Middle East Deja Vu

Middle East (1952)

Petroleum, petroleum,

    With power so accursed,

Thou art no longer lubricant

    But bringeth out the worst.



Cupidity and violence

    Gush with thee from a soil

Where few there are who benefit

    From any drop of oil.

—Marya Mannes, Subversive, 1959

Perennial Campaign Tactics

Campaign Tactics

People are dumb,
People are dumb,
Promise 'em peace and kingdom come.

People are dopes,
People are dopes,
Play on their peeves, play on their hopes.

Make 'em feel mad,
Make 'em feel mad,
Everything's lousey, everything's bad.

Make 'em afraid,
Make 'em afraid,
Show 'em they're dupes, tricked and betrayed.

Then if they bite,
Then if they bite,
You will have fools to fight your fight.
—Marya Mannes, Subversive, 1959.

Help Wanted & The Worden Report

Help Wanted

There’s always a job for an engineer,
       A bonanza for any technician:
We scour the country far and near
       For the boys who are good at addition.
Money’s no object, we rush to bestow it
On science and people equipped to know it—
There’s always a job for an engineer
       (But nobody wants a poet).

If you know your way round an atomic pile
       Or the brain of a giant computer;
If you’re clever at guiding a guided missile
       And can tell if a neutron is neuter—
Forget all the rest, boys, skip it, stow it.
Iambic pentameter? Who wants to know it?
There’s always a job for an engineer
       (But nobody wants a poet).
—Marya Mannes, Subversive, 1959

---

A Modest Proposal

Since poets have not seen fit to regulate themselves and continue to palm off on an unsuspecting and innocent public, jottings, fragments, punkish whimsy, pompous obfuscations, and shavings from a thoroughly whittled ego—it becomes necessary to impose some regulatory authority in order to restore a once-noble profession so that it may deal artfully with the truly important things of mankind and give once more a sense of order to chaotic existence.

In pursuit of these ends, I propose that Congress pass legislation to establish with the the Department of Labor, a committee to make recommendations to the states regarding uniform standards d practices for the accreditation and licensing of poets. [For God's sake, take all responsibility away from the National Endowment for the Arts, the haven of bardic poseurs who see that awards go to postmodern deconstructed cronies.]

No one under forty shall be granted a license, on the grounds that one must, as a duly licensed poet, experience much life before attempting to wring sense out of that life.

More: It is clearly unseemly for a noble profession with a Delphic and Hierophantic role to be dominated by youthful scribblers who have learned how to type and run a wordprocessor, and who have taken creative writing courses that encourage evulgation and other excesses as touchstones of creativity. (Naturally this will require some minor changes: for example, the Yale Younger Poets series should be changed to the Yale Middle-Aged Poet Series, or the Yale Geezer Poet Series.)

It may, of course, be possible for a younger poet to work as an apprentice or serve an internship with an older poet, perhaps helping the Maestro with metaphors, imagery, and fine-tuning sprung rhythm, much the way apprentices used to work in the workshops of Michelangelo, Ben Cellini, J. Pollock and A. Warhol.

As I noted earlier, poets are in roughly the same situation as physicians were in 1900. Just as the Flexner report did much to strengthen the medical profession, this report may stimulate those who really care about the future of poetry to take the steps necessary to insure its vigorous survival.
—Mark Worden, from The Worden Report

Rejoinders 01

O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,

    Missing so much and so much?

O fat white woman whom nobody loves,

    Why do you walk through the fields in gloves . . . ?  

—Frances Cornford 

Why do you flash through the flowery meads,
Fat-head poet that nobody reads . . . ?
—G. K. Chesterton

O why do you walk through the fields in boots,

       Missing so much and so much?

O fat white woman whom nobody shoots,

Why do you walk through the fields in boots,

When the grass is soft as the breast of coots

       And shivering-sweet to the touch?

—Housman

---

My candle burns at both ends;
     It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—
     It gives a lovely light!
—Edna St. Vincent Millay First Fig, 1920 .

I burned my candle at both ends,
And now I have neither foes nor friends;
For all the lovely light begotten,
I'm paying now in feeling rotten.
—Samuel Hoffenstein

Three On Unassisted Suicide

XLV

If it chance your eye offend you,
     Pluck it out, lad, and be sound;
'twill hurt, but here are salves to mend you,
     And many a balsam grows on ground.

And if your hand or foot offend you,
     Cut it off, lad, and be whole;
But play the man, stand up and end you,
     When your sickness is your soul.
—A. E. Housman, fom A Shropshire Lad

---

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.
—Dorothy Parker, "Resume" from Enough Rope

---

Lament of the Suicided Poet

I, I, I, I—

    I, I, I

Majored in self-knowledge.

