517 Social commentaries poems

my father said, again and again, shaking his head in disbelief at any ostentation; the neighbor's gold- plated knocker (we still banged fists) or my own lust to own the autographed edition or the waxed bronze bust. It is not only the idea—which should hold all of the pleasure— but the poet's pencil marks on paper which we treasure above the memorized poem. And so I fan my flushed face, signaling the fast-talking auctioneer, who has traced the provenance, and picks up the pace, multiplying offers. And who now does my father's bidding? Heaven's coffers, perhaps, are for the destitute; but why did he have to die to escape the shitty, crime-ridden, never-t0-be-gentrified neighborhood of both our births? The cost of living, he would argue, is not the worth of being alive. But still he checked each lottery ticket which littered the empty lot next door, praised their silver latex glitter, praying to the beautiful unscratched, like little gods. Money talks, he taught me. But nobody beats the odds.

Spring wafts up the smell of bus exhaust, of bread and fried potatoes, tips green on the branches, repeats old news: arrogance, ignorance, war. A cinder-block wall shared by two houses is new rubble. On one side was a kitchen sink and a cupboard, on the other was a bed, a bookshelf, three framed photographs. Glass is shattered across the photographs; two half-circles of hardened pocket bread sit on the cupboard. There provisionally was shelter, a plastic truck under the branches of a fig tree. A knife flashed in the kitchen, merely dicing garlic. Engines of war move inexorably toward certain houses while citizens sit safe in other houses reading the newspaper, whose photographs make sanitized excuses for the war. There are innumerable kinds of bread brought up from bakeries, baked in the kitchen: the date, the latitude, tell which one was dropped by a child beneath the bloodied branches. The uncontrolled and multifurcate branches of possibility infiltrate houses’ walls, windowframes, ceilings. Where there was a tower, a town: ash and burnt wires, a graph on a distant computer screen. Elsewhere, a kitchen table’s setting gapes, where children bred to branch into new lives were culled for war. Who wore this starched smocked cotton dress? Who wore this jersey blazoned for the local branch of the district soccer team? Who left this black bread and this flat gold bread in their abandoned houses? Whose father begged for mercy in the kitchen? Whose memory will frame the photograph and use the memory for what it was never meant for by this girl, that old man, who was caught on a ball field, near a window: war, exhorted through the grief a photograph revives. (Or was the team a covert branch of a banned group; were maps drawn in the kitchen, a bomb thrust in a hollowed loaf of bread?) What did the old men pray for in their houses of prayer, the teachers teach in schoolhouses between blackouts and blasts, when each word was flensed by new censure, books exchanged for bread, both hostage to the happenstance of war? Sometimes the only schoolroom is a kitchen. Outside the window, black strokes on a graph of broken glass, birds line up on bare branches. “This letter curves, this one spreads its branches like friends holding hands outside their houses.” Was the lesson stopped by gunfire? Was there panic, silence? Does a torn photograph still gather children in the teacher’s kitchen? Are they there meticulously learning war- time lessons with the signs for house, book, bread?

Figured marry for money the stainlessness of it thermostatic shower simulates but isn’t rain I simulate rain too. I do lines off a photo of the lunar landing he says is make-believe I don’t know the difference most of the things most of the time are as if our Brooklyn Bridge selfies aren’t faked to goad our favorite exes as if my diet of carrots and cayenne is ’cause nothing tastes as good as skinny makes money makes the bed and stands beside us like a parent with poor boundaries who just wants us to be happy. Mommy’s money takes her to Key West where she sends pictures of a cat on king-sized everything says Hemingway had money, honey!

