517 Social commentaries poems

The ward beds float like ghost ships in the darkness, the nightlight above my bed I pretend is a lighthouse with a little man inside who wears a sailor cap and tells good old stories of the sea. The little man is me. Perhaps I have a dog called Old Salt who laps my hand and runs endlessly down the circular stairs. Perhaps he bites like sin. I dream of ships smashing the reefs, their bottoms gutting out, the crews’ disembodied voices screaming Help us help us help somebody please and there is no one there at all not even me. I wake up nervous, Old Salt gnawing my flesh. I wake up nervous, canvas bedstraps cutting my groin. The night nurse, making the rounds, says I bellow in sleep like a foghorn. * Nothing moves at night except small animals kept caged downstairs for experiments, going bullshit, and the Creole janitor’s broom whisking closer by inches. In the ward, we all have room for errors and elbows to flail at excitement. We’re right above the morgue; the iceboxes make our floor cold. The animals seem to know when someone, bored with holding on, gives out: they beat their heads and teeth against the chicken wire doors, scream and claw The janitor also knows. He props his heavy broom against his belt, makes a sign over himself learned from a Cajun, leaves us shaking in our bedstraps to drag the still warm and nervous body down from Isolation. * I have a garden in my brain shaped like a maze I lose myself in, it seems. They only look for me sometimes. I don’t like my dreams. The nurses quarrel over where I am hiding. I hear from inside a bush. One is crisp and cuts; one pinches. I’d like to push them each somewhere. They both think it’s funny here. The laughter sounds like diesels. I won’t come out because I’m lazy. You start to like the needles. You start to want to crazy.

In a hut far from the village Li Hua bends over his canvas like an insect. He is so deliberate, each stroke is a spider's legs fighting the current. There is a war in his veins, a battle of desires. He is jealous of Li Po whose pictures glide like the moon over dark water. I do not wish to disturb him as he tries to make art in this time of death, so I will wait, like a fly on the tip of a stick, until he is finished.

in order to upgrade the community ’ s appreciation of poetry during the international year of cultural enrichment stage 2, members of the state’s library progress committee decided to establish a small library of t-shirts on which would be printed quality verse in vivid, bold colours and lettering. the poems would be selected on the basis of one of three qualities: is the poem poignant, perspicacious, or pithy. given the respectably researched fact that the wearing of words on t-shirts expresses a deep psychic desire for an intimate union of word and flesh, (and bear in mind the way “ logo ” nudges towards “ logos ” ) it is not surprising that this library of t-shirts has been a great success. no one seems to mind borrowing pre-worn clothing. of course the library ’ s washing and ironing staff maintain the t-shirts in excellent condition. even after ten borrowings the shirts look brand new. and considering the phenomenal success of andrew lloyd webber’s “cats” it is no shock revelation that t.s. eliot ’ s “ hollow men ” has proved to be the library ’ s most popular t-shirt so far. in fact there are now eight copies of this shirt on loan, most in metallic or fluoro colours. a couple of the more entrepreneurial of the library’s progress committee members are leading the push for diversification of the library’s poetry program, into neck to knee anti-uv swimwear, with maybe slessor, shelly and stevie smith prints for starters; and into underpants, with their multiple attractions. while the committee feels both these garments could increase poetry’s appeal, they are worried about the practicability of adding these garments to the t-shirt poetry collection. would many members want to borrow preworn underpants, however compelling the poems’ cadences and metaphors; while the wear and tear on the swimming costume fabric via chlorine and salt water would perhaps be too great. however they are interested in marketing and selling these articles from a stall in the library’s foyer. the only committee member unenthusiastic regarding this proposal is an optometrist who has raised the issue of eye damage if the typeface of the lines of verse on the underpants were too small. a solution in the form of large print haikus is being considered.

The naked man in the caravan has peace of mind. He whose covering belongs to others is uncovered. He who has luck will have the winds blow him his firewood. He whose trousers are made of dry grass should not warm himself at the fire. He howled before going mad. He led the lion by the ear. Like the sparrow, he wanted to imitate the pigeon’s walk but lost his own. Walk with sandals till you get good shoes. Where the turban moves, there moves the territory. Men meet but mountains don’t. Always taking out without giving back, even the mountains will be broken down. Penny piled on penny will make a heap. Only the unlucky coin is left in the purse. As long as a human being lives he will learn. Learn to shave by shaving orphans. He who is to be hanged can insult the Pasha. In the house of a man who has been hanged don’t talk of rope. The small donkey is the one that everybody rides. Fish eat fish and he who has no might dies. My belly before my children.

Henry from the island of Jamaica Jamaican digging crews have to sleep eighty men to a room, in huge warehouses like the ones where big wooden crates of dynamite are stored. My hands feel like scorpion claws, clamped on to a hard hard shovel all day, then curled into fists at night. At dawn, the steaming labor trains deliver us by the thousands, down into that snake pit where we dig until my muscles feel as weak as water and my backbone is like shattered glass. But only half the day is over. At lunchtime, we see sunburned American engineers and foremen eating at tables, in shady tents with the flaps left open, so that we have to watch how they sit on nice chairs, looking restful. We also watch the medium-dark Spanish men, relaxing as they sit on their train tracks, grinning as if they know secrets. We have no place to sit. Not even a stool. So we stand, plates in hand, uncomfortable and undignified. Back home, I used to dream of saving enough Panama money to buy a bit of good farmland for Momma and my little brothers and sisters, so that we would all have plenty to eat. Now all I want is a chair. And food with some spice. And fair treatment. Justice.