    (Sigh, sigh, sigh!)



Woe, woe, woe, woe:

    I have suffered so

Much I'm suicidal.

    (Snurfle, woe, woe.)



No, I won't change my habits,

    Else how should I create?

But I'll guzzle booze and swallow pills

    And prate, prate, prate—



About my awful love life,

    My traumas, my stubbed toe,

My mother and my brother and my

    Woe, woe, woe.



Now I'm dead and gone to heaven:

    Suicide really works.

But Christ! I am surrounded

    By Yahoos, Boobs, and Jerks!



I quarreled with Saint Peter

    And said, “It seems  very odd

No one here appreciates me.”

    He said, “Take it up with God.”



God was on Her golden throne.

    I approached Her with awe.

I recited her my finest lines.

    She said, “Haw, haw, haw.”



“Haw, haw, haw?” I queried,

    Unenthusiastically.

“Oh, Lord, how can this happen

    To me, me, me!”



So there I went and killed myself

    To find there's something worse:

God's the toughest critic

    In the whole damned universe! 

—mark worden

Ars This

ARS POETICA TO YOU TOO, BUSTER

A poem should not mean, but be.
—Archibald McLeish

What poets mean by what they mean
Is tougher than it's ever been.
—Carl Crane

Cryptic and thick
as an Assyrian brick
a half-baked babble-born cuneiform

A poem should be warm
as fresh milk,
smooth as silk and cute
as a recycled woolen suit
made in Taiwan

A poem should be able
to float
like a McKenzie Riverboat
serene
dutiful and cold
like coarse Yukon gold
acetylene
and refrigerated grapefruit

A poem should stand oblique, but stable
resembling an antique pine table
where good old Mabel
sets 'em between rounds

See here, pseudo-Ezra-Pounds:
One should be rough and tough as an old boar!
A poem should endeavor not to snore.

—and move with the ease and dignity
of a constipated cat
who knows in the dark
precisely where it's at

—And demonstrate the technical power
at a conservative speed
not to exceed,
say, fifty-five miles per hour

A poem should not try to work too hard,
take time off, roll in the yard
One that tries to drain the swamp
will find it may be more tempting to dream
of skysful of exquisite blue guitars
hurt thumbs and empires of icecream

Like a ventriloquist birdsong
lascivious, clean
as a hound's tooth
a poem should not be,
like a Fender guitar on an emerald sea,
or an elegant Rube Goldburg machine.

A poem should grind out truth
be ornery, hard and mean.

—mark worden

Don Marquis Channels Bill

pete the parrot and shakespeare

i got acquainted with
a parrot named pete recently
who is an interesting bird
pete says he used
to belong to the fellow
that ran the mermaid tavern
in london then i said
you must have known
shakespeare know him said pete
poor mutt i knew him well
he called me pete and i called him
bill but why do you say poor mutt
well said pete bill was a
disappointed man and was always
boring his friends about what
he might have been and done
if he only had a fair break
two or three pints of sack
and sherris and the tears
would trickle down into his
beard and his beard would get
soppy and wilt his collar
i remember one night when
bill and ben jonson
and frankie beaumont
were sopping it up

here i am ben says bill
nothing but a lousy playwright
and with anything like luck
in the breaks i might have been
a fairly decent sonnet writer
i might have been a poet
if i had kept away from the theatre
yes says ben I ve often
thought of that bill
but one consolation is
you are making pretty good money
out of the theatre

money money says bill what the hell
is money what i want is to be
a poet not a business man
these damned cheap shows
i turn out to keep the
theatre running break my heart
slap stick comedies and
blood and thunder tragedies
and melodramas say i wonder
if that boy heard you order
another bottle frankie
the only compensation is that i get
a chance now and then
to stick in a little poetry
when nobody is looking
but hells bells that isn t
what I want to do
i want to write sonnets and
songs and spenserian stanzas
and i might have done it too
if i hadn t got
into this frightful show game
business business business
grind grind grind
what a life for a man
that might have been a poet

well says frankie beaumont
why don t you cut it bill
i can t says bill
i need the money i ve got
a family to support down in
the country well says frankie
anyhow you write pretty good
plays bill any mutt can write
plays for this london public
says bill if he puts enough
murder in them what they want
is kings talking like kings
never had sense enough to talk
and stabbings and stranglings
and fat men making love
and clowns basting each
other with clubs and cheap puns
and off color allusions to all
the smut of the day oh i know
what the low brows want
and i give it to them

