A quick note about the formatting of the poem: Due to my limited understanding of poem formatting on Substack, the intended verse breaks have been lost. So...."Radio waves from some man-made star" is the start of the second verse and "Through a gap in the teeth of an ugly regime" is the start of the final verse.
Our country is like a large, open lifeboat on a stormy sea. It sits low in the water, already heavily overloaded, and there isn’t enough water or food for those already aboard. There aren’t enough people rowing or bailing and some of the idle passengers want, in the name of misguided compassion, to let yet more aboard, heedless of the risk that it will sink the boat. There is no captain to steer the boat and impose the discipline that will ensure survival of its occupants.
Sometimes, although it seems harsh, compassion just has to be subordinate to pragmatism.
82 years ago during WW II this famous quote (to speakers of German) was uttered "Das Boot ist voll" (The boat is⅚ full) by the Swiss politician von Steiger. It applied to the refugees, many of them Jews, not being allowed into Switzerland.
I quote this to underline the decisive changes that have taken place since those days.
The refugees then certainly were a mixed bunch. With many with mainly financial motives. But the majority just needed to escape torture and death. But fleeing an inhuman regime within Europe and to a neighboring country is quite something else than what has happened in Europe in the decennia past.
Maybe it can be compared to the Ukrainian refugees nowadays. And there is obviously much less resistance against them than against the global waves of migrants. It's quite clear why this is the case.
Thank you, Sean! So many seem unaware of the fragility of our situation. They don’t appreciate the dedication, effort and sacrifice it took to build our modern societies and so they don’t appreciate the effort needed to sustain them. Easy come, easy go, eh? We certainly need better leaders but politics is downstream of culture, and ours is unwell.
If you're in Britain you're facing an even tighter situation than we are here in Canada, where at least we have a massive land base. However, the economic problems are the same in both countries: skyrocketing inflation, chronic housing shortages, a growing homeless population, and now, in the US, a major round of layoffs. We're at a very dangerous point on the historical arc of a collapsing civilization. Arnold Toynbee's analysis of hundreds of civilizations in A Study of History, while not meant to be predictive, nevertheless was correct.
"leering a smile at any fool who will let their very nemesis through"
I couldn't think of a more apt description of our current reality. Sadly, our leaders aren't fools. They know what they're doing. It's all intentional, though you probably know that even better than I, considering you were in the know long before me. Great poem, by the way!
The situation in Canada is different. The migrants are mostly legal and appear to have plenty of money: housing costs have reached a level I’ve never seen before in my over 70 years. It’s so bad that young people can’t afford to buy or even rent and are living with their parents. There’s widespread outrage and the opposition party is actually mentioning immigration as an electoral issue.
Well- I wished the situation in Europe was like in Canada. They seem to have rational immigration laws. That the real estate market is like it is has IMO economic causes concerning Canadian economic policies.
You've managed to capture some of "the good, the bad, and the ugly" of the immigration phenomenon, which has grown exponentially worse since you first wrote this 20 years ago, and really, in the end, it all kinda boils down, I think, to what exactly is a country, a nation, and is there any legitimacy left to even the concept of a traditional country as historically experienced.
Jacinda is following the bizarre pattern of the very worst of people, the incompetents, the crooks, the tyrants, the perverts, and the raving maniacs, 'failing upwards,' leaving a trail of catastrophes behind them. A reflection of the inverted values of the current elites, perhaps?
I would certainly agree with your contention that "the pretty miniscule and niche public appetite for (poetry) in our time has meant that there is no effective filtration mechanism to cause the best to rise to the top," and that the digital realm has caused a proliferation of bad poetry. Though to be fair, the proliferation of creative writing faculties during the past 50 years had already well prepared the ground for this explosion of poetic weeds. Academia slit its own throat as regards the public appetite for poetry by buying wholesale into postmodernism during that same period, privileging the poet's supposed cleverness with word games over accessibility of message.
Is it any wonder the masses turned in their millions instead to the popular songs of Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Van Morrison, Neil Young, et al? These, I argue are the modern inheritors of the poetic tradition as a popular medium, not the academic poets. It's for this reason that as a poet I steered clear of academia, opting instead for a lifelong study course in the poetic greats of history as my mentors, rather than some university prof with a fetish for the latest aesthetic drivel masquerading as poetry.
