Beatitudes of Desolation
The young must cry out with the old that the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon are immoral and must end. Only then will beer mug, whiskey glass and Starbucks paper cup alike be alchemized by stern occasion into grails. These are the only cups with Christ's blood in it, our blood metabolized into His blood by sheer intensity of disgust with war and yearning for peace.
Alas, there is no one to hand the cup to or to beg a swig from. The cup is not empty. It has disappeared. Meaning, in a Keatsian way of reality through absence, it was the grail--one of millions conjured from Cracker Jack boxes when our dreams were moist as dew and sheer magic. Alas, there is no one to inherit my disgust with the order of things, no one to sanctify and salvage despair with dreams of a better world won by marching in the streets.
O how I miss the sense that our youth mattered, as so nobly expressed in the following John Wieners poem written in the midst of American summers overheated by hatred of war not bald spots dotting the ozone layer.
Jesse, Bajir, Raheem, Max, I beg of you non-ironic, fervid disgust with the order of things. I beg you to plot rescues of this still-young century and, as John Wieners says, "to plunder your patriotism."
What follows is a bouquet of imperishable flowers left to wither in the empty streets. I'm gathering them for you. Please believe me when I say they will grow if you just take them.
Love,David
BEATITUDES OF DESOLATION
Einstein on war:"This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable love-of-country stance, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder."
A Call to Arms by John Wieners:
YES, YOUTH ARE MARCHING ON AGAINST THE WORLD
Yes, youth are marching on against the world
As some have always, opposing injustice and oppression
Youth are marching on against this world
Climbing dun hills to challenge city police and authority
Revolution's spies menace each place to carry banners of
independence upon their bodies,
Protest tonight on boulevards in Washington and Chicago
Blocking doorways, not buying cheap goods off wealth nor its education
Youth print newspapers and seize control of national music
Plunge fear into hearts of waspist executives or world leaders
without mercy
Grab up whores of the family and diplomacy counting no cost
To send out new world memos of liberties for the damned and drugged
Youth march on against the world, in church and holler on farm,
through small town
Not one is spared, black eyes of poets burn across wooden tables
in poverty
With each sharp, loud sound, one thinks our revolution's come!
Rebellion slinks into an unsuspecting heart; with each siren
one believes
Some are caught, trapped, though most remain free to plot,
to plan, to plunder his patriotism.
from: "Uncollected Poems 1958-1975"
Alas, there is no one to hand the cup to or to beg a swig from. The cup is not empty. It has disappeared. Meaning, in a Keatsian way of reality through absence, it was the grail--one of millions conjured from Cracker Jack boxes when our dreams were moist as dew and sheer magic. Alas, there is no one to inherit my disgust with the order of things, no one to sanctify and salvage despair with dreams of a better world won by marching in the streets.
O how I miss the sense that our youth mattered, as so nobly expressed in the following John Wieners poem written in the midst of American summers overheated by hatred of war not bald spots dotting the ozone layer.
Jesse, Bajir, Raheem, Max, I beg of you non-ironic, fervid disgust with the order of things. I beg you to plot rescues of this still-young century and, as John Wieners says, "to plunder your patriotism."
What follows is a bouquet of imperishable flowers left to wither in the empty streets. I'm gathering them for you. Please believe me when I say they will grow if you just take them.
Love,David
BEATITUDES OF DESOLATION
Einstein on war:"This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable love-of-country stance, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder."
A Call to Arms by John Wieners:
YES, YOUTH ARE MARCHING ON AGAINST THE WORLD
Yes, youth are marching on against the world
As some have always, opposing injustice and oppression
Youth are marching on against this world
Climbing dun hills to challenge city police and authority
Revolution's spies menace each place to carry banners of
independence upon their bodies,
Protest tonight on boulevards in Washington and Chicago
Blocking doorways, not buying cheap goods off wealth nor its education
Youth print newspapers and seize control of national music
Plunge fear into hearts of waspist executives or world leaders
without mercy
Grab up whores of the family and diplomacy counting no cost
To send out new world memos of liberties for the damned and drugged
Youth march on against the world, in church and holler on farm,
through small town
Not one is spared, black eyes of poets burn across wooden tables
in poverty
With each sharp, loud sound, one thinks our revolution's come!
Rebellion slinks into an unsuspecting heart; with each siren
one believes
Some are caught, trapped, though most remain free to plot,
to plan, to plunder his patriotism.
from: "Uncollected Poems 1958-1975"
posted by David Federman @ 4:33 PM
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