well says ben jonson
don t blubber into the drink
brace up like a man
and quit the rotten business
i can t i can t says bill
i ve been at it too long I ve got to
the place now where i can t
write anything else
but this cheap stuff
i m ashamed to look an honest
young sonneteer in the face
i live a hell of a life I do
the manager hands me some mouldy old
manuscript and says
bill here s a plot for you
this is the third of the month
by the tenth i want a good
script out of this that we
can start rehearsals on
not too big a cast
and not too much of your
damned poetry either
you know your old
familiar line of hokum
they eat up that falstaff stuff
of yours ring him in again
and give them a good ghost
or two and remember we gotta
have something dick burbage can get
his teeth into and be sure
and stick in a speech
somewhere the queen will take
for a personal compliment and if
you get in a line or two somewhere
about the honest english yeoman
it s always good stuff
and it s a pretty good stunt
bill to have the heavy villain
a moor or a dago or a jew
or something like that and say
i want another
comic welshman in this
but I don t need to tell
you bill you know this game
just some of your ordinary
hokum and maybe you could
kill a little kid or two a prince
or something they like
a little pathos along with
the dirt now you better see burbage
tonight and see what he wants
in that part oh says bill
to think i am
debasing my talents with junk
like that oh god what i wanted
was to be a poet
and write sonnet serials
like a gentleman should

well says i pete
bill s plays are highly
esteemed to this day
is that so says pete
poor mutt little he would
care what poor bill wanted
was to be a poet
archy

---

archy confesses

coarse
jocosity
catches the crowd
shakespeare
and I
are often
low browed

the fish wife
curse
and the laugh
of the horse
shakespeare
and I
are frequently coarse

aesthetic
excuses
in bill s behalf
are adduced
to refine
big bill s.
coarse laugh

but bill
he would chuckle
to hear such guff
he pulled
rough stuff
and he liked
rough stuff

hoping you
are the same
archy

VARIATIONS
ON A THEME: "DEACON BLUES"
(with apologies to Steely Dan; esp., Don Fagen and Walter Becker)

Woodsheddin on my castinets,
hacking out some blues.
I've chewed my share of chiclets,
paid my union dues.

Now I snort borax with the best of them,
smoke hi-grade powder fuse,
and short-circuit out the baseboard heat
to shake my cortex loose.

They name the winners in this world,
and they'll name me as I lose.
Call Moby Dick the great white whale
and me, Old Tennis Shoes. . . .

mark worden

Herrick:: Wantons & Liquefacted Clothes

POETS.
by Robert Herrick


WANTONS we are, and though our words be such,
Our lives do differ from our lines by much.

---

UPON JULIA'S CLOTHES.
by Robert Herrick


WHENAS in silks my Julia goes,
Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows
That liquefaction of her clothes.

Next, when I cast mine eyes and see
That brave vibration each way free ;
O how that glittering taketh me !

Than Nothing

Better do to no end than nothing.
--Democritus Junior (AKA Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, about 1621)

Bardcode This

Poetry Dodgers

Draft-Dodgers vs. Poetry Dodgers

Rather than fulfilling their military obligation,
     fulfilling their poetry obligation--
After all, what's more fulfilling,
     learning how to kill or love?
Those who become soldiers
     are evading the Poetry Service--
     dodging the Poetry Draft.

--by antler

The Ho Hum Menace

Ho hum, ho hum,
        I've a happy life,
    I've a little sonny,
        A nice little wife;
    I've a little money
        From a nice little store;
   
Ho hum, ho hum
        I wish there was a war.

        --Morris Bishop, "One of Our Menaces," (1926) from Spilt Milk

Poetic Meaning :: A Dialog

"I am using the time to catch up on my study of poetry."
"Data, there's nothing on the screen."
"That is not entirely correct. While it is true the display is currently blank, this 'emptiness' has a poetic meaning. Therefore, it cannot be considered 'nothing' as such."
"Says who?"
"The ancient Uzidarians. Much of their poetry contains such lacunae or empty spaces. Often these pauses measured several days in length, during which poet and audience were encouraged to acknowledge the emptiness of the experience."
"I remember a few lectures at Starfleet Academy that seemed that way."
-- Data and LaForge, "Interface" || STAR TREK: The Next Generation

lifted

Down Memory Lane with Ol Ronnie Reagan

OL' RONNIE REAGAN 
a NeoHoosier idyll, with a tic of the supercilium to James Whitcomb Riley

Ol' Ronnie Reagan's come to Washington to stay,
An' clean up State Department an' scare the Reds away,
An' purge the Senate of its Doves, the budget of its fat,
An' make life plumb intol’able fer th' welfare bureaucrat;
An' all acrost the nation, when the budget-cuttin's done,
We set around the teevy an' has the mostest fun
A-listening to the witch-tales 'at Ronnie tells about,
An Dave Stockman’ll git you

Ef you
    Don't
        Watch
           Out!