O white little lights at Carney’s Point, You shine so clear o’er the Delaware; When the moon rides high in the silver sky, Then you gleam, white gems on the Delaware. Diamond circlet on a full white throat, You laugh your rays on a questioning boat; Is it peace you dream in your flashing gleam, O’er the quiet flow of the Delaware? And the lights grew dim at the water’s brim, For the smoke of the mills shredded slow between; And the smoke was red, as is new bloodshed, And the lights went lurid ’neath the livid screen. O red little lights at Carney’s Point, You glower so grim o’er the Delaware; When the moon hides low sombrous clouds below, Then you glow like coals o’er the Delaware. Blood red rubies on a throat of fire, You flash through the dusk of a funeral pyre; And there hearth fires red whom you fear and dread O’er the turgid flow of the Delaware? And the lights gleamed gold o’er the river cold, For the murk of the furnace shed a copper veil; And the veil was grim at the great cloud’s brim, And the lights went molten, now hot, now pale. O gold little lights at Carney’s Point, You gleam so proud o’er the Delaware; When the moon grows wan in the eastering dawn, Then you sparkle gold points o’er the Delaware. Aureate filagree on a Croesus’ brow, You hasten the dawn on a gray ship’s prow. Light you streams of gold in the grim ship’s hold O’er the sullen flow of the Delaware? And the lights went gray in the ash of day, For a quiet Aurora brought a halcyon balm; And the sun laughed high in the infinite sky, And the lights were forgot in the sweet, sane calm.

The evenfall, so slow on hills, hath shot Far down into the valley’s cold extreme, Untimely midnight; spire and roof and stream Like fleeing specters, shudder and are not. The Hampstead hollies, from their sylvan plot Yet cloudless, lean to watch as in a dream, From chaos climb with many a sudden gleam, London, one moment fallen and forgot. Her booths begin to flare; and gases bright Prick door and window; all her streets obscure Sparkle and swarm with nothing true nor sure, Full as a marsh of mist and winking light; Heaven thickens over, Heaven that cannot cure Her tear by day, her fevered smile by night.

Elizabeth, The Lodge at Woodstock, 1554 Less than the charting of each dawn’s resolutions, less than each evening’s trickle of doubt, less than a crown’s weight in silver, a diamond’s scratch against glass, less than the touted ill luck of my rich beginnings—and yet more than Eve’s silence, my mute ingratitude. More than music’s safe passage, its rapturous net, more than this stockpile of words, their liquid solicitude; more desired than praise (the least-prized of my dreams), less real than dreaming (castle keep for my sins), more than no more, which seems much less than hoped-for, again— one mutiny, quelled; one wish lost, a forgotten treasure: to live without scrutiny, beyond constant measure.

And whenever they couldn’t speak they looked at each other. How long should I look at the world before I go home? It’s a moody life like Debussy on a weekend and all the appointments and money and drinks they do go. So with our beautiful coats we went back to that mess and what happened? Someone found what they wanted by night, by mistake. In the car it felt like summer and we lived with no sun    . . .    just metals and leather. A lot of   Mondays. A lot of you in the grass I go to and touch. Oh and Los Angeles for its slow light. Rome for when it gets late. You. Not you, but you who are reading   . . . what won’t you ask for and want? Of course I remember it differently because I was broke and it feels like I’m broke still. The cabs lined up but no one took him where he wanted to go. Those months shared a face and the face of a dog on a street was the only thing that really saw you (for a long time). Then I heard you were traveling, I heard you were somewhere, I heard you were nowhere anyone looked for at all. French stationery. Construction. Sent then deleted. Missed you so sorry next time press yes to continue press now. And I stood on Barrow then Greenwich then Allen then all streets, every street, all the time, everyone. There was a check you used just to drive out there. There was a storm that brought a gold door in front of their shoes. You know, it doesn’t get easier with the lights on. It doesn’t get easier to watch the play with an end. On the way out someone said, what a terrible way to portray life. But about us. Hide all week then some place we go empty the dark in. In the dark with our vices and best shirts and history’s dress. Then you could find me anytime. And then there’s right now. Where wouldn’t we go to be no one and those people again?

Sullen, grimy, labouring person, As I passed you in my car, I could sense your muffled curse on It and me and my cigar; And though mute your malediction, I could feel it on my head, As in countless works of fiction I have read. Envy of mine obvious leisure Seemed to green your glittering eye; Hate for mine apparent pleasure Filled you as I motored by. You who had to dig for three, four Hours in that unpleasant ditch, Loathed, despised, and hated me for Being rich. And you cursed me into Hades As you envied me that ride With the loveliest of ladies Sitting at my dexter side; And your wish, or your idea, Was to hurl us off some cliff. I could see that you thought me a Lucky stiff. If you came to the decision, As my car you mutely cussed, That allottment and division Are indecently unjust— Labouring man, however came you Thus to think the world awry, I should be the last to blame you … So do I.