We All Know It

by Marianne Moore

That silence is best: that action and re-
Action are equal: that control, discipline, and
Liberation are bywords when spoken by an appraiser, that the
   Accidental sometimes achieves perfection, loath though
     we may be to admit it:

And that the realm of art is the realm in
Which to look for "fishbones in the throat of the gang."  Pin-
Pricks and the unstereotyped embarrassment being the contin-
   Ual diet of artists.   And in spite of it all, poets ask us just what it

Is in them that we cannot subscribe to:
People overbear till told to stop:  no matter through
What sobering process they have gone, some inquire if emotion,
   true
   And stimulated are not the same thing:  promoters request us to
     take our oath

That appearances are not cosmis:  mis-
Fits in the world of achievement want to know what bus-
Iness people have to reserve judgement about undertakings.  It is
   A strange idea that one must say what one thinks in order to
     be understood.