517 Social commentaries poems

In vain thou bid’st me strike the lyre, And sing a song of mirth and glee, Or, kindling with poetic fire, Attempt some higher minstrelsy; In vain, in vain! for every thought That issues from this throbbing brain, Is from its first conception fraught With gloom and darkness, woe and pain. From earliest youth my path has been Cast in life’s darkest, deepest shade, Where no bright ray did intervene, Nor e’er a passing sunbeam strayed; But all was dark and cheerless night, Without one ray of hopeful light. From childhood, then, through many a shock, I’ve battled with the ills of life, Till, like a rude and rugged rock, My heart grew callous in the strife. When other children passed the hours In mirth, and play, and childish glee, Or gathering the summer flowers By gentle brook, or flowery lea, I sought the wild and rugged glen Where Nature, in her sternest mood, Far from the busy haunts of men, Frowned in the darksome solitude. There have I mused till gloomy night, Like the death-angel’s brooding wing, Would shut out every thing from sight, And o’er the scene her mantle fling; And seeking then my lonely bed To pass the night in sweet repose, Around my fevered, burning head, Dark visions of the night arose; And the stern scenes which day had viewed In sterner aspect rose before me, And specters of still sterner mood Waved their menacing fingers o’er me. When the dark storm-fiend soared abroad, And swept to earth the waving grain, On whirlwind through the forest rode, And stirred to foam the heaving main, I loved to mark the lightning’s flash, And listen to the ocean’s roar, Or hear the pealing thunder’s crash, And see the mountain torrents pour Down precipices dark and steep, Still bearing, in their headlong course To meet th’ embrace of ocean deep, Mementoes of the tempest’s force; For fire and tempest, flood and storm, Wakened deep echoes in my soul, And made the quickening life-blood warm With impulse that knew no control; And the fierce lightning’s lurid flash Rending the somber clouds asunder, Followed by the terrific crash Which marks the hoarsely rattling thunder, Seemed like the gleams of lurid light Which flashed across my seething brain, Succeeded by a darker night, With wilder horrors in its train. And I have stood on ocean’s shore, And viewed its dreary waters roll, Till the dull music of its roar Called forth responses in my soul; And I have felt that there was traced An image of my inmost soul, In that dark, dreary, boundless waste, Whose sluggish waters aimless roll— Save when aroused by storms’ wild force It lifts on high its angry wave, And thousands driven from their course Find in its depths a nameless grave. Whene’er I turned in gentler mood To scan the old historic page, It was not where the wise and good, The Bard, the Statesman, or the Sage, Had drawn in lines of living light, Lessons of virtue, truth and right; But that which told of secret league, Where deep conspiracies were rife, And where, through foul and dark intrigue, Were sowed the seeds of deadly strife. Where hostile armies met to seal Their country’s doom, for woe or weal; Where the grim-visaged death-fiend drank His full supply of human gore, And poured through every hostile rank The tide of battle’s awful roar; For then my spirit seemed to soar Away to where such scenes were rife, And high above the battle’s roar Sit as spectator of the strife— And in those scenes of war and woe, A fierce and fitful pleasure know. There was a time when I possessed High notions of Religion’s claim, Nor deemed its practice, at the best, Was but a false and empty name; But when I saw the graceless deeds Which marked its strongest votaries’ path, How senseless bigots, o’er their creeds, Blazing with wild fanatic wrath, Let loose the deadly tide of war, Spread devastation near and far, Through scenes of rapine, blood and shame, Of cities sacked, and towns on flame, Caused unbelievers’ hearts to feel The arguments of fire and steel By which they sought t’ enforce the word, And make rebellious hearts approve Those arguments of fire and sword As mandates of the God of love— How could I think that such a faith, Whose path was marked by fire and blood, That sowed the seeds of war and death, Had issued from a holy God? There was a time when I did love, Such love as those alone can know, Whose blood like burning lava moves, Whose passions like the lightning glow; And when that ardent, truthful love, Was blighted in its opening bloom, And all around, below, above, Seemed like the darkness of the tomb, ’Twas then my stern and callous heart, Riven in its most vital part, Seemed like some gnarled and knotted oak, That, shivered by the lightning’s stroke, Stands in the lonely wanderer’s path, A ghastly monument of wrath. Then how can I attune the lyre To strains of love, or joyous glee? Break forth in patriotic fire, Or soar on higher minstrelsy, To sing the praise of virtue bright, Condemn the wrong, and laud the right; When neither vice nor guilt can fling A darker shadow o’er my breast, Not even Virtue’s self can bring, Unto my moody spirit, rest. It may not be, it cannot be! Let others strike the sounding string, And in rich strains of harmony, Songs of poetic beauty sing; But mine must still the portion be, However dark and drear the doom, To live estranged from sympathy, Buried in doubt, despair and gloom; To bare my breast to every blow, To know no friend, and fear no foe, Each generous impulse trod to dust, Each noble aspiration crushed, Each feeling struck with withering blight, With no regard for wrong or right, No fear of hell, no hope of heaven, Die all unwept and unforgiven, Content to know and dare the worst Which mankind’s hate, and heaven’s curse, Can heap upon my living head, Or cast around my memory dead; And let them on my tombstone trace, Here lies the Pariah of his race.

