13. Eco-Tourism
Welcome to Smeltback Inc. copper, zinc, lead, uranium, iron, O mineral gardens of the Inland Sea! A company satellite tremulous as a divining-rod maps onto flow charts corporate terrain; prospectus for all the kingdoms of the earth. Radio Redneck pumps the poet who banks safe on a right-wing bet, steadies to subvert the norm for God and Clever Countrys sake. Prettily thus he underbends the knee to throw his best foot forward O.
Generation of 68
Frank OHara (here Im skating slow on sacred ice) has got a lot to answer for, yet who hasnt? Take the legacy of 60s poets, for example, who cant help but write like him; syntactically careering around his blizzard of words, elbow-jolting crazily, clutching at each others earmuffs, buttonholing opportunity. Seems they did that as par for the course till it got too dizzy. Round and round the freedom rink they went & those who zigzagged quick & cut up rough fell back upon the railings youth exhausted to exhale worn, cautious success though tried not to show it. What happened to the stragglers in the maul is anyones guess; some unmarried, a good number courted hardship whatever. Nobody cares overly much. The 60s poets they go on to write like Frank OHara: fewer drop-by parties, meaner somehow.
Pat Boone & Tonto
White-shirted (not blue) they approach in twos: Excuse me Sir, a small moment of your time? Soft-selling eternity & the clean-cut hereafter. The boyish accent downloads the serious side of the American dream, eyes fixed computer bright. The other is slower, slope-shouldered & discipled, backgrounded by a blandished brain. As a child, when the God was always friendly, big as a house, long as a street & the day endless, the knock upon the door signalled: Excuse me young man, is the lady of the house in? Welcome the suitcased salesman; the Bon-Brush Man: big-bristled, wooden-backed scrubbing & bottle brushes, sandsoap & Brasso for hard domestic usage. Not now. These two modern peddlers head out to the brick bungalows of the inner city suburbs selling the Light & the Way, galloping round the outer handicapped districts; brainwashed right-wing angels confident as professional sportsmen on a World Tour.
To Talk of Flags
The flags fall like large, hollow, monochrome leaves, said Ritsos, but this isnt Greece. How can you talk of changing flags as blithely as you would a marriage? When we fly the flag its as label to proclaim attitude, and rightly so, too: the Remembrance Day Parades, Expansionism, other peoples wars; the main street of every country town at the dying of day lights up the Unknown Soldier & the long lists of the Dead written in lead. No, these things will always hold, rung up once yearly, regular as a poker-machine. Change flags, to acknowledge what? Whose domestic honour, what custodial deaths?
Words to Lure a Ghost
An exiles soliloquy