Rumsfeld Poetry

Why I don't like poetry:

It rhymes, it has iambic pentameter, its written in a stupid way without sentences which makes it harder to read - the only way to read Milton's Paradise Lost is to read it like a normal book without all the verses.

When poetry is recited the reader sounds all maudlin like their cat has just been run over and they're trying not to cry.

I can never remember poems.

They just... irritate me.... But still, here's some stuff from Donald Rumsfeld which works better when written in verse. This I can handle because I know who he is. Poets I can't handle because I don't know who they are. Neither do they. That's why they write poems:

(Lifted straight from Guardian Online)

The Unknown

As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.

Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing

A Confession

Once in a while,
I'm standing here, doing something.
And I think,
"What in the world am I doing here?"
It's a big surprise.

May 16, 2001, interview with the New York Times

The Situation

Things will not be necessarily continuous.
The fact that they are something other than perfectly continuous
Ought not to be characterized as a pause.
There will be some things that people will see.
There will be some things that people won't see.
And life goes on.

Oct. 12, 2001, Department of Defense news briefing

Clarity

I think what you'll find,
I think what you'll find is,
Whatever it is we do substantively,
There will be near-perfect clarity
As to what it is.

And it will be known,
And it will be known to the Congress,
And it will be known to you,
Probably before we decide it,
But it will be known.

Feb. 28, 2003, Department of Defense briefing

Glass Box

You know, it's the old glass box at the
At the gas station,
Where you're using those little things
Trying to pick up the prize,
And you can't find it.
It's

And it's all these arms are going down in there,
And so you keep dropping it
And picking it up again and moving it,
But

Some of you are probably too young to remember those
Those glass boxes,
But

But they used to have them
At all the gas stations
When I was a kid.

Dec. 6, 2001, Department of Defense news briefing