I would however, challenge your "reservations about the poetic form"—let's not mistake malpractice of the art for the art itself. In Elizabethan poet Sir Philip Sidney's "Defence of Poesy," he says poetry is the best vehicle for the "purifying of wit." A similar conclusion was reached by T.S. Eliot when he wrote in Four Quartets: "...where every word is at home, / taking its place to support the others... The common word exact without vulgarity, / The formal word precise but not pedantic, / The complete consort dancing together..." It was Eliot who argued that "no verse is free for the man who wants to do a good job." Such precision of language and expression requires skill and craft, a far cry from the instant celebrity so many today demand simply by branding themselves "poets," "artists," or "musicians."
A modern poetic mentor I highly recommend would be San Francisco poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, whose wonderful little book Poetry as Insurgent Art should be required reading for all aspiring poets. Not an instruction book, it's a series of Ferlinghetti's aphorisms or original proverbs on poetry that are so luminous, they'll have you lunging for your pen and paper (or keyboard), they're so inspirational. Among my favourites are: "Poetry should arise to ecstasy somewhere between speech and song."
I think we agree more than we disagree. My reservations are just that....and tentative only. I very much like your comments about academic throat slitting.... and about precision of language. If, as I said, there was a relable curator of truly excellent poems, I would like to read some. Which of Lawrence Ferlinghetti's would you suggest?
We do agree. I was really offering reassurance that poetry, written by skilled poets, remains a vital force. "It's the driver, not the car."
Ferlinghetti's classic is of course A Coney Island of the Mind, although he did a wonderful little chapbook called Pictures of the Gone World that's actually my personal favourite, now very rare but available in Selected Poems editions. Keep in mind Ferlinghetti is a very different poet than the classic English poets of the 20th century, very much in the Walt Whitman tradition of the long, loping line in a kind of stream of consciousness. He's really the only one of the American Beat poets I like; I find Ginsberg rambles on too long and lacks poetic discipline. Long lines look easy but in fact are the hardest to master because "in the multitude of words there does not fail to be transgression," to quote the Biblical proverb. I often wondered why so little was written by poets about the JFK assassination at the time, then discovered Ferlinghetti's eloquent lament, Assassination Raga.
My poetic tastes and mentors range widely, and include far more formal poets such as T.S. Eliot, Leonard Cohen and Rainer Maria Rilke, playful poets such as E.E. Cummings, and the great Pablo Neruda, who was seemingly capable of anything in poetry. Grab Neruda's Book of Questions if you can find it! For Rilke, any one of his masterpieces, The Book of Hours, Duino Elegies, or Sonnets to Orpheus. And don't forget to order Ferlinghetti's Poetry as Insurgent Art. That little book has provided so much inspiration for me over the years. A desert island book for sure.
I haven't analyzed your poem yet and have also been annoyed by Substack's poor formatting for poetry when I've posted poems. Verse structure and line breaks are so important and it really breaks up the composition when Substack runs it all together.
I have several different translations of Rilke's work. One of my favourites is Selected Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke translated by American poet Robert Bly. Both Sonnets to Orpheus and Uncollected Poems translated by Edward Snow are very good, though I don't speak or read German so it's hard for me to judge. Snow is one of the most famous English translators of Rilke. More recently, Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows Love Poems to God (their version of A Book for the Hours of Prayer) provides yet another English translation. Of course, poetry is by far the hardest thing to translate, since more than any other form of writing the poet uses words that can have multiple meanings. As Macy and Barrows explain in their Introduction, the translator is faced with the choice: do I transliterate, i.e. exact translations of words; or do I instead translate for meaning? Both have their pitfalls, and so the translator becomes almost a second writer of the poems via their interpretation.
You definitely have a skilled way with words my friend. Another excellent piece.
I really liked the poem, but I must that the following line exploded off the page to me....
'What rankles above all perhaps is this chattering class’ foolish and reckless assumption that the civilisation that has succoured them will still be there however much they mess with its cohesiveness and however much they undermine it with their ‘globalist’ sentimentalities.'
That is the truest statement and something I constantly find myself thinking about when stupid ideas are allowed to permeate throughout our society and take hold like a tick spreading lime disease on its host.
For years it's been like the globalist/leftist/communists have been offering ideas and implementing stupid policies that have done nothing except destroy the country in a death by a thousand cuts scenario.
