517 Social commentaries poems

My grandfather was always sad. Sadly, as a boy, he paddled his canoe along the beautiful Hudson River, which was only then beginning to die. During the first war he was very sad in France because he knew he was having the time of his life. When it was over everyone in American felt like a hero — imagine. Once a year on Armistice Day, he met with all his friends from the war. They got drunk and recounted the stories of the time when they had thought they were men and the world had seemed entirely possible. They placed empty chairs for certain of the dead, and in the center of the table, a bottle of cognac from France, for the last man of them to drink alone, in honor of the others. Year after year they gathered to watch each other and themselves disappear, turn into empty chairs. Sooner or later they were all sad. Some of them must have realized they didn’t need to join a club for this. Finally it came down to my grandfather and a man named Oscar Cooper. Neither of them wanted to outlive anyone. They couldn’t remember what honor was. When they drank the cognac it didn’t taste like anything. They threw the bottle in the river as if they thought it meant that neither of them was alive anymore. When Cooper died the following year, my grandfather took his rifle out into the yard and fired three shots at the sky. Then he went down to the river and drank himself to sleep. After that he was never sad, not even when the river died.

It is said that many have been cured of madness by drinking of the spring in the orchard of this convent, but I doubt it, for it is a very pleasant place and a surfeit of pleasantries often leads directly to madness. I do not have much experience of madness (once a sister ran naked down the hall) but I have tasted the water and it is clear and fresh, there is nothing unpleasant about it. The Abbess said of a certain man he is a drink of water—meaning he was a bore— but I want to meet that man, he would be as welcome in my life as Jesus in the orchard here, though the fat old Abbess might shoo him away.  I would be so glad to have him drink, to serve him with a round of little glasses on a painted tray, like the ‘cocktail parties’ in the secular world, and I the hostess, turning her cheek to be kissed in the fray. I would wear white clothes and my headdress, and he might carry a scythe and cut the morning glories, or simply sit and sun his nose. But they have taken my Lord away, lodged Him in the earth somewhere, call Him leaves, vines, breeze, bird. It cannot be true. Looking for Him in these things condemns us to a lifetime of imbecile activity. He has a face, arms, legs, a navel. He is a man, for He is everything I am not. How can it be otherwise? Before I leave the spring, I lean over it and weep. I spit upon the flowers. I stumble up the hill. We are somewhere below the Tserna Gota— meaning the Black Mountain—and when I reach the top I count the villages—there are two—where we are the last on earth to think of Him as having a head. Here, too, is the source of the spring, and crows with lethargic dispositions circle and circle the spot.

(or a self / sung eulogy) Now, when I / die, dont you bury me On no lone prairie; And dont put me in no plain pine box (cause I left plenty cold cash!); And throw my cold butt in the deep blue see. Whatever you do, dont plant me / in no six feet of dirt; Just mash me, mash me, except for my dick, Which I want wrapped in a white / woman’s skirt. I dont want no preacher / man a-preaching Over me—cause I know where I am going. I dont want no tears, no flowers, No standing around and waiting / up / all hours. Just get a golden trumpet, and have Dizzy blow it. Cause I / wuz / Slick—and you damn well know it. No piano playing, no blues please; No moaning and groaning; Just lay me on the table, mash me Into my two-hundred-dollar suit, Red socks, black patent leather shoes, Polka-dot tie (make damn sure it’s silk— And dont forget it!) Take me out to my pink cadillac Prop me up / under the steering wheel, Tow me out to real high hill, Dig a hole—twenty feet long and twenty feet wide, Place a giant joint of reefer / weed by my side; Then leave me alone— And let me drive to hell in style!

We wanted to confess our sins but there were no takers. —Milosz And the few willing to listen demanded that we confess on television. So we kept our sins to ourselves, and they became less troubling. The halt and the lame arranged to have their hips replaced. Lepers coated their sores with a neutral foundation, avoided strong light. The hungry ate at grand buffets and grew huge, though they remained hungry. Prisoners became indistinguishable from the few who visited them. Widows remarried and became strangers to their kin. The orphans finally grew up and learned to fend for themselves. Even the prophets suspected they were mad, and kept their mouths shut. Only the poor—who are with us always—only they continued in the hope.

