It should be mentioned that he
Was one hundred and thirty
Nine years old
At the time of the recording
The voice become gravel -
Thank you, Lucky Strike, Thank
You, Camel, Thank You,
American Spirit.
Words stumble out like elephants
The throat has released upon the mouse
And as in the fable,
How they squeak, the elephants,
How they crack and moan and break
At all the wrong pauses...
Jack should have been mentioned in the ac-
Knowledgements or Gordon’s
Or Tanquerey –
Whatever it was he besotted himself
With every night to gain
(And with every bed to swain…)
The rosy complexion he enjoyed
In his senectitude...
I know a good researcher
Would benefit from some actual research
And all I have before me
Is a bootleg copy of the work
Grievously typed out and impaled
Via sticky keyboard to the internet
(Where all poetry goes
Now to live
Now to die…)
(Same difference when it comes to poetry)
An implied rhyme is coming
And frankly, you will have to mispronounce
The intended words -
Both of them
Badly said -
To even come close to hearing it
I am talking worse than the previous
“Fable” and “break at all” thing
That occurred earlier
But all of a sudden
I find that my favorite poet
Is Auden...
Contemptible, I know
He’s been thought of as both
Better and worse
But this thing - his poem - reads
Like a defenseless blend
Of Hermetics and Tolkieniana
How the Phi Betas endured is beyond me
And my scope of concern
Senility does this
And too many fawning sycophants
Wearing tight pants
Telling him his brilliance
Would erect cenotaphs
If nothing else
All over the nation
He pottered
At the podium and hacked
Another sestina
To the joys of sidewalks
To the ills of armchairs
How we were touched
By the spectacularly unfortunate
Fortitude and penmanship
And thought of our own battle-weary
Coming home
To no sonnets
To no gladiator professors
Who regret their proper eruditions
Spoiling instead upon the torn
Missions of misunderstanding
At home
Afoot amongst the lay and the intelligentsia
No one will sing them a Decalogue
No administration will require their ministrations
Beyond the re-numerous tours of duty
Already shackled upon them
Auden wavers at the rostrum
His Ares at doze
While ours saunters on
To be shot to pieces by poems of Donne
Regrettably
Dramatic
Precocious
© 2012 – Mark A. Douglas – All Rights Reserved
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