Easy Green Proof Part 2

Again in part 2, I pulled a "bad line" from the stanza. The version published in Telephone had its first seven lines reading as follows:

The hominid group

Appears to have got all cramped up

Unable to move its toes

To swim away in the nearby ocean

Or even get outside

If these racists ever had any notion

Of what outside really means

I pulled out the line "If these racists ever had any notion" mostly because, believe it or not, at the moment of the editing I was uncomfortable with the idea that, even though I obviously wasn't really accusing anyone of being a racist here, may even have been using found language (though I don't know that with any assurance this long after the original composition), I would feel myself qualified to accuse anyone, even in theory, even hypothetically, of being a racist. Now, I do feel that discomfort, and the accompanying resentment which I try a little harder to repress -- but is that any reason to get rid of the stanza's central rhyme, as well as to weaken one of the central ideas I was playing with -- that humanity, though it may come from a population of sea mammals (something I didn't really believe at the time, certainly don't know, but remain fascinated with) was also racist in its biological foundation? I'm still pretty sure that central idea deserves to be weakened, but I guess there is no certainty in the writing of poetry.

Anyway, the whole meaning of the line "Of what outside really means" is completely changed now because it has been re-connected (as if in some genetic experiment working with chromosome strands) with the line "Or even get outside". I like the metaphysical dimension that replaces the bio-politics because of the change.

In the meantime, I've determined to use both the line "Please put them back in the closet" and "If these racists ever had any notion" in new poems, and if they get written I'll include them on this blog so you'll see how sausage really gets made, regurgitated, and re-made in my brane.