THE BLUE FLANNEL SUIT I had let it all grow. I had supposed It was all OK. Your life Was a liner I voyaged in. Costly education had fitted you out. Financiers and committees and consultants Effaced themselves in the gleam of your finish. You trembled with the new life of those engines.
That first morning, Before your first class at College, you sat there Sipping coffee. Now I know, as I did not, What eyes waited at the back of the class To check your first professional performance Against their expectations. What assessors Waited to see you justify the cost And redeem their gamble. What a furnace Of eyes waited to prove your metal. I watched The strange dummy stiffness, the misery, Of your blue flannel suit, its straitjacket, ugly Half-approximation to your idea Of the properties you hoped to ease into, And your horror in it. And the tanned Almost green undertinge of your face Shrunk to its wick, your scar lumpish, your plaited Head pathetically tiny. You waited, Knowing yourself helpless in the tweezers Of the life that judges you, and I saw The flayed nerve, the unhealable face-wound Which was all you had for courage. I saw that what you gripped, as you sipped, Were terrors that killed you once already. Now I see, I saw, sitting, the lonely Girl who was going to die. That blue suit, A mad, execution uniform, Survived your sentence. But then I sat, stilled, Unable to fathom what stilled you As I looked at you, as I am stilled Permanently now, permanently Bending so briefly at your open coffin. TH --- In [email protected], merudanda <no_reply@...> wrote: > > TH? > Who owns these questionable brains? Death > No.Ted Hughes > Isn't Ted Hughes poems so disturbing and real at times? A perfect > example of his skill is this poem He could start a poem making you > love a innocent character then swiftly show the reader how vile and > evil this character is making the reader feel guilty that they could > ever love that character in the first place. > > Ted Hughes vision of a chaotic and godless world of random luck and > death is tempered not by Wallace Steven's vision of man -as poet > bringing order to the cosmos -but of Crow in his " trickster" guise > wreaking unintentional havoc which is something humans are quite good > at. And in that role the tricksters is, in the end, innocent. He is only > acting on his nature. > > Enough of your tricks, Brother Crow.............. > and do not eat Lady Gaga-- Gaga's Turkey > > Research more than 20 years ago indicates that crows are among the > brightest animals in the world." A Murder of Crows" brings you these > so-called feathered apes, as you have seldom seen them before. > If you haven't watched PBS Nature's "A Murder of Crows," > you should. > http://video.pbs.org/video/1621910826/# > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfI5-RWC-QQ > > The way a crow shook down on me > A dust of snow from a hemlock tree > Has given my heart a change of mood > And saved some part of a day I had rued. > Robert Frost > --- In [email protected], maskedzebra <no_reply@> wrote: > > > > Crow's First Lesson > > > > God tried to teach Crow how to talk. > > "Love," said God. "Say, Love." > > Crow gaped, and the white shark crashed into the sea > > And went rolling downwards, discovering its own depth. > > > > "No, no" said God, "Say Love. Now try it. LOVE." > > Crow gaped, and a bluefly, a tsetse, a mosquito > > Zoomed out and down > > To their sundry flesh-pots. > > > > "A final try," said God. "Now, LOVE." > > Crow convulsed, gaped, retched and > > Man's bodiless prodigious head > > Bulbed out onto the earth, with swivelling eyes, > > Jabbering protest— > > > > And Crow retched again, before God could stop him. > > And woman's vulva dropped over man's neck and tightened. > > The two struggled together on the grass. > > God struggled to part them cursed, wept— > > > > Crow flew guiltily off. > > > > TH > > > > > > --- In [email protected], "PaliGap" compost1uk@ wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > --- In [email protected], Tom Pall <thomas.pall@> wrote: > > > > > > > > Frankly I don't want to be bored to death by some > > > > British poet reading one of his works in a monotone. > > > > I did just fine in 4th grade, thank you, and didn't > > > > need to repeat it. Or stay developmentally arrested > > > > there. > > > > > > Ha! > > > > > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXYMNDu-qxo > > > > > > "...a shadow man. He's a man to correct Man. But of course > > > he's not a man - he's a crow, and he never does quite become > > > a man... > > > > > > ...The crow is the indestructible...bird, who suffering > > > everything, suffers nothing" > > > > > >