arrive. The Ladies from the Ladies’ Betterment League Arrive in the afternoon, the late light slanting In diluted gold bars across the boulevard brag Of proud, seamed faces with mercy and murder hinting Here, there, interrupting, all deep and debonair, The pink paint on the innocence of fear; Walk in a gingerly manner up the hall. Cutting with knives served by their softest care, Served by their love, so barbarously fair. Whose mothers taught: You’d better not be cruel! You had better not throw stones upon the wrens! Herein they kiss and coddle and assault Anew and dearly in the innocence With which they baffle nature. Who are full, Sleek, tender-clad, fit, fiftyish, a-glow, all Sweetly abortive, hinting at fat fruit, Judge it high time that fiftyish fingers felt Beneath the lovelier planes of enterprise. To resurrect. To moisten with milky chill. To be a random hitching-post or plush. To be, for wet eyes, random and handy hem. Their guild is giving money to the poor. The worthy poor. The very very worthy And beautiful poor. Perhaps just not too swarthy? perhaps just not too dirty nor too dim Nor—passionate. In truth, what they could wish Is—something less than derelict or dull. Not staunch enough to stab, though, gaze for gaze! God shield them sharply from the beggar-bold! The noxious needy ones whose battle’s bald Nonetheless for being voiceless, hits one down. But it’s all so bad! and entirely too much for them. The stench; the urine, cabbage, and dead beans, Dead porridges of assorted dusty grains, The old smoke,heavy diapers, and, they’re told, Something called chitterlings. The darkness. Drawn Darkness, or dirty light. The soil that stirs. The soil that looks the soil of centuries. And for that matter the general oldness. Old Wood. Old marble. Old tile. Old old old. Not homekind Oldness! Not Lake Forest, Glencoe. Nothing is sturdy, nothing is majestic, There is no quiet drama, no rubbed glaze, no Unkillable infirmity of such A tasteful turn as lately they have left, Glencoe, Lake Forest, and to which their cars Must presently restore them. When they’re done With dullards and distortions of this fistic Patience of the poor and put-upon. They’ve never seen such a make-do-ness as Newspaper rugs before! In this, this “flat,” Their hostess is gathering up the oozed, the rich Rugs of the morning (tattered! the bespattered. . . .) Readies to spread clean rugs for afternoon. Here is a scene for you. The Ladies look, In horror, behind a substantial citizeness Whose trains clank out across her swollen heart. Who, arms akimbo, almost fills a door. All tumbling children, quilts dragged to the floor And tortured thereover, potato peelings, soft- Eyed kitten, hunched-up, haggard, to-be-hurt. Their League is allotting largesse to the Lost. But to put their clean, their pretty money, to put Their money collected from delicate rose-fingers Tipped with their hundred flawless rose-nails seems . . . They own Spode, Lowestoft, candelabra, Mantels, and hostess gowns, and sunburst clocks, Turtle soup, Chippendale, red satin “hangings,” Aubussons and Hattie Carnegie. They Winter In Palm Beach; cross the Water in June; attend, When suitable, the nice Art Institute; Buy the right books in the best bindings; saunter On Michigan, Easter mornings, in sun or wind. Oh Squalor! This sick four-story hulk, this fibre With fissures everywhere! Why, what are bringings Of loathe-love largesse? What shall peril hungers So old old, what shall flatter the desolate? Tin can, blocked fire escape and chitterling And swaggering seeking youth and the puzzled wreckage Of the middle passage, and urine and stale shames And, again, the porridges of the underslung And children children children. Heavens! That Was a rat, surely, off there, in the shadows? Long And long-tailed? Gray? The Ladies from the Ladies’ Betterment League agree it will be better To achieve the outer air that rights and steadies, To hie to a house that does not holler, to ring Bells elsetime, better presently to cater To no more Possibilities, to get Away. Perhaps the money can be posted. Perhaps they two may choose another Slum! Some serious sooty half-unhappy home!— Where loathe-love likelier may be invested. Keeping their scented bodies in the center Of the hall as they walk down the hysterical hall, They allow their lovely skirts to graze no wall, Are off at what they manage of a canter, And, resuming all the clues of what they were, Try to avoid inhaling the laden air.

Words fall out of my coat pocket, soak in bleach water. I touch everyone’s dirty dollars. Maslow’s got everything on me. Fourteen hours on my feet. No breaks. No smokes or lunch. Blank-eyed movements: trash bags, coffee burner, fingers numb. I am hourly protestations and false smiles. The clock clicks its slow slowing. Faces blur in a stream of  hurried soccer games, sunlight, and church certainty. I have no poem to carry, no material illusions. Cola spilled on hands, so sticky fingered, I’m far from poems. I’d write of politicians, refineries, and a border’s barbed wire, but I am unlearning America’s languages with a mop. In a summer-hot red polyester top, I sell lotto tickets. Cars wait for gas billowing black. Killing time has new meaning. A jackhammer breaks apart a life. The slow globe spirals, and at night black space has me dizzy. Visionaries off their meds and wacked out meth heads sing to me. A panicky fear of robbery and humiliation drips with my sweat. Words some say are weeping twilight and sunrise. I am drawn to dramas, the couple arguing, the man headbutting his wife in the parking lot. 911: no metered aubade, and nobody but myself to blame.

