Thursday, June 27, 2013

Mad-Eyed from Stating the Obvious









 
ADVICE TO A PROPHET

Richard Wilbur

When you come, as you soon must, to the streets of our city,   
Mad-eyed from stating the obvious,
Not proclaiming our fall but begging us
In God’s name to have self-pity,

Spare us all word of the weapons, their force and range,   
The long numbers that rocket the mind;
Our slow, unreckoning hearts will be left behind,   
Unable to fear what is too strange.

Nor shall you scare us with talk of the death of the race.   
How should we dream of this place without us?—
The sun mere fire, the leaves untroubled about us,   
A stone look on the stone’s face?

Speak of the world’s own change. Though we cannot conceive   
Of an undreamt thing, we know to our cost
How the dreamt cloud crumbles, the vines are blackened by frost,   
How the view alters. We could believe,

If you told us so, that the white-tailed deer will slip   
Into perfect shade, grown perfectly shy,
The lark avoid the reaches of our eye,
The jack-pine lose its knuckled grip

On the cold ledge, and every torrent burn
As Xanthus once, its gliding trout
Stunned in a twinkling. What should we be without   
The dolphin’s arc, the dove’s return,

These things in which we have seen ourselves and spoken?   
Ask us, prophet, how we shall call
Our natures forth when that live tongue is all
Dispelled, that glass obscured or broken

In which we have said the rose of our love and the clean   
Horse of our courage, in which beheld
The singing locust of the soul unshelled,
And all we mean or wish to mean.

Ask us, ask us whether with the worldless rose   
Our hearts shall fail us; come demanding   
Whether there shall be lofty or long standing   
When the bronze annals of the oak-tree close.



7 comments:

  1. Agreed: Corporate did not care re DOMA nor Prop 8 (tho' Moroni-ites did). The VRA was one they cared about. Thx for alerting me to the property case. Sheesh.

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  2. Also too if this comment survives the new JSA (copyright!) pre-clearance, screening: 'Mad-eyed from stating the obvious' is the perfect caption for your new page-top pic.

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  3. I should have said, Corporate doesn't give flying fuck about DOMA re: which way SCOTUS ruled. Corporate is grateful for which ever way SCOTUS chose as long as the resulting tribal noise distracts from people noticing which way SCOTUS chose on those cases Corporate *does* care about.

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  4. The reasoning that Democrats won't allow criticism of Democrats is every bit as valid as Republicans' reasoning that Planned Parenthood only performs abortions. The relative importance of the DOMA and VRA decisions is obvious, and anyone calling the DOMA decision a huge victory in light of the abjectly rapacious VRA decision a day before is a fucking moron who shouldn't be credited with intellect. To my knowledge, no one of any significance has done so.

    Once again, and I hope for the last fucking time: when the political alternative you propose is a complete and immediate reordering of the socioeconomic structure, you aren't proposing something viable. And given your complicity, your discussion of it is mess-free masturbation.

    Not that there's anything wrong with that, if that's what does it for you.

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  5. And your comments moderation is a Corporate suppression tactic, you fucking tool.

    OCCUPY BDR!

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  6. To be honest, I don't think Triskelions give a fuck on VRA much either way beyond stirring tribal rage any more than it cares about DOMA. All our Triskelions care about is private property, keeping it, getting more.

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  7. I think that the direct line between Triskelion wealth preservation and VRA is very bright and shiny.

    And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to divert my attention to the Euro diving championship, which after yesterday's CONMEBOL diving championship, should be very entertaining indeed.

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