517 Social commentaries poems

The asking was askance. And the tell all told. So then, in tandem, Anathema, and anthem. The truth was on hold, Seeking too tasking. And the wool was pulled Over as cover. No eyes were kept peeled. My iris I missed The truth, now mistrust All things seen, and this Distrust, the sounded distress signal Called and called and culled from your damsel.

Highlight Actions Enable or disable annotations To Pope’s Impromptu Title and Epigraph This poem is also known by a longer title: "To Mr. Pope In answer to a coppy of verses occasion'd by a little dispute upon four lines in the Rape of the Lock" Finch is responding to these four lines from Pope's The Rape of the Lock (first published 1712, finished 1717): Parent of vapors and of female wit, Who give the hysteric or poetic fit, On various tempers act by various ways, Make some take physic, other scribble plays; (Canto 4, lines 59-62) Alexander Pope's poem "Impromptu, To Lady Winchelsea Occasion'd by Four Satyrical Verses on Women-Wits, in The Rape of the Lock": In vain you boast Poetic Names of yore, And cite those Sapphos we admire no more: Fate doom'd the Fall of ev'ry Female Wit; But doom'd it then when first Ardelia writ. Of all Examples by the World confess'd, I knew Ardelia could not quote the best; Who, like her Mistress on Britannia's Throne; Fights and subdues in Quarrels not her own. To write their Praise you but in vain essay; Ev'n while you write, you take that Praise away: Light to the Stars the Sun does thus restore, But shines himself till they are seen no more. "Ardelia" is Finch's pen-name. The poem was written around 1714, and published in Bayle's Dictionary in 1741. Pope’s and Finch’s poem share the words "fate" and "world," and Pope's use of "admire" is echoed in Finch's use of "admiration." Disarmed with so genteel an air, The contest I give o’er; Yet, Alexander, have a care, And shock shock Echoes the Shock from Pope's The Rape of the Lock where the word suggests a military campaign: "Or whether Heaven has doomed that Shock must fall. /. . . / Ariel himself shall be the guard of Shock." (Canto 2, lines 110, 116), and in Belinda's words from Canto 4, line 164: ". . . Shock was most unkind!" the sex no more no more Finch echoes Pope's use of “no more” in "Impromptu": “In vain you boast Poetic Names of yore, / And cite those Sapphos we admire no more:“ and “Light to the Stars the Sun does thus restore, / But shines himself till they are seen no more.” . We rule the world our life’s whole race, Men but assume that right; First slaves to ev’ry tempting face First slaves to ev’ry tempting face Compare Pope's lines from The Rape of the Lock: "If to her share some female errors fall, / Look on her face, and you'll forget 'em all." (Canto 2, lines 17-18) , Then martyrs to our spite. You of one Orpheus Orpheus . . . Hebrus . . . flood From Greek mythology: Orpheus was a legendary poet who could tame wild animals with his lute playing. He was allowed to lead his wife Eurydice out of Hades, provided he not look back as she followed him. Disobeying this command, he lost her forever. Afterward, lamenting his loss and disregarding the Thracian Maenads (women who followed Bacchus) these women tore him apart and threw his head into the Hebrus river. John Milton presents a brief account of Orpheus in Lycidas(1638), lines 58-63, which includes the river Hebrus: "His goary visage down the stream was sent, / Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore" (lines 62-63). sure have read, Who would like you have writ writ . . . wit Finch reverses the end rhyme of lines 3 and 4 from Pope's "Impromptu": “Fate doom'd the Fall of ev'ry Female Wit; / But doom'd it then when first Ardelia writ.” Had he in London town been bred, And polished too his wit writ . . . wit Finch reverses the end rhyme of lines 3 and 4 from Pope's "Impromptu": “Fate doom'd the Fall of ev'ry Female Wit; / But doom'd it then when first Ardelia writ.” ; But he poor soul thought all was well, And great should be his fame, When he had left his wife in hell, And birds and beasts could tame. Yet venturing then with scoffing rhymes The women to incense, Resenting heroines of those times Soon punished his offense. And as the Hebrus Orpheus . . . Hebrus . . . flood From Greek mythology: Orpheus was a legendary poet who could tame wild animals with his lute playing. He was allowed to lead his wife Eurydice out of Hades, provided he not look back as she followed him. Disobeying this command, he lost her forever. Afterward, lamenting his loss and disregarding the Thracian Maenads (women who followed Bacchus) these women tore him apart and threw his head into the Hebrus river. John Milton presents a brief account of Orpheus in Lycidas(1638), lines 58-63, which includes the river Hebrus: "His goary visage down the stream was sent, / Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore" (lines 62-63). rolled his skull, And harp besmeared with blood, They clashing as the waves grew full, Still harmonized the flood Orpheus . . . Hebrus . . . flood From Greek mythology: Orpheus was a legendary poet who could tame wild animals with his lute playing. He was allowed to lead his wife Eurydice out of Hades, provided he not look back as she followed him. Disobeying this command, he lost her forever. Afterward, lamenting his loss and disregarding the Thracian Maenads (women who followed Bacchus) these women tore him apart and threw his head into the Hebrus river. John Milton presents a brief account of Orpheus in Lycidas(1638), lines 58-63, which includes the river Hebrus: "His goary visage down the stream was sent, / Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore" (lines 62-63). . But you our follies gently treat, And spin so fine the thread, You need not fear his awkward fate, The lock won’t cost the head The lock won’t cost the head Refers to Pope's The Rape of the Lock, while also playing on "maidenhead": that is, virginity. . Our admiration admiration Echoes Pope's "admire" from his "Impromptu": In vain you . . . / . . . cite those Sapphos we admire no more” you command For all that’s gone before; What next we look for at your hand Can only raise it more. Yet sooth the ladies I advise (As me too pride has wrought) We’re born to wit, but to be wise By admonitions taught.

