517 Social commentaries poems

Barely tolerated, living on the margin In our technological society, we were always having to be rescued On the brink of destruction, like heroines in Orlando Furioso Before it was time to start all over again. There would be thunder in the bushes, a rustling of coils, And Angelica, in the Ingres painting, was considering The colorful but small monster near her toe, as though wondering whether forgetting The whole thing might not, in the end, be the only solution. And then there always came a time when Happy Hooligan in his rusted green automobile Came plowing down the course, just to make sure everything was O.K., Only by that time we were in another chapter and confused About how to receive this latest piece of information. Was it information? Weren’t we rather acting this out For someone else’s benefit, thoughts in a mind With room enough and to spare for our little problems (so they began to seem), Our daily quandary about food and the rent and bills to be paid? To reduce all this to a small variant, To step free at last, minuscule on the gigantic plateau— This was our ambition: to be small and clear and free. Alas, the summer’s energy wanes quickly, A moment and it is gone. And no longer May we make the necessary arrangements, simple as they are. Our star was brighter perhaps when it had water in it. Now there is no question even of that, but only Of holding on to the hard earth so as not to get thrown off, With an occasional dream, a vision: a robin flies across The upper corner of the window, you brush your hair away And cannot quite see, or a wound will flash Against the sweet faces of the others, something like: This is what you wanted to hear, so why Did you think of listening to something else? We are all talkers It is true, but underneath the talk lies The moving and not wanting to be moved, the loose Meaning, untidy and simple like a threshing floor. These then were some hazards of the course, Yet though we knew the course was hazards and nothing else It was still a shock when, almost a quarter of a century later, The clarity of the rules dawned on you for the first time. They were the players, and we who had struggled at the game Were merely spectators, though subject to its vicissitudes And moving with it out of the tearful stadium, borne on shoulders, at last. Night after night this message returns, repeated In the flickering bulbs of the sky, raised past us, taken away from us, Yet ours over and over until the end that is past truth, The being of our sentences, in the climate that fostered them, Not ours to own, like a book, but to be with, and sometimes To be without, alone and desperate. But the fantasy makes it ours, a kind of fence-sitting Raised to the level of an esthetic ideal. These were moments, years, Solid with reality, faces, namable events, kisses, heroic acts, But like the friendly beginning of a geometrical progression Not too reassuring, as though meaning could be cast aside some day When it had been outgrown. Better, you said, to stay cowering Like this in the early lessons, since the promise of learning Is a delusion, and I agreed, adding that Tomorrow would alter the sense of what had already been learned, That the learning process is extended in this way, so that from this standpoint None of us ever graduates from college, For time is an emulsion, and probably thinking not to grow up Is the brightest kind of maturity for us, right now at any rate. And you see, both of us were right, though nothing Has somehow come to nothing; the avatars Of our conforming to the rules and living Around the home have made—well, in a sense, “good citizens” of us, Brushing the teeth and all that, and learning to accept The charity of the hard moments as they are doled out, For this is action, this not being sure, this careless Preparing, sowing the seeds crooked in the furrow, Making ready to forget, and always coming back To the mooring of starting out, that day so long ago.

I was arrested because of that internal memo, and ended up in a cell, then I was told to sit with the police and the local bigwigs. In the hushed and fast darkening room they said someone—someone—had reduced the safety margin on the airport risk factor, and I got the blame. The sky that day was a pale, clear blue, but that was happening outside, and far away. The cop on duty would not open the tomb of the deported—sorry, departed—and as usual he had a story. Every movie, he said, depends on a script, and the narrative grows out of market research: a set of standard deviations. Art? What would they know? Open the tomb, and let me in.

The light so thick nothing’s visible, cognoscenti I knew them, stupid apes. Real apes know more Before we said apes. I know how to be you bet- ter — a stupid voice. You must find a mind to respect — why? There was someone with ear buds, speaking gibberish who wouldn’t stop walking beside me; freckle-spattered. I had to ask the métro attendant for help; she extricated him from me ... I respect his chaotic speech, mild adhesive force because it makes no sense. I am back on the alley, discovering adults are un- trustworthy: someone’s lying ... about a fight between a teenage girl and boy — he pushed her hard — first she badly scratched him, she’s worse, his mother says. I’m back at pre-beginning, I don’t want to go through that again. There is no sexuality in chaos, there’s no style, nor hope. I want style — apes have style, people have machines. Show me something to respect This bleuet growing out of a wall on rue d’Hauteville. I picked it and pressed it in a diary. Every once in a while I respect a moment. I am back at pre-beginning: I don’t want to care beyond this ... sudden hue in the sand, yellow or spotted with an hallucinated iridescence. The one who is stalking me ... there has often been someone stalk- ing me. My destiny. He’s gone, stay here in this, I can’t be harmed if I’m the only one who’s thought of being here. Aren’t you lonely? I don’t know.