I was out last night, the very picture of a sneak, dark and hunched-over, breaking and entering again. Why do I do it? And why, when I can afford serious residences, do I keep to this one room? Perhaps if I had not lost track of the difference between the real and the ideal it would never have happened. I hide here almost entirely now. When I go out, when I creep into those silent houses, I steal newspapers. An armload, no more than I can carry comfortably. Sometimes they are already tied up on the side porch or by the kitchen stove. Nobody misses them. They think each other or the maid has carried them out to the street. They say there is something intractable out there, the Law, the Right to Privacy, the World. In the days when my obsession was only a wound-up toy, squeaking and jabbering in my chest, I could have believed them. I sit by the window today (There is very little space left now, thought I have left corridors wide enough to walk through so I won't lose touch) holding my latest on my lap, handling them, fondling them, taking in every column. They are becoming more and more precious. My delusion grows and spreads. Lately it seems to me as I read of murders, wars, bankruptcies, jackpot winnings, the news if written in that perfect style of someone speaking to the one who knows and loves him. Long before they miss me, I think, the room will be perfectly solid. When they break in the door and, unsurprised, hardened to the most bizarre vagaries, begin to carry out my treasure, death's what they'll look for underneath it all, those fluent, muscled, imaginative men, sweating in their innocent coveralls. But I will be out in broad daylight by then, answering, having accepted utterly the heart's conditions. Tell them I wish them well, always, that I've been happy.

A longish poem about wallpaper. A short lyric about discouragement in white. A medium-length thesis of uncertain importance. Another sonnet, about scholarship. A couplet of olives. A long narrative about the exaggeration of your absence. Several quatrains about candle stubs. That old sestina on Isaiah. Palindromes about Scots presbyters of the 18th century. Some rock lyrics from Benares. A nature poem about committees. Seven heroic couplets about Art Murphy. Several more heroic couplets on Murphy’s Law. A ballad about studying Latin in Latium. A masque for Mercedes and her Benz.

Quarterly, is it, money reproaches me: ‘Why do you let me lie here wastefully? I am all you never had of goods and sex. You could get them still by writing a few cheques.’ So I look at others, what they do with theirs: They certainly don’t keep it upstairs. By now they’ve a second house and car and wife: Clearly money has something to do with life —In fact, they’ve a lot in common, if you enquire: You can’t put off being young until you retire, And however you bank your screw, the money you save Won’t in the end buy you more than a shave. I listen to money singing. It’s like looking down From long french windows at a provincial town, The slums, the canal, the churches ornate and mad In the evening sun. It is intensely sad.

The children are eating lunch at home on a summer weekday when a man comes to the door and asks their mother if she has anything that needs fixing or carrying or any yardwork he can do. They chew their food a little dreamily as, with her back straight and her voice carefully polite, she says No, thank you, I’m sorry, and the man goes away. Who was that, Mama? they say. Oh, no one, she says. They are sitting down to dinner but they have to wait because the doorbell rings and a thin young boy begins to tell their father about a Sales Program he’s completing for a scholarship to be Supervisor, and he holds up a filthy tattered little booklet and lifts also his desperate guile and heavily guarded hope, and the children’s father says, No thank you, sorry but I can’t help you out this time, and the boy goes away. The children start to eat and don’t ask anything, because the boy was just a boy, but their father acts irritated and hasty when he sits back down. Once a glassy-eyed heavy girl who almost seems asleep as she stands outside their door offers for sale some little handtowels stitched by the blind people at the Lighthouse for the Blind and the children are in the folds of their mother’s full skirt listening to the girl’s small voice and their mother says, Well, I bought some the last time. She buys the children school supplies and food, she pays the two boys for mowing the yard together and weeding her flower bed. She gets a new sewing machine for her birthday from the children’s father, and she buys fabric and thread and patterns and makes dresses for the girls, to save money. She tells the children each to put a dime or quarter into the collection plate at Church, and once a month she puts in a little sealed white envelope, and the ushers move slowly along the ends of the pews weaving the baskets through the congregation, and the organist plays a long piece of music. Whisk brooms, magazine subscriptions, anything you need hauled away, little league raffle tickets, cookies, chocolate candy, can I do any yard work again and again, hairbrushes, Christmas cards, do you need help with your ironing one time, and more, came calling at the front door while the children were sometimes eating, sometimes playing. Their faces would soften with a kind of comfort in the authority of mother or father, with a kind of wonder at the needy callers. Their father left for work every day early, and came home for dinner, and almost always went again on Saturday; in his car. Their mother opened a savings account for each child and into each put the first five dollars. The children felt proud to see their names in the passbooks, and wanted to know when they could take the money out. But they were told they had to save their money not spend it. They felt a kind of pleasure in these mysteries, to know that there were things you would understand later when you grew up and had your own house and while your children were eating their dinner and making too much noise the way you did, you knew it was true, the doorbell would ring, the familiar surprise of it, who would it be, and someone would be holding a little worn book or a bundle of dishtowels or once an old man, but perhaps he only looked old, with his beard, came with bunches of carnations, white, red, and pink, and he too was turned away.