Wunst they was a little boy who wouldn't say his prayers
At school or at the table, an' put on atheistic airs,
Cause he seen on Public Teevy how th' Cosmos come to pass,
An' Sagan said God weren't nothin' but another name fer gas;
An' he studied in biology eevilution's demonic line,
An' he never learnt a doggone thing 'cept to scoff an' undermine.
Thank God fer Creationism, an' now we've got no doubt,
An' the Moral Majority’ll gityou

Ef you
   Don't
        Watch
           Out!

An' wunst they was a little girl, three months overdue,
An' she was "liberated", as ever’body knew;
An' she favor'd abortion on demand an' worked fer E.R.A.,
But when time came to `bort her own, she found she couldn't pay.
So she went and did her own, with a rusty butterknife,
And now she's down in Attica, a-doin' ten-to-life.
She shoulda settled down 'stead o' sashayin' all about,
An' the Pro-life folks'll git you

Ef you
   Don't
        Watch
           Out!

An Ol’ Ronnie Reagan says, when the goin's kind o' rough,
An' the Cubans an' the Ruskies is actin' kind o' tough,
An' the welfare cheats is howlin' an' allus wantin' more,
You better reinstate the Draft, an' "advise" El Salvador;
An' give more money to Defense, unleash the CIA,
An' deploy planes an' neutron bombs to kill the Christian way.
An' show the world our Iron Resolve an' let them feel our Clout,
'Er General Haig’ll git you

Ef you
   Don't
        Watch
           Out!

Alternate stanza for stanza #3, OL' RONNIE REAGAN

An' wunst they was a little girl who wasn't nice at all, 
An' she tore up all her miniskirts an' broke her Barbie doll. 
An' she got an eddycation, an' worked fer ERA, 
'Cause her "macho" boss harassed her when she asked fer ekkal pay.
 Now she calls herself a femmynist, an’ she makes it awful clear 
She's plumb deddycated to advancin' her career.
She shoulda settled down 'stead o' sashayin' all about,
n' Phyllis Schafley’ll git you

Ef you
   Don't
        Watch
           Out!

--Mark Worden

Lord of Laughter & Light

Theodore Roethke wrote:

Lord of Laughter and Light, attend me.

I say:

Lord of laughghter and lighght, how may I serve thee?

dawg verse

I am his Highness' dog at Kew;
Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?
--Alexander Pope, Engraved on the Collar of a Dog Which He Gave to His Royal Highness [prince of Wales]

---

Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog
--Oliver Goldsmith

GOOD people all, of every sort,
Give ear unto my song;
And if you find it wondrous short,--
It cannot hold you long.

In Islington there was a man,
Of whom the world might say
That still a godly race he ran,--
Whene'er he went to pray.

A kind and gentle heart he had,
To comfort friends and foes;
The naked every day he clad,--
When he put on his clothes.

And in that town a dog was found,
As many dogs there be,
Both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound,
And curs of low degree.

The dog and man at first were friends;
But when a pique began,
The dog, to gain some private ends,
Went mad, and bit the man.

Around from all the neighboring streets,
The wondering neighbors ran,
And swore the dog had lost his wits
To bite so good a man.

The wound it seemed both sore and sad
To every Christian eye;
And while they swore the dog was mad
They swore the man would die.

But soon a wonder came to light,
That showed the rogues they lied;
The man recovered of the bite,
The dog it was that died.

---

Meditatio
--Ezra Pound

When I carefully consider the curious habits of dogs
I am compelled to conclude
That man is the superior animal.

When I consider the curious habits of man
I confess, my friend, I am puzzled.

---

. . . dogs is man's best friend. . . man ain't nobody's. . . .
--Monroe D. Underwood

Class Act Revisited

A Class Act*

by Mark Worden

---

The rich man has his Porsche,
His ranch and his Lear Jet.
He gallivants in Switzerland
With a nameless amourette.

His doctor warns him he's Type-A
And prescribes serenity pills.
Two Harvard MBA's
Handle all the bills.

Though I stand in lines all day --
Though I have no livelihood --
Would I trade my squalid lot for his?
You bet your ass I would.

---

*This is a melancholy rehash of the Franklin P. Adams poem "The Rich Man," the present author having reached the conclusion late in life that there are some things squalor can't buy.

