517 Social commentaries poems

All middle age invisible to us, all age passed close enough behind to seize our napehairs and whisper in a voice all thatch and smoke some village-elder warning, some rasped-out Remember me. . . Mute and grey in her city uniform (stitch-lettered JUVENILE ), the matron just pointed us to our lockers, and went out. ‘What an old bag!’ ‘Got a butt on you, honey?’ ‘Listen, did I get lost with these streetnames! Spruce Street, Water, or get this, VAN derwater—’ Cautiously, coolly, we lit up, crooking palms for the ashes. All fifteen or under, all from Manhattan, we loitered bare to the waist for the X-rays. In the whorling light from one rainy window, our shapes were mere outlines from floor to wall, opaque as plater, white, or terra-cotta, black . . . ‘Names or numbers,’ a skinny white girl with pale blue eyes shrugged her shoulders. ‘Why come here at all? You think little Susan (thumb mockingly hooked at herself) needs working papers to work in my uncle’s diner? If they’d let me off school at noon now—that’s where the real tips are!’ And she smiled at our objections around her smoking cigarette (I thought) like some museum mummy, amber-fingered, fishhook collar bones— ‘What are you talking? Don’t you know the city keeps like an eye we don’t get overworked?’ ‘Yeah, and your Social Security number, that’s for life, girl, that ain’t worth something to you?’ The skinny girl just cackled, goospimpled arms huddled against her ribs. ‘Whadda you two, work for the mayor? What’s this (swinging her locker key with its scarred wooden number)—the key to the city?’ She meant last week, when they’d offered it to some visiting queen. Even I snickered. I was younger than most of them, homesick among the near- women’s breasts and hair, even the familiar girls’ cloakroom odors: perspiration, powder, decades of menstrual fust—‘Well, I’m coming back in six months.’ This was one of the black girls, elbow swivelled on pelvic sidethrust, finest hair— filaments, finerimmed, sulky mouth. ‘She’ll be sixteen, getting married,’ the girl next over burst in eagerly, ‘He got a store job, still her folks against it, they say stay in school. But every afternoon—’ Distantly, the first girl listened to her own story, only breaking in at the end: ‘I want a real church wedding. Down here is just for the license, see?’ ‘A license,’ said “little Susan,” sourly, ‘like for a job?’ ‘His name is Harold Curtis,’ was all she answered, then ‘It too strong for my parents. They see it too strong for them in the end.’ In our silence, the gutter slurred strangely. And for just one moment, everyone breathless, the atmosphere grew almost tender. But nobody knew what to say except good luck, so we all went on smoking like chimneys except the one murmur, of old and incurable anger, ‘Listen. Listen. They get you coming and going.’ Now each girl tilts her face down, contemplating her own unseen choices, real tips, the solitary and common square foot of imaginary chance . . . Outside, the rain was letting up. The city, like a graph of its own mountainous causes, climbed in a mist across our window. And then the matron came, calling our locker numbers, one by one, for the X-rays. ‘Jesus, it’s late.’ ‘Hey honey, I’m ready!’ ‘Where’d we change at from the D Train?’ Through the clearing air on the far side of City Hall Park, I could see a narrow street and a streetsign: Broadway. Miles to the north my street had a number, and Broadway was really broad. In the concrete prows of islands, the innumerable old women were sitting, lonely as soldiers, silent as . . . ‘What’s up, girl? Goose step on your grave?’ Another number. And now, the room darker, each girl cast about for the cheering word, when ‘Listen,’ I suddenly heard my own voice saying, ‘Guess what I saw coming down? A street called Anne Street.’—‘So what?’—‘So my name is Anne.’ A pause, then ‘Hey kid, that’s really funny!’ They all grinned, and one of the older girls gave my shoulder a tolerant punch. I was one of the youngest, and as far as I can remember, that was all that I said.

Just tell me who the hell am I? What powers did I, do I hold? What right have I to say “my” or “mine” or “me” — all honey- glazed, all bullet-proofed and worshipful of any gangster “I”? The key to the Dollar Store hangs on my belt. Yes, “my” again. And what of roof, of bread, of loving laughter? What’s in? My vinyl favorite Booker Little, vintage, soothes me. He jars our ears with trumpet joy and stuff freed folks stash in cabinets. Never one to make too much of why we love and what, I love my powers. I might put you in my will.

Didn’t rain choke the animal throats of the cathedral      sputter against the roofs of the city      didn’t the flight of stairs rise up above the cobbled street didn’t the key clamor in the lock      flood the vestibule with clattering    didn’t we climb the second flight toward the miniature Allegory painted on the ceiling and touch the flat-faced girls winged      part animal who did not flinch and did not scamper

and it was political. I made coffee and the coffee was political. I took a shower and the water was. I walked down the street in short shorts and a Bob Mizer tank top and they were political, the walking and the shorts and the beefcake silkscreen of the man posing in a G-string. I forgot my sunglasses and later, on the train, that was political, when I studied every handsome man in the car. Who I thought was handsome was political. I went to work at the university and everything was very obviously political, the department and the institution. All the cigarettes I smoked between classes were political, where I threw them when I was through. I was blond and it was political. So was the difference between “blond” and “blonde.” I had long hair and it was political. I shaved my head and it was. That I didn’t know how to grieve when another person was killed in America was political, and it was political when America killed another person, who they were and what color and gender and who I am in relation. I couldn’t think about it for too long without feeling a helplessness like childhood. I was a child and it was political, being a boy who was bad at it. I couldn’t catch and so the ball became political. My mother read to me almost every night and the conditions that enabled her to do so were political. That my father’s money was new was political, that it was proving something. Someone called me faggot and it was political. I called myself a faggot and it was political. How difficult my life felt relative to how difficult it was was political. I thought I could become a writer and it was political that I could imagine it. I thought I was not a political poet and still my imagination was political. It had been, this whole time I was asleep.

