I cannot write about our Caesar –
Napoleon, we’ve never had –
We’ve lacked a Hitler, Stalin, Castro,
And such a loss makes many sad.
Democracy can never give us
Great leaders such as these, and so
We fight to tear it down, implode it –
No leaders rise, so it must go.
The awful people we’ve elected
Won’t be as bad, so we feel spurned –
Instead, our leaders rot so slowly,
And from the swamp, the swamp’s returned.
Our greatest heroes? Just pathetic –
Jack Kennedy could never be
An Alexander or Augustus –
That’s why we’re still just barely free.
And that is why each poet, artist
Loves dictators and praises them –
A poem praising complex systems? –
Too many facets in that gem.
Each poet wants to be Propertius
And praising Caesar endlessly –
Pathetic politicians are not
Worth lines of valiant poetry.
But what the poets lost, the people
Have gained, so keep great men at bay,
For order made by law brings freedom,
Makes possible the dawn of day.
14 comments:
Nice. I'm not sure how I feel about a spondee after a feminine line. I know it's kosher, but...
(Whatever it is, it's NOT my mom, OK? Heh heh heh)
Not sure where the spondee is. Can't find it.
(Maybe I'm just a dumbass.)
"us / Great Leaders"
?
Here's the thing--I was reading the poem aloud, with great flourish, at 2 in the morning after about 7 glasses of half-off shiraz. The skip was probably in my addled brain, not the poy-eme. You know--I saw you wince like 10 times when I was reading MIlton at Starbucks last year.
In any event, it's a fine poem, and I feel like a bit of a horse's ass for trotting out a smug (and probably wrong) armchair critique instead of sincere appreciation.
Anyhoo, re: great men:
Pierre Eliot Troudeau got Canada into more debt than every other prime minister put together. And he's still remembered by everyone as the greatest leader we've ever had, because he swam the Panama Canal, dated sexy actresses, drove a sportscar, hung out with Castro (another dangerous, charismatic socialist) and basically did whatever he wanted.
I think the possibility of using gods and stories to personify complex systems is an interesting one, but America even cuts the gods down to size, and most of the country's supposedly greatest minds can't even tell the difference between Hermes and Mammon. So watcha gonna do.
"leader" is stressed-unstressed. It's not "great leadER," but "great LEADer".
Of course, the great thing about the U.S. system precisely is that it prevents "great men" from taking control, or from being "great men"
Hold up a sec, I wanna make sure I get this:
us / Great Leader
x (feminine ending) / ' 'x
So "great" + "lead" isn't a spondee? Would you say "Great leader" is an antibacchius then?
(no wonder I'm getting A/B's on these bloody scansion quizzes)
We have the feminine ending, true: u/
But "Great leader" can either be read as //u or u/u. Since "lead" of leader is more stressed than is "great", it pushes "great into being unstressed. It has more stress than does the "-er" of leader, but relative to the "lead-" of leader, it is unstressed.
This is why poetry is called an art, not a science.
Look at you with your fancy /'s and u's.
They look more like the written notation. You're just jealous cause you didn't think of it :-P
You write in the vein of the Restoration poets when writing like this - the poet/essayist.
It's a rarified genre and hard to do well, but you pull it off as well as any modern poet.
The last line's cliche, "dawn of day", is the only moment that gave me pause
Besides Turner, I wonder what poetry has influenced you?
I'll think about the last line.
Besides Turner:
Wallace Stevens
Keats
William Blake
Coleridge
John Donne
Frederick Fierstein
Shakespeare
Robert Frost
Langston Hughs
Richard Wilbur
And, in translation:
Goethe
Propertius
Heine
Holderlin
Baudelaire
One could also list any number of popular singer/songwriters:
John Lennon
Paul McCartney
Bob Dylan
Jim Morrison
Janis Joplin
Kurt Cobain
Wayne Coyne (Flaming Lips)
And then, there are those that have had a negative influence, so to speak. Among them is Tony Hogland.
Wow!
Have you *really* been -influenced- by all those artists?
I like all the artists you mentioned, but I've only really been influenced (actively studied and imitated) three or four of them.
That looks more like a fan list, but that's not for me to say. :-)
For most of those I can indeed point to specific poems that demonstrate their specific influence(s). Along those lines, I left out the Beowulf poet (I have attempted imitations of his alliterative style). Others have influenced ways of thinking, including ways of thinking about poetry -- which is just as important an influence as any. I would also suggest that any poems that you recite from memory are going to be an influence on your work, consciously or unconsciously (thus my addition of popular singers, which could thus include many, many more). I may have a broader definition influence -- but that's perhaps because I'm increasingly interested in the full range of influences of works and artists on the creation of new works (think of it as a kind of sociology of ltierary production).
awesome blog, do you have twitter or facebook? i will bookmark this page thanks. lina holzbauer
Post a Comment