517 Social commentaries poems

How do you, Asks the chief of police, Patrol a city Where the butcher shops Are guarded by vultures; Where bulls get pregnant, Cows are barren, And calves give milk Three times a day; Where mice are boatmen And tomcats the boats They row; Where frogs keep snakes As watchdogs, And jackals Go after lions? Does anyone know What I’m talking about? Says Kabir.

For Timothy Yu For us. They say: just dig your hands into the good, good soil of the field and you will grow into a child of our heart. Be quiet and work, for you are good at it, for you are almost a child of our heart already. Listen and we will reward you. We will reward you, but don’t talk — you will want to have earned the reward. We will reward you later, much, much later. Are you not a child of the field, a child native to the field? But I have never seen the field. I was born in it but squeezed my eyes shut. I squeezed my eyes hard shut so I could imagine another field....

That woman’s husband works the graveyard shift in a warehouse someplace. He’s a big man, and sleeps all day. I bet he drinks. But what do I know? Dark clouds are stealing in. Well, no they aren't. That's poetry, and bad at that. She’s a headstone color: gray hair, gray face. Her hooded sweatshirt’s dull, like a sheet of old tin. It’s as though she doesn’t look forward to much but passing away. Her eyes are gray too, though it's too easy to call them empty. Their tears might so easily—flow. Oh no. I’m fussing around for eloquence here and coming up empty. The woman and I just nod at each other as we wait by the post office window. Though I’m a rather old man now, I go on looking toward some sort of future. I’m a big man too, which may be why that woman shrinks. Or I think she does. We all like the postmistress, who’s old herself but spry, and despite her losses still cheerful and bright. Her hairdo’s new. I recall her husband, who was a person people here always called Big Mike. Some old folks claim the man could lift a barrel brimful of hard cider right over his head. I’d like to imagine some tribute to Mike. I’d write it, if that were feasible. A character, Mike. He drove a truck that he’d brush-painted pink. He lived with his wife and children and a bunch of critters and mixed-breed hunting dogs far back in the woods. In time the kids grew up and moved from here, but the family, we remember, seemed always so decent and gentle with one another. The postmistress wears that shirt she loves. It’s a pretty shirt. Now what shall I name it? Purple? Fuschia? Puce? And how might I sort them, good and evil? How portray them? Let the clouds above, the God-damned clouds, steal in. No, let them hurtle.

They lie like stones and dare not shift. Even asleep, everyone hears in prison. Dwayne Betts deserves more than this dry ink for his teenage years in prison. In the film we keep watching, Nina takes Darius to a steppers ball. Lovers hustle, slide, and dip as if none of them has a brother in prison. I eat with humans who think any book full of black characters is about race. A book full of white characters examines insanity—but never in prison. His whole family made a barricade of their bodies at the door to room 403. He died without the man he wanted. What use is love at home or in prison? We saw police pull sharks out of the water just to watch them not breathe. A brother meets members of his family as he passes the mirrors in prison. Sundays, I washed and dried her clothes after he threw them into the yard. In the novel I love, Brownfield kills his wife, gets only seven years in prison. I don't want to point my own sinful finger, so let's use your clean one instead. Some bright citizen reading this never considered a son's short hair in prison. In our house lived three men with one name, and all three fought or ran. I left Nelson Demery III for Jericho Brown, a name I earned in prison.

Beauty=Nation Ugly=Nation Ladies Garden in Progress The American Visitors The New American Word The Beauty of Publicity Mother’s Mop Head Ring spots Sway Me Yes, Ma’am Gossamer=Blouse Yankee=Blouse Yes, Ma’am Sway Me Father, nice to see you Major, it’s been a hell of a ride General M & General H Mother’s Mop Head I see ring spots That’s a good sight for my old eyes Yes, Ma’am Ray-Ban Sunglasses So Sway Me Sway Me Oh Sway Me 1. Parade of the Japanese Colonial Government’s Monitors 2. Parade of the First Republic’s ROK Monitors 3. Parade of the DPRK Communist Monitors 4. Parade of the Joint ROK-UN Forces Monitors Yes, Ma’am Did I tell you I saw corpses piled up inside the well in Pyongyang? Did I tell you I helped the Communist Monitor who was also a Colonial Monitor, ROK Monitor, then later an ROK-UN Monitor drag the corpse of his brother? Monitor=For Life! General=For Life! President=For Life! However, I see buttons and ring spots Father, Hiroshima and Nagasaki Major, snap out of it. It’s August 15, 1948 He’s smiling at me Fun Hydrangeas Gossamer=Blouse and Yankee=Blouse Warmly greeted one another I see Ugly=Translators Yes, Ma’am Me=Gook

I am the people—the mob—the crowd—the mass. Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me? I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world’s food and clothes. I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons come from me and the Lincolns. They die. And then I send forth more Napoleons and Lincolns. I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand for much plowing. Terrible storms pass over me. I forget. The best of me is sucked out and wasted. I forget. Everything but Death comes to me and makes me work and give up what I have. And I forget. Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red drops for history to remember. Then—I forget. When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer forget who robbed me last year, who played me for a fool—then there will be no speaker in all the world say the name: “The People,” with any fleck of a sneer in his voice or any far-off smile of derision. The mob—the crowd—the mass—will arrive then.