At dusk, the grandmother sits alone in the light of the long pale pool and speaks to the frog who is waiting by the electric gate of the clubhouse. It will be all right, she says, leaning out from her chair. Her voice is churning, and old, and wet with advice. Her newly red hair purples under the bug light.It will be all right, she says, again, and again the sky rolls in and out on its journey across the peninsula, rattling the palms.

Given over to love, she un-balls the socks, lets fall debris of days, leaf litter, sand grain, slub of some sticky substance, picks it all for the sake of the stainless tub of the gleaming new front loader. Given over to love long ago, when her own exasperated moan bounced off the quaint speckled enamel of the top loader vowing: she'd do this always and well. She fell in love then, she fell in line— in a march of millions, you pair them, two by two, you marry the socks.

Not even the cops who can do anything could do this— work on Sunday picking up dirty and delivering clean laundry in Philadelphia. Rambling with my father, get this, in a truck that wasn’t even our own, part ambulance, part bullet, there wasn’t anything we couldn’t do. Sheets of stigmata, macula of love, vomit and shit and the stains of pissing another week’s salary away, we picked up and drove to the stick men in shirt sleeves, the thin Bolshevik Jews who laughed out the sheets like the empty speech in cartoons. They smelled better than sin, better than decadent capitalism. And oh, we could deliver, couldn’t we, the lawless bags through the city that said in his yawn, get money, get money, get money.

I've been list'nin' to them lawyers In the court house up the street, An' I've come to the conclusion That I'm most completely beat. Fust one feller riz to argy, An' he boldly waded in As he dressed the tremblin' pris'ner In a coat o' deep-dyed sin. Why, he painted him all over In a hue o' blackest crime, An' he smeared his reputation With the thickest kind o' grime, Tell I found myself a-wond'rin', In a misty way and dim, How the Lord had come to fashion Sich an awful man as him. Then the other lawyer started, An' with brimmin', tearful eyes, Said his client was a martyr That was brought to sacrifice. An' he give to that same pris'ner Every blessed human grace, Tell I saw the light o' virtue Fairly shinin' from his face. Then I own 'at I was puzzled How sich things could rightly be; An' this aggervatin' question Seems to keep a-puzzlin' me. So, will some one please inform me, An' this mystery unroll— How an angel an' a devil Can persess the self-same soul?

