Four reasons: Mine but not mine.

1. From Caye, from The Descent of Man, by T.C. Boyle

Orlando sets and checks lobster traps. All the men on the island set and check lobster traps. The traps are made of wooden strips, shaped like Quonset huts, a conical entranceway at one end. Bait is unnecessary. The lobster, scouting the margins of the reef, the sea chanting over him, will prowl around this trap until he finds the conical entranceway. He will scrabble into the trap, delighted, secure from attack. The lobster psyche takes solace in holes. When the traps are hauled the law requires fishermen to release any lobster whose tails is smaller than three inches, a seeding measure. The fishermen do not release the lobsters whose tails are smaller than three inches--nor do they take them to the market. Instead they twist off the heads, make a welter of the sweet curled tails, black against the frayed and blanched floorboards of their boats, carry the bloodless white meat home to their pots. Orlando tells me that the lobster catch is smaller this season than it was a year ago, and that a year ago it was smaller than the preceding season. I nod my head. Like the point of a cone I say.


2. From Hurricane, by Bob Dylan

Rubin could take a man out with just one punch
But he never did like to talk about it all that much
It's my work, he'd say, and I do it for pay
And when it's over I'd just as soon go on my way
Up to some paradise
Where the trout streams flow and the air is nice
And ride a horse along a trail
But then they took him to the jailhouse
Where they try to turn a man into a mouse

All of Rubin's cards were marked in advance
The trial was a pig-circus, he never had a chance
The judge made Rubin's witnesses drunkards from the slums
To the white folks who watched he was a revolutionary bum
And to the black folks he was just a crazy nigger
No one doubted that he pulled the trigger
And though they could not produce the gun
The D.A. said he was the one who did the deed
And the all-white jury agreed

Rubin Carter was falsely tried
The crime was murder one, guess who testified?
Bello and Bradley and they both baldly lied
And the newspapers, they all went along for the ride
How can the life of such a man
Be in the palm of some fools hand?
To see him obviously framed
Couldn't help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land
Where justice is a game

Now all the criminals in their coats and their ties
Are free to drink martinis and watch the sun rise
While Rubin sits like Buddha in a ten-foot cell
An innocent man in a living hell
That's the story of the Hurricane,
But it wont be over till they clear his name
And give him back the time he's done
Put in a prison cell, but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world


3. Pacemaker by W.D. Snodgrass

aaaaaaaaaaI
"One Snodgrass, two Snodgrass, three Snodgrass, four . . .
aaaaaaI took my own rollcall when I counted the seconds;
"One two three, Two two three, Three . . .," the drum score
aaaaaaShowed only long rests to the tympani's entrance.

"Oh-oh-oh leff; leff; lef-toh-righ-toh-leff,"
aaaaaaThe sergeant cadenced us footsore recruits;
The heart, poor drummer, gone lame, deaf,
aaaaaaThen AWOL, gets frogmarched to the noose.

aaaaaaaaaaII
Old coots, at the Veterans', might catch breath
aaaaaaIf their cheeks got slapped by a nurse's aide,
Then come back to life; just so, at their birth,
aaaaaaYoung rumps had been tendered warm accolades.

This kick-ass rude attitude, smart-assed insult,
aaaaaaThe acid-fueled book review just might shock
Us back to the brawl like smelling salts
aaaaaaMight sting the lulled heart up off its blocks.

aaaaaaaaaIII
I thought I'd always favor rubato
aaaOr syncopation, scorning fixed rhythms;
aaaaaaThought my old heartthrobs could stand up to stress;
Believed one's bloodpump should skip a few beats
aaaIf it fell into company with sleek young women;
aaaaaaBelieved my own bruit could beat with the best.

Wrong again, Snodgrass! This new gold gadget,
aaaSnug as the watch on my wife's warm wrist,
aaaaaaDrives my pulsetempo near twice its old pace--
Go, nonstop watch! Go, clockwork rabbit,
aaaKeeping this lame old dog synchronized,
aaaaaaSteady, sparked up, still in the race.


4. Epigraph I saw on the last chapter of a romance novel, which was really an epitaph on the monument of some Italian invalid:

I was well; I would be better; I am here.