The American public is patient, The American public is slow, The American public will stand as much As any public I know. We submit to be killed by our railroads, We submit to be fooled by our press, We can stand as much government scandal As any folks going, I guess, We can bear bad air in the subway, We can bear quick death in the street, But we are a little particular About the things we eat. It is not so much that it kills us -- We are used to being killed; But we like to know what fills us When we pay for being filled When we pay the Beef Trust prices, As we must, or go without, It is not that we grudge the money But we grudge the horrid doubt. Is it ham or trichinosis? Can a label command belief? Is it pork we have purchased, or poison? Is it tuberculosis or beef? There is really a choice of diseases, To any one, little or big; And no man really pleases To die of a long dead pig. We take our risks as we’re able, On elevator and train, But to sit in peace at the table And to be seized with sudden pain When we are at home and happy -- Is really against the grain. And besides admitting the poison, Admitting we all must die, Accepting the second-hand sickness From a cholera-smitten stye; Patiently bearing the murder, Amiable, meek, inert, — We do rise up and remonstrate Against the Packingtown dirt. Let there be death in the dinner, Subtle and unforeseen, But O, Mr. Packer, in packing our death, Won’t you please to pack it clean!

So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn Which once he wore! The glory from his gray hairs gone Forevermore! Revile him not, the Tempter hath A snare for all; And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath, Befit his fall! Oh, dumb be passion’s stormy rage, When he who might Have lighted up and led his age, Falls back in night. Scorn! would the angels laugh, to mark A bright soul driven, Fiend-goaded, down the endless dark, From hope and heaven! Let not the land once proud of him Insult him now, Nor brand with deeper shame his dim, Dishonored brow. But let its humbled sons, instead, From sea to lake, A long lament, as for the dead, In sadness make. Of all we loved and honored, naught Save power remains; A fallen angel’s pride of thought, Still strong in chains. All else is gone; from those great eyes The soul has fled: When faith is lost, when honor dies, The man is dead! Then, pay the reverence of old days To his dead fame; Walk backward, with averted gaze, And hide the shame!

Water the plants. Drink plenty of water. Don’t hear the news. Get bored. Complain about the weather. Keep a corkscrew in your purse. Swipe right sometimes. Don’t smile unless you want to. Sleep in. Don’t see the news. Remember what the world is like for white people. Listen to cricket songs. Floss. Take pills. Keep an empty mind. When you are hungover do not say I’m never drinking again. Be honest when you’re up to it. Otherwise drink water lie to yourself turn off the news burn the papers skip the funerals take pills laugh at dumb shit fuck people you don’t care about use the crockpot use the juicer use the smoothie maker drink water from the sky don’t think too much about the sky don’t think about water skip the funerals close your eyes whenever possible When you toast look everyone in the eyes Never punctuate the President Write the news Turn into water Water the fire escape Burn the paper Crumble the letters Instead of hyacinths pick hydrangeas Water the hydrangeas Wilt the news White the hydrangeas Drink the white Waterfall the cricket songs Keep a song mind Don’t smile Don’t wilt funeral funeral

In a landscape of having to repeat. Noticing that she does, that he does and so on. The underlying cause is as absent as rain. Yet one remembers rain even in its absence and an attendant quiet. If illusion descends or the very word you’ve been looking for. He remembers looking at the photograph, green and gray squares, undefined. How perfectly ordinary someone says looking at the same thing or I’d like to get to the bottom of that one. When it is raining it is raining for all time and then it isn’t and when she looked at him, as he remembers it, the landscape moved closer than ever and she did and now he can hardly remember what it was like.

The sky is cloudy, yellowed by the smoke. For view there are the houses opposite Cutting the sky with one long line of wall Like solid fog: far as the eye can stretch Monotony of surface & of form Without a break to hang a guess upon. No bird can make a shadow as it flies, For all is shadow, as in ways o'erhung By thickest canvass, where the golden rays Are clothed in hemp. No figure lingering Pauses to feed the hunger of the eye Or rest a little on the lap of life. All hurry on & look upon the ground, Or glance unmarking at the passers by The wheels are hurrying too, cabs, carriages All closed, in multiplied identity. The world seems one huge prison-house & court Where men are punished at the slightest cost, With lowest rate of colour, warmth & joy.

The mailman handing me a letter, he paid a little. My daughter’s third grade teacher, the electrician putting a light over my back door: they paid as well. The woman at the bank who cashes my check. She paid a part of it. The typist in my office, the janitor sweeping the floor—they paid some too. The movie star paid for it. The nurse, the nun, the saint, they all paid for it— a photograph from Central America, six children lying neatly in a row. One day I was teaching or I sold a book review or I gave a lecture and some of the money came to me and some rolled off into the world, but it was still my money, the result of my labor, each coin still had my name printed across it, and I went on living, passing my days in a box with a tight lid. But elsewhere, skulking through tall grass, a dozen men approached a village. It was hot; the men made no noise. See that one’s cap, see the button on that other man’s shirt, * * * hear the click of the cartridge as it slides into its chamber, see the handkerchief which that man uses to wipe his brow— I paid for that one, that one belongs to me.