Child, when you’re sad put on your blue shoes. You know that Mama loves you lollipops and Daddy still has a job to lose. So put on a party hat. We’ll play the kazoos loud and louder from the mountaintop. Child, when you’re sad put on your blue shoes and dance the polka with pink kangaroos, dolphin choirs singing “flip-flop, flip-flop.” Hey, Daddy still has a job to lose — don’t be afraid. Close your eyes, snooze, because today our suns have flared and dropped. Tomorrow when you wake, put on your blue shoes. Eat a good breakfast. Be good in school. Good boys go to college goody gumdrops so someday too you’ll have a job to lose. Waste trucks clatter by as the gray bird coos. Flames pour forth when the faucet’s unstopped. Child, when you’re sad put on your blue shoes. For now, Daddy still has a job to lose.

Outside the Party Thick throng the snow-flakes, the evening is dreary, Glad rings the music in yonder gay hall; On her who listens here, friendless and weary, Heavier chill than the winter’s doth fall. At yon clear window, light-opened before me, Glances the face I have worshipped so well: There’s the fine gentleman, grand in his glory; There, the fair smile by whose sweetness I fell. This is akin to him, shunned and forsaken, That at my bosom sobs low, without bread; Had not such pleading my marble heart shaken, I had been quiet, long since, with the dead. Oh! Could I enter there, ghastly and squalid, Stand in men’s eyes with my spirit o’erborne, Show them where roses bloomed, crushed now and pallid, What he found innocent, leaving forlorn,— How the fair ladies would fail from their dances, Trembling, aghast at my horrible tale! How would he shrink from my words and my glances! How would they shrink from him, swooning and pale! This is the hair that was soft to enchain him; Snakelike, it snarls on my beautiless brow: These are the hands that were fond to detain him With a sense-magic then, powerless now! No: could I come, like a ghost, to affright him, How should that heal my wound, silence my pain? Had I the wrath of God’s lightning to smite him, That could not bring me my lost peace again. Ne’er let him grieve while good fortunes betide him, Ne’er count again the poor game lost of old; When he comes forth, with his young bride beside him, Here shall they find us both, dead in the cold.

Street Yarn Roses caged in windows, heighten Your faint blooms today; Silks and sheeny satins, brighten; He has passed this way! Could ye keep his fleeting presence Gone beyond recall, But a little of his essence, I would have you all. Arabesque so quaint and shady, That mightst catch his eye To adorn a stately lady Ere her hour went by, Canst assure me that his glancing Rested on they fold? Did that set your purples dancing? Wake the sleepy gold? Ye neglected apple-venders Mouldering in the street, Did he curse between your tenders, Spurning with his feet? Then must I an alms deliver For his graceless pride; Could I buy his sins forever, I’d not be denied. Paying patiently his ransom Never conscience-pricked; Cheating Justice of her handsome Heartless derelict. Did he view thee, ancient steeple, With thy weird clock-face, Frowning down on sinful people Passing out of grace? Nay, respond not to my question With thy prate of time: Things to which my soul must hasten Lie beyond thy chime. With no circumstance to screen us, We must meet again: I shall bid God judge between us, Answering Amen.

My name is Johnson— Madam Alberta K. The Madam stands for business. I’m smart that way. I had a HAIR-DRESSING PARLOR Before The depression put The prices lower. Then I had a BARBECUE STAND Till I got mixed up With a no-good man. Cause I had a insurance The WPA Said, We can’t use you Wealthy that way. I said, DON’T WORRY ’BOUT ME! Just like the song, You WPA folks take care of yourself— And I’ll get along. I do cooking, Day’s work, too! Alberta K. Johnson— Madam to you.

“It’s a ’49,” Rhinehardt said, and slammed The screen door, then worked his way around The dog turds in the yard To the Buick gutted from fire—the gears Teething rust, the fenders sloped Like the shoulders of a fired worker Out of beer. He circled the car Kicking the tires, eyeing The grille that still grinned the ribbed wings Of a sparrow. He looked inside and flies Lifted like patted dust, settling Into a loose knot on the visor. “Yeh, you’re right as right ... it’s a ’50,” Rhinehardt spat, his tongue rolling A false tooth into place. “It’s got no Running board.” He pressed a buck Into his son’s hand and retired to the porch Where he towel-flicked His wife from a chair And as evening came on watched beyond The street, a kennel of trees, Where—as he had dreamed—a plane would drop And bloom fire. Two bucks on that one.