I like the part I play. They’ve cast me as Pompeii The day before the day. It’s my brilliant performance as a luxury man because I act that way. They say: Just wait, you’ll see, you’ll pay, Pompeii. You’re a miracle in a whirlpool In your blind date’s vagina At your age. Nothin could be fina. You eat off her bone china. Don’t be a ghoul. Don’t be a fool, You fool. In the lifelong month of May, Racing joyously on his moto poeta to the grave, He’s his own fabulous slave. He rides his superbike faster and faster to save His master from the coming lava from China, every day, But especially today, because it’s on its way. Fred Astaire is about to explode In his buff-colored kidskin gloves, revolving around The gold knob of his walking stick, with the sound Of Vesuvia playing, And the slopes of Vesuvia saying Her effluvia are in nearly overflowing mode. Freud had predicted Fred. In The Future of an Illusion he said: “Movies are, in other words, the future of God.” Nothing expresses ordinary wishes more dysplastically than current American politics do. Breast augmentation as a deterrent To too much government is odd. Korean women in a shop on Madison give a pedicure to Pompeii. Fred only knows that he’s not getting old. Pompeii doesn’t know it’s the day before the day. The governor of New York is legally blind, a metaphor for his state of mind. He ought to resign, but he hasn’t resigned. Good riddance, goodbye. The bell has tolled.

I have lived it, and lived it, My nervous, luxury civilisation, My sugar-loving nerves have battered me to pieces. ... Their idea of literature is hopeless. Make them drink their own poetry! Let them eat their gross novel, full of mud.

They’re sexy because they’re needy, which degrades them. They’re sexy because they don’t need you. They’re sexy because they pretend not to need you, but they’re lying, which degrades them. They’re beneath you and it’s hot. They’re across the border, rhymes with dancer— they don’t need to understand. They’re content to be (not mean), which degrades them and is sweet. They want to be the thing-in-itself and the thing-for-you— Miss Thing— but can’t. They want to be you, but can’t, which is so hot.

I’ve stayed in the front yard all my life. I want a peek at the back Where it’s rough and untended and hungry weed grows. A girl gets sick of a rose. I want to go in the back yard now And maybe down the alley, To where the charity children play. I want a good time today. They do some wonderful things. They have some wonderful fun. My mother sneers, but I say it’s fine How they don’t have to go in at quarter to nine. My mother, she tells me that Johnnie Mae Will grow up to be a bad woman. That George’ll be taken to Jail soon or late (On account of last winter he sold our back gate). But I say it’s fine. Honest, I do. And I’d like to be a bad woman, too, And wear the brave stockings of night-black lace And strut down the streets with paint on my face.

Lying is an occupation, Used by all who mean to rise; Politicians owe their station, But to well concerted lies. These to lovers give assistance, To ensnare the fair-one's heart; And the virgin's best resistance Yields to this commanding art. Study this superior science, Would you rise in Church or State; Bid to Truth a bold defiance, 'Tis the practice of the great.

Ethics without faith, excuse me, is the butter and not the bread. You can’t nourish them all, the dead pile up at the hospital doors. And even they are not so numerous as the mothers come in maternity. The Provider knows his faults— love of architecture and repair— but will not fall into them for long: he can’t afford the adolescent luxury, the fellowship of the future looks greedily toward his family. The black keys fit black cylinders in the locks in holes in the night. He had a skeleton key once, a rubber arm and complete confidence. Now, as head of the family, he is inevitably on the wrong side looking out.

