505 History and politics poems

Dear Aleph, Like Ovid:I’ll have no last words. This is what it means to die among barbarians.Bar bar bar was how the Greeks heard our speech — sheep, beasts — and so we became barbarians. We make them reveal the brutes they are, Aleph, by the things we make them name. David, they tell me, is the one one should aspire to, but ever since I first heard them say Philistine I’ve known I am Goliath if I am anything.

Primeval Beasts rearing from green slime— an illiterate country, unable to read its own name. Stones moved into position on the hills’ sides; snakes laid their eggs in their cold shadow. The earth suffered the sky’s shrapnel, bled yellow into the enraged sea. At night heavily over the heaving forests the moon sagged. The ancestors of the tigers brightened their claws. Such sounds as there were came from the strong torn by the stronger. The dawn tilted an unpolished mirror for the runt mind to look at itself in without recognition. Neolithic I shall not be here, and the way things are going now won’t want to be. Wheels go no faster than what pulls them. That land visible over the sea in clear weather, they say we will get there some time soon and take possession of it. What then? More acres to cultivate and no markets for the crops. The young are not what they were, smirking at the auspices of the entrails. Some think there will be a revival. I don’t believe it. This plucked music has come to stay. The natural breathing of the pipes was to a different god. Imagine depending on the intestines of a polecat for accompaniment to one’s worship! I have attended at the sacrifice of the language that is the liturgy the priests like, and felt the draught that was God leaving. I think some day there will be nothing left but to go back to the place I came from and wrap myself in the memory of how I was young once and under the covenant of that God not given to folly. Christian They were bearded like the sea they came from; rang stone bells for their stone hearers. Their cells fitted them like a coffin. Out of them their prayers seeped, delicate flowers where weeds grew. Their dry bread broke like a bone. Wine in the cup was a blood-stained mirror for sinners to look into with one eye closed, and see themselves forgiven. Mediaeval I was my lord’s bard, telling again sweetly what had been done bloodily. We lived in a valley; he had no lady. Fame was our horizon. In the spring of the year the wind brought the news of a woman’s beauty. Her eyes were still stones in her smooth-running hair. Her voice was the birds’ envy. We made a brave foray; the engagement was furious. We came back alone. Sing me, my lord said, the things nearer home: my falcons, my horse. I did so, he listened. My harp was of fire; the notes bounced like sparks off his spirit’s anvil. To-morrow, he promised, we will ride forth again. Modern And the brittle gardens of Dinorwig, deep in the fallen petals of their slate flowers: such the autumn of a people! Whose spring is it sleeps in a glass bulb, ready to astonish us with its brilliance? Bring on the dancing girls of the future, the swaying pylons with their metal hair bickering towards England.

Groundbreaking Ceremony, City of South Miami, Sunset Drive Improvements And so it began: the earth torn, split open by a dirt road cutting through palmettos and wild tamarind trees defending the land against the sun. Beside the road, a shack leaning into the wind, on the wooden porch, crates of avocados and limes, white chickens pecking at the floor boards, and a man under the shadow of his straw hat, staring into the camera in 1914. He doesn't know within a lifetime the unclaimed land behind him will be cleared of scrub and sawgrass, the soil will be turned, made to give back what the farmers wish, their lonely houses will stand acres apart from one another, jailed behind the boughs of their orchards. He'll never buy sugar at the general store, mail love letters at the post office, or take a train at the depot of the town that will rise out of hundred-million years of coral rock on promises of paradise. He'll never ride a Model-T puttering down the dirt road that will be paved over, stretch farther and farther west into the horizon, reaching for the setting sun after which it will be named. He can't even begin to imagine the shadows of buildings rising taller than the palm trees, the street lights glowing like counterfeit stars dotting the sky above the road, the thousands who will take the road everyday, who'll also call this place home less than a hundred years after the photograph of him hanging today in City Hall as testament. He'll never meet me, the engineer hired to transform the road again, bring back tree shadows and birdsongs, build another promise of another paradise meant to last another forever. He'll never see me, the poet standing before him, trying to read his mind across time, wondering if he was thinking what I'm today, both of us looking down the road that will stretch on for years after I too disappear into a photo.

They jumped from the burning floors— one, two, a few more, higher, lower. The photograph halted them in life, and now keeps them above the earth toward the earth. Each is still complete, with a particular face and blood well hidden. There’s enough time for hair to come loose, for keys and coins to fall from pockets. They’re still within the air’s reach, within the compass of places that have just now opened. I can do only two things for them— describe this flight and not add a last line.

Some folks hollered hard times in nineteen-twenty-nine. In nineteen-twenty-eight say I was way behind. Some folks hollered hard times because hard times were new. Hard times is all I ever had, why should I lie to you? Some folks hollered hard times. What is it all about? Things were bad for me when those hard times started out.

