Poem by Gabriel Celaya

I must have something mad inside me
Because sometimes I catch myself loudly babbling insane things
For example,
I say extraordinary names of girls and ships
Or titles of books that haven’t been written yet.
I surely have something mad within.
I scream, I howl, and burst into tears.
Then I’m filled with tenderness by lofty verbs
And these free, useless vowels
In circular form
That fly for no reason—
Mouth open, they lift me into suspension
And I don’t know who we’re so joyful for
And I am happy
And precisely because of that, I feel mad.