Cats Pigs -- Good Question

The Cats Who Believed They Were Pigs

by Mark Worden

They lived in the woodshed behind the house.
Born in the summer to a shy mamma tabby gone wild,
the kits began to starve when winter came.
It was a cold, stark time for hunters.
I left bits of leftover food on the front porch
when I went to work, a gesture at first
for I had no humane urge to domesticate.
They soon caught on and lurked about,
black shadows against the snow.

In time I had something I needed to prove.
Knowing just enough of Pavlov and Skinner to do the trick,
I bought catfood, savory aromatic stuff
no selfrespecting cat could leave alone.
I starved the gaunt gangling cats for three days.
Then took the food out on the porch in the cold,
sat and tantalized them until hunger won over wariness.
Soon (principle of successive approximations)
I had them eating out of my hand.
And as they fed, I'd call them fine pigs,
extol their strapping swinehood and murmur
sweet pig nothings while they savaged the liver.
I crooned, “Soooo, pigpigpig. Soooo pig pigpig.”

Later, that year when I'd bring home a shy young lady,
oh, I'd holler out, “Sooo pigpigpig, Sooo pig!”
And five cats would scamper from the shed,
they'd come running on dainty paws, tails high in the air,
and the shy young ladies I lured to my house,
the ladies who knew nothing of Pavlov and Skinner,
would ask with such becoming innocence,
“How did you do that?”

New Journalism

The Radical of the 90's
by Mark Worden

Credit card as ideology,
S/he dresses just like you and me.

S/he wears a head of large diameter
and writes government grants in iambic pentameter.


21st Century New Media Journalist

Blogosphere as ideology,
S/he dresses just like you and me.

S/he wears a head of large diameter
and writes scoops on a blog in iambic pentameter.

-- freely adapted from The New Media Journalist of the 90's

(any number can play)

old dogs

The old dog barks backwards without getting up.
I can remember when he was a pup.
--Robert Frost, "The Span of Life"
[in a nutshell]

---

When the bones of King Arthur were digged up, the old race might think they beheld therein some originals of themselves; unto these of our urns none here can pretend relation, and can only behold the relicks of those persons who, in their life giving the laws unto their predecessors, after long obscurity, now lie at their mercies. But, remembering the early civility they brought upon these countries, and forgetting long-passed mischiefs, we mercifully preserve their bones, and piss not upon their ashes. 

--Sir Thomas Browne

Funeral Instructions 

(R.I.P) 
Mark Worden

At my gravesite lay a garland 
Of rose and sage and vine; 
Don't bury me on the lone prairee 
Plant me with yellowpine. 

Bring along my one best friend, 
My dog, my book, my ring; 
And crank the stereo to the max, 
And let Bob Dylan sing. 

Place my ashes high in the woods, 
Or scatter them about; 
And let old Wolfgang* lift his leg 
To make sure my fire is out. 

*One-man dog, now alas deceased

 

Two from Don Marquis

Two gems from Don Marquis to start the day:;

The poet blots the end the jester wrote:
For now I drop the dull quip's forced pretence,
Forego the perch'd fool's eminence--
Thy tresses I have sung, that fall and float
Across the lyric wonder of thy throat
In dangerous tides of turbulence
Wherein a man might drown him, soul and sense
Is not their beauty worth one honest note?

And thee thyself, what shall I say of thee?--
Are thy snares strong and will thy bonds endure?
Thou hast the sense, hast though the soul of me?
In subtle webs and silken arts obscure
Thou hast the sense of me, but canst thou bind
The scornful pinions of my laughing mind?
--Don Marquis, from Sonnets to a Red-Haired Lady


Protest of a Young Intellectual

God never plucks me by the sleeve
   And begs for my advice,
And since he doesn't all His works
   Leaves me cold as ice

The dust of all the vulgar moons
   And planets overhead
Is just the same inferior dirt
   I daily spurn and tread.

Considering the soul I have,
    I think it quite unfair
That all the air I get to breathe
   Is ordinary air!

Considering the thought I think
   And state with every breath
It's odd my view have not been asked
   Concerning life and death.

Considering my brains, 'tis strange--
   (If it is nothing worse!)
That God has not consulted me
   About the universe.

Since God does naught but frown at me,
   I shall do more than frown!
I'll start a Pale Brown Magazine
    And shake the Cosmos down!
-- from Don Marquis, Love Sonnets of a Cave Man (1928)

Bringing it up to date::

I'll start dot com Blog
   And shake the Cosmos down!

quark out