to Helena Shire The Makers did not make The muddy winter hardening to privation, Or cholera in the keep, or frost’s long ache Afflicting every mortal nation From lord to villagers in their fading dyes —Those who like oxen strained On stony clearings of the ground From church to sties. They sought an utterance, Or sunshine soluble in institution, An orthodoxy justified, at once The dream and dreamer warmed in fusion, As in the great Rose Window, pieced from duty, Where through Christ’s crimson, sun Shines on your clothes till they take on Value and beauty. But carved on a high beam Far in the vault from the official version Gape gnarled unChristian heads out of whom stream Long stems of contrary assertion, Shaped leaf ridging their scalps in place of hair. Their origins lost to sight, As they are too, cast out from light. They should despair. What stays for its own sake, Occulted in the dark, may slip an ending, Recalcitrant, and strengthened by the ache Of winter not for the transcending. Ice and snow pile the gables of the roof Within whose shade they hold, Intimate with its slaty cold, To Christ aloof.

First, are you our sort of a person? Do you wear A glass eye, false teeth or a crutch, A brace or a hook, Rubber breasts or a rubber crotch, Stitches to show something's missing? No, no? Then How can we give you a thing? Stop crying. Open your hand. Empty? Empty. Here is a hand To fill it and willing To bring teacups and roll away headaches And do whatever you tell it. Will you marry it? It is guaranteed To thumb shut your eyes at the end And dissolve of sorrow. We make new stock from the salt. I notice you are stark naked. How about this suit—— Black and stiff, but not a bad fit. Will you marry it? It is waterproof, shatterproof, proof Against fire and bombs through the roof. Believe me, they'll bury you in it. Now your head, excuse me, is empty. I have the ticket for that. Come here, sweetie, out of the closet. Well, what do you think of that? Naked as paper to start But in twenty-five years she'll be silver, In fifty, gold. A living doll, everywhere you look. It can sew, it can cook, It can talk, talk, talk. It works, there is nothing wrong with it. You have a hole, it's a poultice. You have an eye, it's an image. My boy, it's your last resort. Will you marry it, marry it, marry it.

I like when the form is kind of stuck-up even though I’ve got a Southern accent and my place looks like a graduate student’s. 1. I enjoy high art but realism swamps me. 2. The material world swamps me. 3. I came to understand the forms of realism, the aesthetic phenomenon. 4. You take a random person from daily life. 5. You take their dependence on their historical circumstances. 6. You make them the subject. 7. You see, they operate the modern. Things happen ... minutes, hours, days. The order of life coming from life itself. Back to life / Back to reality (like Soul II Soul). It is sublime and grotesque. 8. They make rich forms. Something steady. Less manic. Something real like a bell inside the Golden Seahorse Gift Shop. Don’t take me on that ride. I don’t want to go down. 9. To what degree are the subjects taken seriously? They naturally swim beneath the icy sheets and find breathing holes. They may remember their arctic homes. They are one of the park’s most sociable creatures. I said enter the water with them. Graceful imitation of strange palms and seaflowers. A seaflower of a thousand colors, aquarium pigmented. It is my violent passion for seaflowers, Molly. I want the entire underwater palace built of roaring seaflowers! Beluga! Beluga! Wither and mow. The child’s song. Emerald kayak and the femme fatale who sleeps in it, Victorian, long, frothy hair and the death drive, flesh like the statement, “I lost a friend in the sea garden.” The notes, staccato, vortex, paradisiacal, gold bell in a coffin just in case I wake up. And the way darkness tunnels inside a car on its way to its pinpoint destination. No one tells you the moon’s going to end up like this. No one. So you just move towards it. That’s all the moon ever was. Ding. Ding.

I’m a tranquilizer. I’m effective at home. I work in the office. I can take exams on the witness stand. I mend broken cups with care. All you have to do is take me, let me melt beneath your tongue, just gulp me with a glass of water. I know how to handle misfortune, how to take bad news. I can minimize injustice, lighten up God’s absence, or pick the widow’s veil that suits your face. What are you waiting for— have faith in my chemical compassion. You’re still a young man/woman. It’s not too late to learn how to unwind. Who said you have to take it on the chin? Let me have your abyss. I’ll cushion it with sleep. You’ll thank me for giving you four paws to fall on. Sell me your soul. There are no other takers. There is no other devil anymore.