This year, till late in April, the snow fell thick and light: Thy truce-flag, friendly Nature, in clinging drifts of white, Hung over field and city: now everywhere is seen, In place of that white quietness, a sudden glow of green. The verdure climbs the Common, beneath the leafless trees, To where the glorious Stars and Stripes are floating on the breeze. There, suddenly as Spring awoke from Winter’s snow-draped gloom, The Passion-Flower of Seventy-six is bursting into bloom. Dear is the time of roses, when earth to joy is wed, And garden-plot and meadow wear one generous flush of red; But now in dearer beauty, to her ancient colors true, Blooms the old town of Boston in red and white and blue. Along the whole awakening North are those bright emblems spread; A summer noon of patriotism is burning overhead: No party badges flaunting now, no word of clique or clan; But “Up for God and Union!” is the shout of every man. Oh, peace is dear to Northern hearts; our hard-earned homes more dear; But freedom is beyond the price of any earthly cheer; And freedom’s flag is sacred; he who would work it harm, Let him, although a brother, beware our strong right arm! A brother! ah, the sorrow, the anguish of that word! The fratricidal strife begun, when will its end be heard? Not this the boon that patriot hearts have prayed and waited for;— We loved them, and we longed for peace: but they would have it war. Yes; war! on this memorial day, the day of Lexington, A lightning-thrill along the wires from heart to heart has run. Brave men we gazed on yesterday, to-day for us have bled: Again is Massachusetts blood the first for Freedom shed. To war,—and with our brethren, then,—if only this can be! Life hangs as nothing in the scale against dear Liberty! Though hearts be torn asunder, for Freedom we will fight: Our blood may seal the victory, but God will shield the Right!

has ever lit up our hearts like this. No king. See Bhutto in Karachi, 1972. His path strewn with rose petals, sprinkled with attar, leads him, not to the sea with its crashing surf and screaming gulls but into the alleys and passageways of a slum. Ferdowsi in Shahnamah tags it for the interim as “the place of worship before any others existed. . . ” No King, no King of Kings, had ever toured a slum before. It opened wide the thrice-locked chamber of mercy in our hearts. The gathering crowds expecting to catch a glimpse of Bhutto, are, instead, treated to a double vision: Alexander the Great, in a red robe, left hand resting on his sword, like in an illustration from Shahnamah , as he watches our own pilgrim, the unsuspecting Bhutto “reach for the door handle of the Ka'ba.” Bhutto’s entourage and PTV news crew push back. The crowd askew, insufflated by this vision, pushes Bhutto towards the hovel of the woman driven half-insane by poverty. Bhutto, aglow, with tears in his eyes, embraces the woman who collapses in his arms. No king, no king of kings, had ever lit up our hearts like this. No king.

I was always a thoughtful youngster, Said the lady on the omnibus, I remember Father used to say, You are more thoughtful than us. I was sensitive too, the least thing Upset me so much, I used to cry if a fly Stuck in the hatch. Mother always said, Elsie is too good, There’ll never be another like Elsie, Touch wood. I liked to be alone, Sitting on the garden path, My brother said he’d never seen a Picture more like Faith in the Arena. They were kindly people, my people, I could not help being different, And I think it was good for me Mixing in a different element. The poor lady now burst out crying And I saw her friend was not a friend but a nurse For she said, Cheer up duckie the next stop is ours, They got off at Northumberland House. This great House of the Percies Is now a lunatic asylum, But over the gate there still stands The great Northumberland Lion. This family animal’s tail Is peculiar in that it is absolutely straight, And straight as a bar it stood out to drop after them As they went through the gate. November 1964

The sunlight was not our concern or even The pane it shone through, and no one was going Down for the mail, and the four lettuces The gardener brought as a gift seemed to be A calculated bounty, so that early on We knew we were going to be stuck with ourselves The rest of the day, the vicissitudes Marching in rows from the forest, the balms Not arriving till nightfall. On the prowl Since morning, the wind had a touch too much Of motivation, an annoying way Of exactly ruffling the same oak leaf As if it were practicing a piano trill; All day, repetitive birds, far off, Were either boring themselves to death Or, drunk on instinct, doing their thing: Ritual dances, territorial rites— The whole imperial egg. What nests Ambition is weaving in us is hard To say: after the flat occasion, The unshared sphere, each childish wish Grows hopeless finding this is what the world is. For this, the recommended cures are useless: A cheery hello to the disaffected At breakfast? A soupful of tears at dinner? You could spill the whole silly story out To one more demanding, ill-tempered beauty You happened to meet at the A. & P., And still every greedy shopping cart, First overstuffed and then abandoned In the parking lot, would leave in its wake Some human need, ignored, half-starved . . . Torn between having nothing to say And saying it, whole diaries get down: How terrible to have dressed beautifully for the rain! . . . I was launched on New York’s bisexual muddle . . .

Another year!—another deadly blow! Another mighty Empire overthrown! And We are left, or shall be left, alone; The last that dare to struggle with the Foe. 'Tis well! from this day forward we shall know That in ourselves our safety must be sought; That by our own right hands it must be wrought; That we must stand unpropped, or be laid low. O dastard whom such foretaste doth not cheer! We shall exult, if they who rule the land Be men who hold its many blessings dear, Wise, upright, valiant; not a servile band, Who are to judge of danger which they fear, And honour which they do not understand.