Kind pity chokes my spleen; brave scorn forbids Those tears to issue which swell my eyelids; I must not laugh, nor weep sins and be wise; Can railing, then, cure these worn maladies? Is not our mistress, fair Religion, As worthy of all our souls' devotion As virtue was in the first blinded age? Are not heaven's joys as valiant to assuage Lusts, as earth's honour was to them? Alas, As we do them in means, shall they surpass Us in the end? and shall thy father's spirit Meet blind philosophers in heaven, whose merit Of strict life may be imputed faith, and hear Thee, whom he taught so easy ways and near To follow, damn'd? Oh, if thou dar'st, fear this; This fear great courage and high valour is. Dar'st thou aid mutinous Dutch, and dar'st thou lay Thee in ships' wooden sepulchres, a prey To leaders' rage, to storms, to shot, to dearth? Dar'st thou dive seas, and dungeons of the earth? Hast thou courageous fire to thaw the ice Of frozen North discoveries? and thrice Colder than salamanders, like divine Children in th' oven, fires of Spain and the Line, Whose countries limbecs to our bodies be, Canst thou for gain bear? and must every he Which cries not, "Goddess," to thy mistress, draw Or eat thy poisonous words? Courage of straw! O desperate coward, wilt thou seem bold, and To thy foes and his, who made thee to stand Sentinel in his world's garrison, thus yield, And for forbidden wars leave th' appointed field? Know thy foes: the foul devil, whom thou Strivest to please, for hate, not love, would allow Thee fain his whole realm to be quit; and as The world's all parts wither away and pass, So the world's self, thy other lov'd foe, is In her decrepit wane, and thou loving this, Dost love a wither'd and worn strumpet; last, Flesh (itself's death) and joys which flesh can taste, Thou lovest, and thy fair goodly soul, which doth Give this flesh power to taste joy, thou dost loathe. Seek true religion. O where? Mirreus, Thinking her unhous'd here, and fled from us, Seeks her at Rome; there, because he doth know That she was there a thousand years ago, He loves her rags so, as we here obey The statecloth where the prince sate yesterday. Crantz to such brave loves will not be enthrall'd, But loves her only, who at Geneva is call'd Religion, plain, simple, sullen, young, Contemptuous, yet unhandsome; as among Lecherous humours, there is one that judges No wenches wholesome, but coarse country drudges. Graius stays still at home here, and because Some preachers, vile ambitious bawds, and laws, Still new like fashions, bid him think that she Which dwells with us is only perfect, he Embraceth her whom his godfathers will Tender to him, being tender, as wards still Take such wives as their guardians offer, or Pay values. Careless Phrygius doth abhor All, because all cannot be good, as one Knowing some women whores, dares marry none. Graccus loves all as one, and thinks that so As women do in divers countries go In divers habits, yet are still one kind, So doth, so is Religion; and this blind- ness too much light breeds; but unmoved, thou Of force must one, and forc'd, but one allow, And the right; ask thy father which is she, Let him ask his; though truth and falsehood be Near twins, yet truth a little elder is; Be busy to seek her; believe me this, He's not of none, nor worst, that seeks the best. To adore, or scorn an image, or protest, May all be bad; doubt wisely; in strange way To stand inquiring right, is not to stray; To sleep, or run wrong, is. On a huge hill, Cragged and steep, Truth stands, and he that will Reach her, about must and about must go, And what the hill's suddenness resists, win so. Yet strive so that before age, death's twilight, Thy soul rest, for none can work in that night. To will implies delay, therefore now do; Hard deeds, the body's pains; hard knowledge too The mind's endeavours reach, and mysteries Are like the sun, dazzling, yet plain to all eyes. Keep the truth which thou hast found; men do not stand In so ill case, that God hath with his hand Sign'd kings' blank charters to kill whom they hate; Nor are they vicars, but hangmen to fate. Fool and wretch, wilt thou let thy soul be tied To man's laws, by which she shall not be tried At the last day? Oh, will it then boot thee To say a Philip, or a Gregory, A Harry, or a Martin, taught thee this? Is not this excuse for mere contraries Equally strong? Cannot both sides say so? That thou mayest rightly obey power, her bounds know; Those past, her nature and name is chang'd; to be Then humble to her is idolatry. As streams are, power is; those blest flowers that dwell At the rough stream's calm head, thrive and do well, But having left their roots, and themselves given To the stream's tyrannous rage, alas, are driven Through mills, and rocks, and woods, and at last, almost Consum'd in going, in the sea are lost. So perish souls, which more choose men's unjust Power from God claim'd, than God himself to trust.