clever (not beautiful)
from willa beale | writ 5 Feb. 2025 - 20 Nov. 2025
Poets, lock up your words, your tongues are all tied
O, let read in every history book that the poets all tried
To lull us with lilting songs of a struggle, to mountain up a notion
That we were something more than animals
Be clever not beautiful, oh be clever not beautiful
If your goal is plain survival well then be clever not beautiful
“Clever Not Beautiful,” Hawksley Workman
i. written over a period of some months
i want a daydream of ice and marigolds, succinct and interloping, a stranger to me. i want to cry; i cannot cry—i want water— i want water. please, hold space for me. cradled in waves, wind chasing, chasing— i am clever, not beautiful, and that's fine by me, that's fine by me.
ii. written before the volta of section ix. of another poem
how late will we stay up writing poetry? what may be gained from such practice? when i am hungry, i eat too much when i am thirsty, i drink too much when i am tired, i stay up writing poetry. that's fine by me.
iii. written with what may be a slight ear infection
i am closer now to truth than ever before but i cannot hear the truth over the din of battle of course, i will be the first human to apprehend truth. and everyone will hail me as a hero, but they won't know that i cheated so much to get here. that's fine by me.
iv. written immediately after section iii. of this poem
awkward vespers deteriorate the finer pleasures: i stay up far later than memory wants. when adrienne messages me early in the morning, i am quite glad that adrienne messages me. when elsie responds late at night, and we are both anxious, i am quite glad that elsie responds. that's fine by me.
v. things i forgot to set to verse
i had thought of something clever and devastating to say to elsie about survival— i had thought of something sweet and endearing to say to my father about falling apart— i had thought of something hopeless and true to say to anyone, but i forgot it all. that's fine by me.
vi. clever (not beautiful)
all is well and awful intermittently & that's ( irregular, the motion of all the happy people—other lines?i see them, in motion, and all the ugly people— seeking their comforts, their bodies, their suff'ring—if your goal is plain survival: be clever, not dutiful. let's then, in comfort, our bodies together, our kinship, our pleasure, the rust and fair weather (let's then, in mercy, our love and the censure, the silence | the violence, the death and dear weather— Sing then, my fellow traveller, let all beauty pass away and end. ( so deep within, have you found so deep within, have you found your missing yesterdays, friend? let's one parenthetical lesser— or, no— when the gold photons crash against the weather-worn pallets beyond our sanctuaries, then i surmise truth: one is never beautiful, only sees beauty and beauty obliterates all sense and in the inconstant fretting for constant Tomorrow i glean some cherries in a swoop of my palm and feed on cherries discorporated from the plain pain of all those remonstrations i will never overcome which have gone sour and quite moist before my mouth. sudden is the end, regardless of length; sudden is the end, regardless of length. scattershot lessons weld Tomorrow. but you knew this, didn't you, friend? where are you? i can smell you. is that the future? have we arrived? did we cure ignorance? i am a palimpsest of hope; no hope there is in me | i cut it all out and made a scrapbook of my longings. is it beautiful? do you perceive it? am i perceived? what am i? inconstant, the delirium underscoring pure, heartless reason. i am a time of grief and sour lemons and ugly men; i am a time of deconstructing them. when i pull the thread and he unravels like a wicker basket bashed against steel reeds, then i am quite certain all friends don't like to be called out like that: he weeps. why is my time a time where everyone takes persiflage too serious for comfort? why are we such a fucking mess? why did i forsake beauty for cleverness? i will pretend for you that i am not hopeless; though, everything seems a fancy discomposure of this and that's ))) fine by me.
vii. written at the end of the poem titled “clever (not beautiful)”
i am having supper with friends Tomorrow. today, i listened to interviews with sonderkommandos. yesterday, i remember almost drowning in California. today, i rested my head briefly on kiara's warm arm; i tested elsie again and we found neither truth nor triumph— and that's fine by me.
afterword
to those mentioned herein, do not alarm yourselves; i was riffing and you happened to have decorated my days.
i was compelled to start this poem in february because the phrasing ‘clever, not beautiful’ had been pecking incessantly at my senses since i’d encountered the hawksley workman tune. sometimes, it is this simple: i write a poem based entirely off the obsession i have with some title belonging to some poem. often, our poems begin with titles and flow forth from the rivulets of meaning that may pour off them. this poem had many fickle stones obscuring its flow.
in daoism, cleverness is uncouth. true words don’t speak, and all that delirium. this was also on my mind a lot because will struggles to shut up about it sometimes. in much of our work, the interplay of contradiction runs rampant, unapologetic, and i knew that here, in “clever (not beautiful),” things would be no different. i am in an abusive relationship with opposing ideas and their juxtaposition expressed through the conceits uncovered by lyric and verse.
weatherbie has suggested there should be another paragraph here expanding on some of what i’ve said about juxtaposition and conceit and poetic philosophy, but i don’t really have anything more to say about it. instead, i’ll fill the space with a short paragraph about nothing. do you think it’s long enough? maybe we’ll do just one more sentence.
the funny thing about such notions as ‘beauty’ and ‘cleverness’ and ‘hope’ is that they quite literally don’t exist. these are invented terms that ascribe some sensation to a sensation. it is quite difficult to truly pinpoint an accurate interpretation of anything, and this makes the honest analysis of anything quite fraught with such existential concerns as would be raised by these realizations. it doesn’t matter if i make an effort to be understood: graze anything long enough and it becomes barren of meaning—there is only the soft soil of potential sensation remaining.
later, i will post another poem (co-authored with O.) titled “timeless, beautiful & exhausted” which is a sort of sibling poem to this one. i don’t know how they’re siblings, but they are. if you did not enjoy this poem—and in fact found it rather delirious and protracted—then i can assure you the sibling is quite satisfactory and convenient for the lens of comprehension. my language is simple, direct, and personal, whereas here it is clever, evasive, and devastated.
thank you for reading; now, go study ferns and fair moss—they will be sleeping soon.
Edited by George Weatherbie.