M A Schaffner
A Theory of Ad Hoc Reports
Complex organizational structures,
when stressed, reveal the crystalline faces
of formal and informal alignments.
The analyst finds copious data
too beautifully human to describe,
and must at length surrender reason
to stupefied awe. We see too many
consequences for every decision,
and in our aesthetic paralysis
must sometimes simply shut our eyes and shoot,
hoping to be taken not as Moses,
with laws to live by or deny, but one
of the Greek philosophers – wrong now,
but essential to our concept of the truth.
when stressed, reveal the crystalline faces
of formal and informal alignments.
The analyst finds copious data
too beautifully human to describe,
and must at length surrender reason
to stupefied awe. We see too many
consequences for every decision,
and in our aesthetic paralysis
must sometimes simply shut our eyes and shoot,
hoping to be taken not as Moses,
with laws to live by or deny, but one
of the Greek philosophers – wrong now,
but essential to our concept of the truth.
M A Schaffner is a civil servant in Washington with poems in Prairie Schooner, Shenandoah, Spoon River Poetry Review, Atlanta Review, Poetry Ireland, and The Rialto, a collection - The Good Opinion of Squirrels - and a novel, War Boys.
Page(s) 69
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The