The problem now is that we're well beyond the thousand cuts and are many more thousands of cuts deep and we're seeing the result of that destruction play out right in front of us, particularly with the mass invasion at the border.
What we have is equivalent to what the Roman Empire had to deal with involving the Visigoths which was the linchpin that caused the fall of Rome.
Thanks again for all you do and keep pumping out the content. I'll try to do the same here on my end.
Thank you for these comments and so pleased you liked the poem.....poetry doesn't always transmit that well. It would seem that you and I are very much on the same page.
Thank you Shade. As I say on this post, I don't often write poems but when I do, my poetic style - such as it is - mixes rhyme, semi-rhyme, non-rhyme and alliteration... in both regular and irregular patterns. The aim always is to string together strong, accessible imagery in a way that has a strong rhythm....a lilting rhythmic pace. Pleased you also like 'Take Me to Your Experts'. Hope this will mind you to check out some others.... and take a free subscription to get them to your inbox? (one per month)
But really no...if you're interested in HBD beyond 'whites are smarter and more conscientious than blacks but Asians even more so and JEWS ARE BEST OF ALL' then you will probably find something to enjoy on my slightly 'gonzo' substack (it's a growing archive by the way...so check back regularly!)
Your poem is an interesting synthesis of free verse and traditional end-rhyming, with the rhymes irregular, which to my ears is always less sing-songy or potentially trite than an AA/BB or AB/AB rhyme scheme. Great opening couplet. A fascinating cascade of images throughout the poem. An interesting reference to Walt Whitman, turning his Song of Myself on its head—instead of Whitman's powerful declaration of individuality, in the context of illegal immigration it becomes a song of narcissism (in some migrant cases).
While economic migrants aren't a new phenomenon in history, at this stage of civilizational collapse, some discretion between those fleeing ethnic cleansing and those just seeking a higher standard of living should be exercised by governments. Kicking the doors open wide won't work, as in Richard Casselle's apt metaphor of the lifeboat.
Here in Canada we have young generations of native-born Canadians who can't afford a home or even a car (except an old junker), even working flat-out. Justin Trudeau admitted this was a problem yet still allowed a half-million immigrants into the country last year. I'd argue for a case of cognitive dissonance if I didn't know better—Trudeau is an acolyte of the World Economic Forum, whose ideology sees national borders as "retrograde" and in need of breaking down. To be replaced, of course, with a global government of unelected oligarchs and technocrats.
Thanks for that. Your characterisation of my poem feels quite apt... and not unlike how I would say it myself. When I was younger I used to write songs.... Dylanesque / Cohenesque ones. It was a big deal for me right into my mid thirties. My more recent poetry comes out of that song lyric writing past. And about half my brain is clogged up with lyrics from Rock's 60s to 90s back catalogue.
Most poetry listened to is in the form of pop songs. Which is where I hear it, if I hear it, tho most lyrics are more doggerel than P poetry. Those who like rap often like the rhymes, as do I sometimes, yet want a bit more beauty. I’m certainly not a qualified critic, but would say this is a good effort, with a fine aspiration for meaning,
Take the most egregious situation, law, grant, program, non competitive bid or tax policy you can find and parse it with AI into questions regarding its particulars.
Should the direct election of Senators be returned to the States?
The uniform tariff and tax schedule may be the best place to start, but pick the Abortion Issue because the text of the laws is readily available and everyone has an opinion. Or pick the new Treaty with the World Health Organization…
Post: *The Questionnaire* on your web site.
Charge the voters, your patrons, a $ fee to vote on it.
Have the same AI take the patrons demographics and quantify the base of knowledge; education, reading, business experience, children raised taxes paid and post that too.
Have the AI post the results on line in real time and send the results to the respective councilman, commissioner, judge, congressman, state representative, senator and governor!!
One Questionnaire should earn you many thousands of dollars per month and AI can do it for you!
Use the power of consensus to demand that negative policies be vacated.
"What rankles is how the virtue-signalling vanities of this university-educated (or as I often uncharitably rephrase it; university sheep-dipped) middle class have imposed costs borne primarily - not by themselves personally but by the non-‘opinion forming’ classes lower down the social scale."
--- If you think the "lower classes" of USA had any plans to fill the jobs that these migrants will, you are wrong. Also, if you think the social services that supposedly are going to these migrants would have instead gone to these lower classes, or the homeless, or any other needy American demographic, or to a universal healthcare system/Medicaid4All, you are also wrong.
