The Best Aphorism Exerts More Force Than a Small Criminal Act

Click, yo. I've just listened to Feldman's Rothko Chapel for the eighth time in two days. I'm halfway through Silliman's Age of Huts. I'm listening well, I'm reading well, I'm writing well. I haven't been more pleased with my tuning forks and weathervanes in ages. It's serendipitous this coincides with the imminent Blegdays of Summer.

The poem below should keep me busy for days. There is important-only-to-poets poetry being written, but what poetry shares with power most are three crappy letters (except within the ladder-matches of competitive poetry, where it is and always will be high school, which is the primary means that poetry can be a metaphor for power).

APHORISMS FOR FREE (FOR RZ)

Lynn Hejinian

Aphorisms explain nothing
The aphorist applies a paddle to a sentence and then leans
    back to enjoy its drift
That’s my kind of aphorism
Aphorisms rhythmic, syncopated, and suggestive
Aphorisms anew
Let’s enjoy a plethora of aphorisms
Aphorisms point toward what remains to be thought about
     what is coming to be known
Let’s have a long aphorism
Aphorisms are like someone else’s lost earrings that, once
     found, need to be returned because they aren’t rightfully
    one’s own
A Mandarin aphorism, an aphorism in Urdu, an aphorism
     in French
An aphorism in a quandary
The aphorist will try again
Let’s construct an aphorism arena for aphoristic opera
Aphorisms challenge each other, bravo, and suggest that the
     re-decomposition of the
cultural expertise they exemplify will clear the field for a bit of
    creative (though perhaps
confused) tranquility
Like a blue geranium an aphorism casts a shadow of shaking
    milk
The best aphorism exerts more force than a small criminal act
An aphorism comes over a hill
Aphorisms are delightful but not to be trusted
Aphorisms are done for the moment
Aphorisms are retrieved from imaginary bottles
Aphorisms build
That the roadside weeds quiver in the shared common wind is
    aphoristic
The aphorism takes the logical pathway from “Z” to “take it
    all in”
In aphorisms recurrence wells up and overflows
Audiences for aphorisms aren’t large
The aphorism is threaded through patterns of similarity and
    then gets snagged
An aphorism is an adventure of nomenclature, grammar, and
    mind
We aphorize across the flap
The aphorist wheezes
This aphorism was prepared on 8 or 9 August for use on 2 or 8
     October: Satisfactions
are gaps in desire
Here’s an aphorism best understood after a bit of wine and a
    lot of laughs when we’re in
a mood to approve of each other and ourselves to an
    injudicious degree: The only
escape from pessimism is forever to abandon regret
An aphorist has gone to court
According to one trusted aphorism, one should provide 4
    hors d’oeuvres per person at a
wedding and 2 per person at a funeral
Narrative aphorisms are the longest ones
According to the favorite aphorism of my mother (herself
     an aphorist, deceased)
comparisons are odious
If I had a duck I would take it to swim in Lake Aphorism
The aphorist exacerbates
An aphorism that makes three points should make one wary
     (or weary), as it’s apt to be
too logical, the logic is apt to be syllogistic, and the synthesis is
    apt to bring about the
death of the aphorism
Aphorisms spat, aphorisms spread, aphorisms sliced or split
The aphorist deliquesces
The aphorist never describes
There is no aphoristic diatribe, no aphoristic explanation
No aphorism is safe from foxes
Aphorists may meet, aphorisms never
The aphorist asserts
An aphorist named Cappuccino, an aphorist named El Bandito
Thumbnail aphorisms
Unabridged aphorisms
All-purpose aphorisms
Aphorisms tossed into a fountain, aphorisms thrown into a pond
     among pennies ignored
by mottled carp
There are impecunious aphorists and generous aphorists, the
     two easily confused
Sweaty aphorists with sweet aphorisms
Equine aphorists with grass aphorisms
Sporadic aphorisms
Infinite aphorisms
Aphorisms in my book and aphorisms in my head

Poem found here. H/T here.

There are three more parts. Go find them.