Fragment of a poem by Robert Haas

The squalor of mind
is formlessness,
informis,

the Romans said of ugliness,
it has no form,
a man’s misery, bleached skies,

the war between desire
and dailiness. I thought
this morning of Wallace Stevens

walking equably to work . . .

“Songs to Survive the Summer,” Praise (Ecco Press, 1979)