517 Social commentaries poems

There are fewer introductions In plague years, Hands held back, jocularity No longer bellicose, Even among men. Breathing’s generally wary, Labored, as they say, when The end is at hand. But this is the everyday intake Of   the imperceptible life force, Willed now, slow — Well, just cautious In inhabited air. As for ongoing dialogue, No longer an exuberant plosive To make a point, But a new squirreling of air space, A new sense of   boundary. Genghis Khan said the hand Is the first thing one man gives To another. Not in this war. A gesture of   limited distance Now suffices, a nod, A minor smile or a hand Slightly raised, Not in search of   its counterpart, Just a warning within The acknowledgment to stand back. Each beautiful stranger a barbarian Breathing on the other side of the gate.

Aggressive panhandling, public urination, verbal threats, public nudity and violation of the open container law followed us down the days, for why are we here much longer, or even this long? I ask you to be civil and not interrupt night’s business. It was fun getting used to you, who couldn’t have been more nicer. This was as modern as it had ever been. They were influenced by him: some dirty magazine on the air tonight. (Amid the chaos, reports of survivors.) Didn’t the flowers’ restoration cat fugue keep spilling, and like that? It wouldn’t be the first time, either. The pro-taffeta get up and laugh, investigate or communicate. The night you were going to stay up late, others will kiss, and he talks about you, and I don’t know what. Come in, anyway, and don’t lack for tales of the Assertion. We’re talking civilian unrest. Yes, well, maybe you should take one. (Do not bite or chew.)

In the rearview, fog extinguishes the hills of new money—mansions on acres away from road or sight. Their architected privacy, windows to look out at a land that won't look back. The fog's secure drapery. It's space to dance through they buy and what one might call "dappled light" moving across their acres, light through their oaks moving over their mares, brushed to a sheen. • Palms of sugar cubes. Soft snorting, I bet. Here, Muybridge proved their horses fly a moment. In their homes, they can't hear each other call from foyer to pool house. I am jealous of this loneliness most of all—loneliness delimited by colonnade and cold pressed juices. They make excellent corpses, among the expensive flowers.... I imagine hills and hills dappled like this.

When I see the two cops laughing after one of them gets shot because this is TV and one says while putting pressure on the wound, Haha, you're going to be fine, and the other says,I know, haha!, as the ambulance arrives— I know the men are white. I think of a clip from the hours of amateur footage I've seen when another man at an intersection gets shot, falls, and bleeds from a hole the viewer knows exists only by the way the dark red pools by the standing cop's feet, gun now holstered, who yells the audience back to the sidewalk. I know which one is dying while black and which one stands by white. I think this morning about the student in my class who wrote a free write line on the video I played that showed a man pouring water on his own chest, "...the homoerotic scene against a white sky" with no other men present.Who gets to see and who follows what scrip t? I ask my students. Whose lines are these and by what hand are they written?

I place these numbed wrists to the pane watching white uniforms whisk over him in the tube-kept prison fear what they will do in experiment watch my gloved stickshifting gasolined hands breathe boxcar-information-please infirmary tubes distrusting white-pink mending paperthin silkened end hairs, distrusting tubes shrunk in his trunk-skincapped shaven head, in thighs distrusting-white-hands-picking-baboon-light on his son who will not make his second night of this wardstrewn intensive airpocket where his father's asthmatic hymns of night-train, train done gone his mother can only know that he has flown up into essential calm unseen corridor going boxscarred home,mamaborn, sweetsonchild gonedowntown into researchtestingwarehousebatteryacid mama-son-done-gone/me telling her 'nother train tonight, no music, no breathstroked heartbeat in my infinite distrust of them: and of my distrusting self white-doctor-who-breathed-for-him-all-night say it for two sons gone, say nightmare, say it loud panebreaking heartmadness: nightmare begins responsibility.