When you come, as you soon must, to the streets of our city, Mad-eyed from stating the obvious, Not proclaiming our fall but begging us In God’s name to have self-pity, Spare us all word of the weapons, their force and range, The long numbers that rocket the mind; Our slow, unreckoning hearts will be left behind, Unable to fear what is too strange. Nor shall you scare us with talk of the death of the race. How should we dream of this place without us?— The sun mere fire, the leaves untroubled about us, A stone look on the stone’s face? Speak of the world’s own change. Though we cannot conceive Of an undreamt thing, we know to our cost How the dreamt cloud crumbles, the vines are blackened by frost, How the view alters. We could believe, If you told us so, that the white-tailed deer will slip Into perfect shade, grown perfectly shy, The lark avoid the reaches of our eye, The jack-pine lose its knuckled grip On the cold ledge, and every torrent burn As Xanthus once, its gliding trout Stunned in a twinkling. What should we be without The dolphin’s arc, the dove’s return, These things in which we have seen ourselves and spoken? Ask us, prophet, how we shall call Our natures forth when that live tongue is all Dispelled, that glass obscured or broken In which we have said the rose of our love and the clean Horse of our courage, in which beheld The singing locust of the soul unshelled, And all we mean or wish to mean. Ask us, ask us whether with the worldless rose Our hearts shall fail us; come demanding Whether there shall be lofty or long standing When the bronze annals of the oak-tree close.

The age demanded that we sing And cut away our tongue. The age demanded that we flow And hammered in the bung. The age demanded that we dance And jammed us into iron pants. And in the end the age was handed The sort of shit that it demanded.

Dear Commissioner here are my directive accounts of genitals and cash now bring me your goods We don't live among fowlers Not all poisonous juices are burning or bitter nor is everything now which is burning and bitter poisonous Air is removed from the workspace and dispersed into the multiverse It's very strict metadata You get echoes and dropouts For the most part Juliet is gaseous now as a caucasian she gets it on the head and face and I move from hypocrisy to cynicism Cristal all over the face and neck concrete and glinting audible light on jumbotron marmalade for miles That good wood kept calling my name Behavior meet Behavior, Behavior meat all the social organs

1 Those who hear the train they had better worry worry those who hear they had better worry worry. 2 No disgrace to worry to have the worried life blues might do some good to be worried in the hour of our need. 3 Run run run away going to run run run away there are those who think they’re going to run away. 4 To hear and to be facing and to be facing what is heard to hear and to be face to face with what is heard. 5 Run run run away they’re going to run run run away there are those who think they’re going to run away from the train. 6 Fort built to protect the community from desert raiders community thought to protect itself from raiders. 7 Those who hear the train they had better worry worry better worry worry about a gift of tears. 8 Those who are gathered in the fort had better learn they had better learn how to cure their wounds. 9 The train with its poison and its tongue the lurking train with its poison and its tongue. 10 Those who are gathered better learn to be insensitive learn how to put on a show of being insensitive. 11 Danger of its poison and of its tongue danger of its poison and of its tongue against our teeth. 12 Had better break the habit the habit of prayer better let the jokes come back to us when we’re at prayer. 13 What really kills me is standing in the need of prayer standing in a gathering in the need of prayer. 14 Don’t if we don’t if we don’t break the habit we will be made to climb all the steps of the ladder. 15 Brood over someone else’s dream: three-story red tower beneath the tower the train is always departing. 16 Danger of its tongue for those gathered like a group gathered like a group of all virgins with their downcast eyes. 17 There is this problem with cutting off the prayer hand there is this problem with the other hand. 18 How insensitive is how those who hear better be how insensitive how unmoved and cold they had better be. 19 You can call him you can call him up and ask him if we had only asked for “Sleep Walk by Santo & Johnny. 20 Red tower green sky three-story tower against green sky beneath the tower the train is always departing. 21 Don’t break it be made to climb all the steps we don’t break it we’ll be made to climb all the steps. 22 Ant on the floor the small ant on the kitchen floor the small ant anticipates by sound or shadow. 23 Light turns out in the kitchen when somebody pulls on the string those gathered not able to anticipate the danger. 24 If we had only stayed in the school of the prophets in the school of the prophets who catch thoughts from words. 25 Ant on the floor the small ant on the kitchen floor those gathered not able to anticipate the danger. 26 Those who are gathered are fondled and taken by the hand taken by the hand and made to climb all the steps. 27 Perfectly built fort bound to make the community unhappy bound to make those in the community unhappy. 28 What really kills me is standing in the need of prayer I’m standing in the need of jokes that come back. 29 Standing in the need of prayer in a perfectly built fort bound to make you unhappy bound to make me unhappy. 30 Not broken the habit of prayer not been broken those who are gathered better learn how to cure their wounds.