A Story of Holland The good dame looked from her cottage At the close of the pleasant day, And cheerily called to her little son Outside the door at play: “Come, Peter, come! I want you to go, While there is light to see, To the hut of the blind old man who lives Across the dike, for me; And take these cakes I made for him— They are hot and smoking yet; You have time enough to go and come Before the sun is set.” Then the good-wife turned to her labor, Humming a simple song, And thought of her husband, working hard At the sluices all day long; And set the turf a-blazing, And brought the coarse black bread; That he might find a fire at night, And find the table spread. And Peter left the brother, With whom all day he had played, And the sister who had watched their sports In the willow’s tender shade; And told them they ’d see him back before They saw a star in sight, Though he would n’t be afraid to go In the very darkest night! For he was a brave, bright fellow, With eye and conscience clear; He could do whatever a boy might do, And he had not learned to fear. Why, he would n’t have robbed a bird’s nest, Nor brought a stork to harm, Though never a law in Holland Had stood to stay his arm! And now, with his face all glowing, And eyes as bright as the day With the thoughts of his pleasant errand, He trudged along the way; And soon his joyous prattle Made glad a lonesome place— Alas! if only the blind old man Could have seen that happy face! Yet he somehow caught the brightness Which his voice and presence lent; And he felt the sunshine come and go As Peter came and went. And now, as the day was sinking, And the winds began to rise, The mother looked from her door again, Shading her anxious eyes; And saw the shadows deepen And birds to their homes come back, But never a sign of Peter Along the level track. But she said: “He will come at morning, So I need not fret or grieve— Though it is n’t like my boy at all To stay without my leave.” But where was the child delaying? On the homeward way was he, And across the dike while the sun was up An hour above the sea. He was stopping now to gather flowers, Now listening to the sound, As the angry waters dashed themselves Against their narrow bound. “Ah! well for us,” said Peter, “That the gates are good and strong, And my father tends them carefully, Or they would not hold you long! You ’re a wicked sea,” said Peter; “I know why you fret and chafe; You would like to spoil our lands and homes; But our sluices keep you safe!” But hark! Through the noise of waters Comes a low, clear, trickling sound; And the child’s face pales with terror, And his blossoms drop to the ground. He is up the bank in a moment, And, stealing through the sand, He sees a stream not yet so large As his slender, childish hand. ’T is a leak in the dike! He is but a boy, Unused to fearful scenes; But, young as he is, he has learned to know The dreadful thing that means. A leak in the dike! The stoutest heart Grows faint that cry to hear, And the bravest man in all the land Turns white with mortal fear. For he knows the smallest leak may grow To a flood in a single night; And he knows the strength of the cruel sea When loosed in its angry might. And the boy! He has seen the danger, And, shouting a wild alarm, He forces back the weight of the sea With the strength of his single arm! He listens for the joyful sound Of a footstep passing nigh; And lays his ear to the ground, to catch The answer to his cry. And he hears the rough winds blowing, And the waters rise and fall, But never an answer comes to him, Save the echo of his call. He sees no hope, no succor, His feeble voice is lost; Yet what shall he do but watch and wait, Though he perish at his post! So, faintly calling and crying Till the sun is under the sea; Crying and moaning till the stars Come out for company; He thinks of his brother and sister, Asleep in their safe warm bed; He thinks of his father and mother, Of himself as dying—and dead; And of how, when the night is over, They must come and find him at last: But he never thinks he can leave the place Where duty holds him fast. The good dame in the cottage Is up and astir with the light, For the thought of her little Peter Has been with her all night. And now she watches the pathway, As yester eve she had done; But what does she see so strange and black Against the rising sun? Her neighbors are bearing between them Something straight to her door; Her child is coming home, but not As he ever came before! “He is dead!” she cries; “my darling!” And the startled father hears, And comes and looks the way she looks, And fears the thing she fears: Till a glad shout from the bearers Thrills the stricken man and wife— “Give thanks, for your son has saved our land, And God has saved his life!” So, there in the morning sunshine They knelt about the boy; And every head was bared and bent In tearful, reverent joy. ’T is many a year since then; but still, When the sea roars like a flood, Their boys are taught what a boy can do Who is brave and true and good. For every man in that country Takes his son by the hand, And tells him of little Peter, Whose courage saved the land. They have many a valiant hero, Remembered through the years: But never one whose name so oft Is named with loving tears. And his deed shall be sung by the cradle, And told to the child on the knee, So long as the dikes of Holland Divide the land from the sea!

After the birthing of bombs of forks and fear the frantic automatic weapons unleashed, the spray of bullets into a crowd holding hands, that brute sky opening in a slate metal maw that swallows only the unsayable in each of us, what’s left? Even the hidden nowhere river is poisoned orange and acidic by a coal mine. How can you not fear humanity, want to lick the creek bottom dry, to suck the deadly water up into your own lungs, like venom? Reader, I want to say:Don’t die. Even when silvery fish after fish comes back belly up, and the country plummets into a crepitating crater of hatred, isn’t there still something singing? The truth is: I don’t know. But sometimes, I swear I hear it, the wound closing like a rusted-over garage door, and I can still move my living limbs into the world without too much pain, can still marvel at how the dog runs straight toward the pickup trucks break-necking down the road, because she thinks she loves them, because she’s sure, without a doubt, that the loud roaring things will love her back, her soft small self alive with desire to share her goddamn enthusiasm, until I yank the leash back to save her because I want her to survive forever.Don’t die, I say, and we decide to walk for a bit longer, starlings high and fevered above us, winter coming to lay her cold corpse down upon this little plot of earth. Perhaps we are always hurtling our body towards the thing that will obliterate us, begging for love from the speeding passage of time, and so maybe, like the dog obedient at my heels, we can walk together peacefully, at least until the next truck comes.