To Reg 1season opener The ants are licking open the peonies unwrapping the seal to the tight globes of bloom    they gang up on and chase away a ladybug I can sit here    on the porch stoop as on the step    of an amphitheater and watch    ours is a great sports city the tour guides say   even the house roofs are bleachers    some ball is always in the air ready to open    its colors fragrance like stadium food scent reaches the street    our mouths drop open    tongues about to do the work 2 The wind is so high, the lake surface contracts in a gasp The waves jump straight up. Our side must be winning. I can't hear the crowd of whitecap I see from the bus run The joggers and cyclists look as though hysterically they carry, themselves,     the news and breaking sound        that maybe There's not another side to water        nor to the whole of what we play We field against a fog, or, the home game in solids, ice in a change of uniform We contend against what is and is ourselves        though We want a side that isn't ours to have of the universe    to have us on our feet like the waves cheering on this morning this morning We want our messengers to lie    a pool of good news dead silent at our feet for us to walk open.    Our winnings winning or not: still won a life that lets us live it the excitement    of winged ankles, seas of dancing streets in the envelope. 3 When the waves jumped straight up, the messenger Sand smashed them to pieces for winning When the surface fainted back, the stampeding Sky sank its foot in that face to leave winning There were two countless words for the score You hear the roar of silence over winning Someone screaming, What are you doing, what are you Doing    Something answers, I am winning. Doing nothing is thrown out the window To eliminate that way to deal with winning We burned gridlocked cars in Morse code before We took off running to say living is winning Lake Shore Drive reads Chicago is 'living life city' (quoting the song)          winning. 4 The whole street     ladies lay afloat in the gondola stroll     of their own legs the daylit lanterns of their dreams hide inexpressibly their faces made up with not being in Kansas they fan with maps like feathers of brightly colored directions to famous brands of which this street is that one direction.     And all one direction only—         no movement. as if, since people move, there are no people on this street; the stalks of the buildings, reeds a hem of the lake sweeps through. 5 daylight you see people's reflections off each other fill the street cascading one from another the crowd slips like a fan out of itself, in the angling of store displays the glass facets kaleidoscope a rose window back of themselves full of the flash petals of grace that fall by evening home, when the ones dressed in evening wear        possession-less and so, without reflection here        take all the empties back all the want and people scavenged back off the streets     into these who dine with starving    off the streets 6 The street in the opening between buildings is running a strip of the el like a frame by frame tape, the windows of the train different shots of the sky, then it breaks, and the clouds are caught up in the walls of nearby glass-skin architecture. I never get to see what I think would be the whole movie. I, too, move on. The turns in the drive roll the buildings out from behind one another in a scenery change, only I am the one on wheels, the drop backs a larger stage than this town. And just as I can see betrayal coming by the music, my eyes braille the thunder hidden even up the sleeve of a silent film. The hand shakes anyway. Not meant to be the end of things. An inbound train toward the loop will be arriving shortly. The street in the opening 7 The John Hancock Building has never struck the actual oil it looks like it should. Wildcatters call this a dry hole. But it isn't, it has the pool of Lake Michigan on the bottom when you're looking from the top What an amazing hole, he said. Enchantment's name to call into      what we all are looking for, a spell to an opening as deep     into seeing. He had the gift of new    first time in a city, pick pockets hadn't sighted yet the eyes, the bulging wealth of openness, the shiny change. We were watching the old movie of our century. —our village root, the well's drawn-words drip into volumes in our pack trying to solve our plot. A close-up on the winch-rope, frayed by so continuously raising the question, cuts off    not to mislead the viewer; and screened on our bodies, the billboard buses, city wall— the crude that is this day struck from our drilling 8 All over everything    the sun rises funny. I heard the eagle flies on Friday as the eagle shits on Friday where I lived. Not enough for any growth to get paid its flowers. Mostly weed. Bouquet of distraction. Broken glass season gives way to plastic in the lots, only the packaging changes, it snows something or other year round white to deal with, powder or rock. Or through the window, the country unable to stop opening its poverties, making the sun go 'round to the back. But the sun reserves its someday someday to shine where door don' 'llow light. And I am drenched by a slow, barely brought in gusher of my working through the cracks, a gold opened in myself like a vein through blinding pain, through the names of need and silence. But my someday come seems didn't when the hit is only mine, not also enough of  to my brothers. 9 Dawn burnished wave,        smoothed free of everything but the slowest curve barely less than earth's hump      unloads a surf-less silence we can see— clear bright yet shimmering—stillness as. Stillness as a dangerous surface enough! a floor walked all night clear to the end of nowhere                     got to get my hands on some no place          except where money from somewhere to get me over this hump an arm swipes everything off the table to this floor        the hit bottom come to the surface on the table

A Load of brushes and baskets and cradles and chairs Labours along the street in the rain: With it a man, a woman, a pony with whiteybrown hairs. — The man foots in front of the horse with a shambling sway At a slower tread than a funeral train, While to a dirge-like tune he chants his wares, Swinging a Turk's-head brush (in a drum-major's way When the bandsmen march and play). A yard from the back of the man is the whiteybrown pony's nose: He mirrors his master in every item of pace and pose: He stops when the man stops, without being told, And seems to be eased by a pause; too plainly he's old, Indeed, not strength enough shows To steer the disjointed waggon straight, Which wriggles left and right in a rambling line, Deflected thus by its own warp and weight, And pushing the pony with it in each incline. The woman walks on the pavement verge, Parallel to the man: She wears an apron white and wide in span, And carries a like Turk's-head, but more in nursing-wise: Now and then she joins in his dirge, But as if her thoughts were on distant things, The rain clams her apron till it clings. — So, step by step, they move with their merchandize, And nobody buys.

Or the true feelings of those slaves who say they would not be free. The following shows their feelings when they are free.

