“…As the clever hopes expire/Of a low dishonest decade:…”
W.H. Auden, “September 1, 1939”
I’m in a Starbucks
on America St.,
uncertain,
but resigned –
To the gravity
of indolence,
and the experiment
we leave behind.
Self-governance
needs self-love,
not teenage
infatuation –
Self-love requires
self-knowledge,
not orgasmic
calculation.
Self-knowledge
will stretch as far
as you honestly
want it to grow –
To whom evil is done,
always do evil,
is a lesson
children know.
HEART-BREAKING NEWS Baby Boom fizzles out
The arc of civilization is shown by who leads resistance to the status quo, to the policies spread upon hallowed American ground by the butter knife of Congress, ruled mostly by the vain and dull-witted, and only sometimes with trouble-making angels in the mix.
While Vietnam was overrun by unlucky draftees, wrongly sent to burn peasant villages to save them for the arrival of Starbucks and Big Max, I was among the lucky ducks on the college trip, but, soon we sensed villainy in our midst.
From coast to coast and in the midlands, too, our campus labs and seminars were infiltrated by secret agents – sworn disciples of the Pentagram, their mission nothing less than to smooth every wrinkle in the Rose of Sharon.
And so, with some in tweed and leather-patched elbow, others in dungarees, old and young we took to the quad; a bookish squad, without rancor, we deemed it necessary to dredge a moat between rooms of learning and tools of war.
By 1968, planned killings leave us bereft of leaders in love enough with truth to lay it on the line. With broken hearts and brows we quit Miami and Chicago, beaten by the democrat Daley and his pet republican, Nixon.
We quit the fight, some fled, some pitched insurance for souls, others sold out, their work made to move beer, tee shirts, and jeans – even our tribal newspaper turned glossy, as if Henry Luce were at the helm, having taken Ralph Gleason’s place.
Since then, since learning became passé, now truckers lead us, in convoys that convene at mAga Merch Malls, cheered on by TV wags, we make our way, with headlights dimmed, for the fog of war.
Dave Read