I am waiting for my case to come up and I am waiting for a rebirth of wonder and I am waiting for someone to really discover America and wail and I am waiting for the discovery of a new symbolic western frontier and I am waiting for the American Eagle to really spread its wings and straighten up and fly right and I am waiting for the Age of Anxiety to drop dead and I am waiting for the war to be fought which will make the world safe for anarchy and I am waiting for the final withering away of all governments and I am perpetually awaiting a rebirth of wonder I am waiting for the Second Coming and I am waiting for a religious revival to sweep thru the state of Arizona and I am waiting for the Grapes of Wrath to be stored and I am waiting for them to prove that God is really American and I am waiting to see God on television piped onto church altars if only they can find the right channel to tune in on and I am waiting for the Last Supper to be served again with a strange new appetizer and I am perpetually awaiting a rebirth of wonder I am waiting for my number to be called and I am waiting for the Salvation Army to take over and I am waiting for the meek to be blessed and inherit the earth without taxes and I am waiting for forests and animals to reclaim the earth as theirs and I am waiting for a way to be devised to destroy all nationalisms without killing anybody and I am waiting for linnets and planets to fall like rain and I am waiting for lovers and weepers to lie down together again in a new rebirth of wonder I am waiting for the Great Divide to be crossed and I am anxiously waiting for the secret of eternal life to be discovered by an obscure general practitioner and I am waiting for the storms of life to be over and I am waiting to set sail for happiness and I am waiting for a reconstructed Mayflower to reach America with its picture story and tv rights sold in advance to the natives and I am waiting for the lost music to sound again in the Lost Continent in a new rebirth of wonder I am waiting for the day that maketh all things clear and I am awaiting retribution for what America did to Tom Sawyer and I am waiting for Alice in Wonderland to retransmit to me her total dream of innocence and I am waiting for Childe Roland to come to the final darkest tower and I am waiting for Aphrodite to grow live arms at a final disarmament conference in a new rebirth of wonder I am waiting to get some intimations of immortality by recollecting my early childhood and I am waiting for the green mornings to come again youth’s dumb green fields come back again and I am waiting for some strains of unpremeditated art to shake my typewriter and I am waiting to write the great indelible poem and I am waiting for the last long careless rapture and I am perpetually waiting for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn to catch each other up at last and embrace and I am awaiting perpetually and forever a renaissance of wonder

It’s my belief that every man Should do his share of work, And in our economic plan No citizen should shirk. That in return each one should get His meed of fold and food, And feel that all his toil and sweat Is for the common good. It’s my belief that every chap Should have an equal start, And there should be no handicap To hinder his depart; That there be fairness in the fight, And justice in the race, And every lad should have the right To win his proper place. It’s my belief that people should Be neither rich nor poor; That none should suffer servitude, And all should be secure. That wealth is loot, and rank is rot, And foul is class and clan; That to succeed a man may not Exploit his brother man. It’s my belief that heritage And usury are wrong; That each should win a worthy wage And sing an honest song .... Not one like this — for though I rue The wrong of life, I flout it. Alas! I’m not prepared to do A goddam thing about it.

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear, Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong, The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam, The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work, The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck, The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands, The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown, The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing, Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else, The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly, Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

Come see the woodpile behind the cannery. Come through the wall to where the wood was chopped and the difficult wood was hewed. There is a short history of commotion here, where a sudden bonfire spat its surprise at the sky— a hundred feet or more the shavings swept through disturbed air, and made their own music, the music hands make, such a yellow crackle and such a thrashing in the morning. Come wait for the heavy trucks to arrive, the men in dusters cutting the twine, loading the long ghostly planks like ballast into iron barges. This will be packing for a transatlantic box, or paper for essays on schadenfreude, or timber for dollhouse dressers, or a twenty baht note for the Thai rubber trade. These matchsticks will burn whenever you strike them, and this, hack at it however you like, is nothing more than deadwood for the fire. Come see—now even the men are doing only what they were made to do.