This happened long ago, before the onset of universal genetic correctness. Boys and girls would stand naked before mirrors studying the defects of their structure. Nose too long, ears like burdocks, sunken chin just like a mongoloid. Breasts too small, too large, lopsided shoulders, penis too short, hips too broad or else too narrow. And just an inch or two taller! Such was the house they inhabited for life. Hiding, feigning, concealing defects. But somehow they still had to find a partner. Following incomprehensible tastes—airy creatures paired with potbellies, skin and bones enamored of salt pork. They had a saying then: “Even monsters have their mates.” So perhaps they learned to tolerate their partners’ flaws, trusting that theirs would be forgiven in turn. Now every genetic error meets with such disgust that crowds might spit on them and stone them. As happened in the city of K., where the town council voted to exile a girl So thickset and squat that no stylish dress could ever suit her, But let’s not yearn for the days of prenormalization. Just think of the torments, the anxieties, the sweat, the wiles needed to entice, in spite of all. Translated by Clare Cavanagh

Dosn't thou 'ear my 'erse's legs, as they canters awaäy? Proputty, proputty, proputty—that's what I 'ears 'em saäy. Proputty, proputty, proputty—Sam, thou's an ass for thy paaïns: Theer's moor sense i' one o' 'is legs, nor in all thy braaïns. Woä—theer's a craw to pluck wi' tha, Sam; yon 's parson's 'ouse— Dosn't thou knaw that a man mun be eäther a man or a mouse? Time to think on it then; for thou'll be twenty to weeäk. Proputty, proputty—woä then, woä—let ma 'ear mysén speäk. Me an' thy muther, Sammy, 'as been a'talkin' o' thee; Thou's beän talkin' to muther, an' she beän a tellin' it me. Thou'll not marry for munny—thou's sweet upo' parson's lass— Noä—thou 'll marry for luvv—an' we boäth of us thinks tha an ass. Seeä'd her todaäy goä by—Saäint's-daäy—they was ringing the bells. She's a beauty, thou thinks—an' soä is scoors o' gells, Them as 'as munny an' all—wot's a beauty?—the flower as blaws. But proputty, proputty sticks, an' proputty, proputty graws. Do'ant be stunt; taäke time. I knaws what maäkes tha sa mad. Warn't I craäzed fur the lasses mysén when I wur a lad? But I knaw'd a Quaäker feller as often 'as towd ma this: "Doänt thou marry for munny, but goä wheer munny is!" An' I went wheer munny war; an' thy muther coom to 'and, Wi' lots o' munny laaïd by, an' a nicetish bit o' land. Maäybe she warn't a beauty—I niver giv it a thowt— But warn't she as good to cuddle an' kiss as a lass as 'ant nowt? Parson's lass 'ant nowt, an' she weänt 'a nowt when 'e 's deäd, Mun be a guvness, lad, or summut, and addle her breäd. Why? for 'e 's nobbut a curate, an' weänt niver get hissén clear, An' 'e maäde the bed as 'e ligs on afoor 'e coom'd to the shere. An' thin 'e coom'd to the parish wi' lots o' Varsity debt, Stook to his taäil thy did, an' 'e 'ant got shut on 'em yet. An' 'e ligs on 'is back i' the grip, wi' noän to lend 'im a shuvv, Woorse nor a far-welter'd yowe: fur, Sammy, 'e married for luvv. Luvv? what's luvv? thou can luvv thy lass an' 'er munny too, Maäkin' 'em goä togither, as they've good right to do. Couldn I luvv thy muther by cause 'o 'er munny laaïd by? Naäy—fur I luvv'd 'er a vast sight moor fur it: reäson why. Ay, an' thy muther says thou wants to marry the lass, Cooms of a gentleman burn: an' we boäth on us thinks tha an ass. Woä then, proputty, wiltha?—an ass as near as mays nowt— Woä then, wiltha? dangtha!—the bees is as fell as owt. Breäk me a bit o' the esh for his 'eäd, lad, out o' the fence! Gentleman burn! what's gentleman burn? is it shillins an' pence? Proputty, proputty's ivrything 'ere, an', Sammy, I'm blest If it isn't the saäme oop yonder, fur them as 'as it 's the best. Tis'n them as 'as munny as breaks into 'ouses an' steäls, Them as 'as coats to their backs an' taäkes their regular meäls, Noä, but it 's them as niver knaws wheer a meäl's to be 'ad. Taäke my word for it Sammy, the poor in a loomp is bad. Them or thir feythers, tha sees, mun 'a beän a laäzy lot, Fur work mun 'a gone to the gittin' whiniver munny was got. Feyther 'ad ammost nowt; leastways 'is munny was 'id. But 'e tued an' moil'd issén dead, an' 'e died a good un, 'e did. Looök thou theer wheer Wrigglesby beck cooms out by the 'ill! Feyther run oop to the farm, an' I runs oop to the mill; An' I 'll run oop to the brig, an' that thou 'll live to see; And if thou marries a good un I 'll leäve the land to thee. Thim's my noätions, Sammy, wheerby I means to stick; But if thou marries a bad un, I 'll leäve the land to Dick.— Coom oop, proputty, proputty—that's what I 'ears 'im saäy— Proputty, proputty, proputty—canter an' canter awaäy.