Women want to save you or want you to savage them. Men want to see what is under your towel. The dollar bills they throw into your cage are all you need to care about because you aren’t dancing in a cage to entertain them. You dance in a cage to make money. I open my towel to the right then whip it back toward midline just as I open to the left: I show them nothing. But I have them convinced I will show them something. There is a difference between men and women— you must look women in the eyes and, if possible, look hurt; with men, you must avoid looking at them altogether, you must focus on moving your hips, which is close to what they are actually watching. Suspended in a cage above the far end of the dance floor, I was not attainable; I made myself seem attainable. These are just the basics. Wearing nothing but a towel, my greyish wings extended to full wingspan, my chest shaved— the clubbers believe I am wearing a costume. It is amazing what people believe. The music is cheaper than a Budweiser. The air is smoke and the smell of smoke mixed with sweat, and your job is to convince each of them you are dancing for no one else. When my shift is over and I pull on some jeans, tuck my wings and bandage them down, pull on two shirts, I can almost pretend I never entered that cage in the first place. Outside on Lansdowne Street, there are people standing in one line or another waiting to get in to clubs. Night after night, the same thing: the waiting never ends.

The Wrecking Crew was just the cream of the "you pay — we'll play" LA session pool, that crack squad of 50 or 60 musicians...who played on Pet Sounds and Smile and probably half the records in your collection. They didn't just play the chops. They invented them. — Rob Chapman, MOJO Money is also a kind of music. I don't mean the slight sleigh bell of a pocketed change purse or an old-time till's single tap of triangle, ringing up sale, or even the percussion of post-pillage coffers filling up, plink by plink. I think I mean that current of classically trained breath certain amounts of currency can call forth and blow through brass. I mean the mean current of electricity Carol Kaye's bass drew from Capitol Records in the sixties, the timesheets that took their toll and exchanged it for four / four time kept without fail by the brain of drummer Hal Blaine, worth its weight in scale.

You’re rich, lady, hissed the young woman at My mother as she bent in her garden. Look at what you’ve got, and it was Too much, the collards and tomatoes, A man, however lousy, taking care of the bills. This was the reason for the early deaths My mother was to find from that point on, Turned dirt and the mock of roots, Until finally, she gave her garden up. You can’t have nothing, she tells us, Is the motto of our neighborhood, These modest houses That won’t give an inch.

None of the streets here has a name, but if I’m lost tonight I’m happy to be lost. Ten million lanterns light the Seoul avenues for Buddha’s Birthday, ten million red blue green silver gold moons burning far as the eye can see in every direction & beyond, “one for every spirit,” voltage sizzling socket to socket as thought does, firing & firing the soul. Lashed by wind, flying up like helium balloons or hanging still depending on weather, they turn each road into an earthly River of Heaven doubling & reversing the river above, though not made of much: some colored paper, glue, a few wires, a constellation of poor facts. I can't help feeling giddy. I'm drunk on neon, drunk on air, drunk on seeing what was made almost from nothing: if anything's here at all it was built out of ash, out of the skull-rubble of war, the city rising brick by brick like a shared dream, every bridge & pylon & girder & spar a miracle, when half a century ago there was nothing but shrapnel, broken mortar-casings, corpses, the War Memorial in Itaewon counting More than 3 Million Dead, or Missing— still missed by the living, still loved beyond reason, monument to the fact that no one can hurt you, no one kill you like your own people. I’ll never understand it. I wonder about others I see on the sidewalks, each soul fathomless— strikers & scabs walking through Kwanghwamoon, or “Gate of Transformation by Light,” riot police rapping nightsticks against plexiglass-shields, hawkers haggling over cell phones or silk shirts, shaking dirt from chamae& bok choi, chanting price after price, fishermen cleaning tubs of cuttlefish & squid, stripping copper carp, lifting eels or green turtles dripping from tanks, Hanyak peddlars calling out names of cures for sickness or love— crushed bees, snake bile, ground deer antler, chrysanthemum root, bus drivers hurtling past in a blast of diesel-fumes, lovers so tender with each other I hold my breath, dispatchers shouting the names of stations, the grocer who calls me “daughter” because I look like her, for she has long since left home, vendors setting up pojangmachas to cook charred silkworms, broiled sparrows, frying sesame-leaves & mung-bean pancakes, men with hair the color of scallion root playing paduk, or GO, old enough to have stolen overcoats & shoes from corpses, whose spirits could not be broken, whose every breath seems to say: after things turned to their worst, we began again, but may you never go through what we went through, may you never see what we saw, may you never remember & may you never forget.

You would extend the mind beyond the act, Furious, bending, suffering in thin And unpoetic dicta; you have been Forced by hypothesis to fiercer fact. As metal singing hard, with firmness racked, You formulate our passion; and behind In some harsh moment nowise of the mind Lie the old meanings your advance has packed. No man can hold existence in the head. I, too, have known the anguish of the right Amid this net of mathematic dearth, And the brain throbbing like a ship at night: Have faced with old unmitigated dread The hard familiar wrinkles of the earth.