil my fixed self, my fluorescent selfmy grief–nibbling, unbewildered, wall–to–wall selfwithers in me like a salted slug

And I Said To My Soul, Be LoudMadden me back to an afternoonI carry in menot like a woundbut like a will against a woundGive me again enough manto be the childchoosing my own annihilationsTo make of this severed limba wand to conjurea weapon to shatterdark matter of the dirt daubers' nestsgalaxies of glassWhacking glintsbash-dancing on the cellar's fireI am the sound the sun would makeif the sun could make a soundand the gasp of rotstabbed from the compost's lumpen living deathis meO my life my war in a jarI shake you and shake youand may the best ant winFor I am come a whirlwind of wasted thingsand I will ride this tantrum back to Goduntil my fixed self, my fluorescent selfmy grief–nibbling, unbewildered, wall–to–wall selfwithers in me like a salted slug

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Attribution & collection notes
Author or tradition
Christian Wiman
Attribution: attributed
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Not established
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Historical period not yet established
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Contributor-provided quotation collection

Supplied reference C; CSV row 211870; supplied attribution, independently unverified

A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.