Working for the Enemy
No work on “our side” meant that he – “like a spy” –
Felt forced to slave for umpteen years on “theirs”:
For the sake of his art, he claimed – to leave it free
Of markets, fashions, cliques, to do or be
Whatever it needed. At last, the job and its cares
Silenced him. Left him puzzling over why.
He thought he’d grown, perhaps, to believe his lies:
At first we act them, then we act on them.
Once an escape from the gold-and-ivory tower,
“Useful experience” had gradually assumed more power
Over his heart and mind – by guilt and shame
As well as muddied, muddled compromise –
Than he’d ever expected. Though he held that art
Can swallow any subject – even the pride
Of the wounded artist – he knew as well that he ought
To have left that place where bodies and souls are bought,
Whose ways are all dead ends, where he might have died –
Of stomach cancer, say, or a stricken heart –
But, dully, suffered on. Self-punishment
Takes many forms. A more or less settled gloom
Grew slowly thicker, rarely now relieved
By doing things in which he still believed –
By looking forward to less fear, less boredom –
Or saying, for instance, what he really meant.
Disgusted, insecure, self-alienated,
Yet still condoning corporate power and greed,
He also told himself such sacrifice –
Which only went to show how little choice
We really have – was needed if the needs
Of his family were to be accommodated . . .
And so he managed.While others managed the world.
But art needs deep slow truth, the spiralling peace
Beyond all understanding. Not, of course,
As therapy, or some hermeneutic pause
In the race for gold. Or even here. But at least
As an end – in view or not – whereto we’re swirled
Like eddies in a stream.We write to live;
He lived to try and find the time to write:
“What poets need above all things is luck! –
Plus native wit, perhaps, or witless pluck –
To help them through this fight that’s not their fight,
This give-and-take that’s only take not give . . .”
And yet, when he retired, he wished he’d done
Something to try and curb the booming harm
To human nature and/or the Nature we share –
Their actual earth and water, fire and air –
Instead of (in secret) sounding a quiet alarm
In ever fewer words. The enemy won.
Felt forced to slave for umpteen years on “theirs”:
For the sake of his art, he claimed – to leave it free
Of markets, fashions, cliques, to do or be
Whatever it needed. At last, the job and its cares
Silenced him. Left him puzzling over why.
He thought he’d grown, perhaps, to believe his lies:
At first we act them, then we act on them.
Once an escape from the gold-and-ivory tower,
“Useful experience” had gradually assumed more power
Over his heart and mind – by guilt and shame
As well as muddied, muddled compromise –
Than he’d ever expected. Though he held that art
Can swallow any subject – even the pride
Of the wounded artist – he knew as well that he ought
To have left that place where bodies and souls are bought,
Whose ways are all dead ends, where he might have died –
Of stomach cancer, say, or a stricken heart –
But, dully, suffered on. Self-punishment
Takes many forms. A more or less settled gloom
Grew slowly thicker, rarely now relieved
By doing things in which he still believed –
By looking forward to less fear, less boredom –
Or saying, for instance, what he really meant.
Disgusted, insecure, self-alienated,
Yet still condoning corporate power and greed,
He also told himself such sacrifice –
Which only went to show how little choice
We really have – was needed if the needs
Of his family were to be accommodated . . .
And so he managed.While others managed the world.
But art needs deep slow truth, the spiralling peace
Beyond all understanding. Not, of course,
As therapy, or some hermeneutic pause
In the race for gold. Or even here. But at least
As an end – in view or not – whereto we’re swirled
Like eddies in a stream.We write to live;
He lived to try and find the time to write:
“What poets need above all things is luck! –
Plus native wit, perhaps, or witless pluck –
To help them through this fight that’s not their fight,
This give-and-take that’s only take not give . . .”
And yet, when he retired, he wished he’d done
Something to try and curb the booming harm
To human nature and/or the Nature we share –
Their actual earth and water, fire and air –
Instead of (in secret) sounding a quiet alarm
In ever fewer words. The enemy won.
Page(s) 20-21
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