'Most Westerners will feel an instinctive empathy for genuine asylum-seekers fleeing for their lives.'
I suspect that any empathy for asylum-seekers I possess was drummed into me by my liberal upbringing and surroundings rather than being instinctive. My instinct is to want to keep them at arm's length. However, I do seem to have an instinct to want to help people who don't need our help, like the Japanese.
Gotta say, I could quite happily read an entire substack post with no poetry in it at all. Last week I read a great post by Zinnia about what it feels like to be a woman but found myself skipping over the poetry. She of course had the excuse of the flowery subject matter, and was perhaps embroidering while she composed it. But it's as though the actors in Apolalypse Now had suddenly and inexplicably burst into song and dance. If forced to read it though, I find the poetry of Larkin and Frost the least annoying.
Yes, as I said in this piece, the vast majority of modern 'poetry' is just self-indulgent tat....except for mine of course! (You've landed on one of only two essays of mine with any poetry in them.)
I wish them health, safety, prosperity and kindness. They do the jobs myself and fellow citizens are unwilling too. I see them mowing my neighbors lawn right now.
It amazes me that there are people too lazy to mow their own lawns. They would rather import Third Worlders and see their country slowly disintegrate than get off their fat arses. Pathetic.
Yes. I know people who are too busy going to the gym to do their own cleaning. What do they think cleaning is if not exercise?
For part of the year I live in Japan and the Japanese are at least as busy as westerners. Working 9-6 is the norm and they often work longer hours. However, the women wouldn't dream of letting anyone clean their apartment and the men wouldn't dream of not mowing their own lawns (if they have them) or washing their own cars.
I'm sure the young people you are talking about who are too busy to do their own household chores would suddenly and miraculously not be too busy if say, instead of doing chores, you suggested doing something fun like going for a meal or to the cinema. And if they still insist they are too busy, even to go for a meal, then it's safe to say that the way they've organised their lives leaves much to be desired. After all, we we live in neither Dickensian Britain nor Great Depression Era America, despite what the whiners say.
And all this apart, it was you, not me, who claimed immigrants do the jobs we are 'unwilling' - not 'unable' - to do.
Well, by "younger" I didn't mean "young". I meant middle aged people with kids and sometimes grandkids. Young people dashing off to the gym, or a restaurant or the cinema at a moment's notice don't own homes with lawns in the USA. They can't afford it.
What a real family does is do the chores together. 'Come on Chuck, let's go and mow the lawn. Mary Lou, you're in charge of the hose for washing the car'. This is how children learn to do useful stuff and surely it's more fun than them sitting in their rooms and posting on Instagram all day.
Of course, if you claim that that's a very idyllic picture of 1950's life I've just portrayed and not at all reaslistic in today's America, that is surely because many western parents have chosen to raise entitled brats rather than nice children.
Or are you talking about some other demographic? Say, single parents between the ages of 41-43, who have lost a leg in a car crash and who are so friendless that no one will offer help?
"Of course, if you claim that that's a very idyllic picture of 1950's life I've just portrayed..."
---The names Chuck and Mary Lou are very 1950s.
"many western parents have chosen to raise entitled brats rather than nice children."
--- I don't know if it's really a choice. Anyway, kids today will only do chores if paid, and they charge quite a hefty fee. And that's why teachers are quitting left, right and center too. Homeschool isn't the answer because a lot of these "homeschoolers" just let their kids do whatever they want all day. Yet of course homeschooling parents think their kids are special and unique and super-duper smart.
A quick note about the formatting of the poem: Due to my limited understanding of poem formatting on Substack, the intended verse breaks have been lost. So...."Radio waves from some man-made star" is the start of the second verse and "Through a gap in the teeth of an ugly regime" is the start of the final verse.
Our country is like a large, open lifeboat on a stormy sea. It sits low in the water, already heavily overloaded, and there isn’t enough water or food for those already aboard. There aren’t enough people rowing or bailing and some of the idle passengers want, in the name of misguided compassion, to let yet more aboard, heedless of the risk that it will sink the boat. There is no captain to steer the boat and impose the discipline that will ensure survival of its occupants.
Sometimes, although it seems harsh, compassion just has to be subordinate to pragmatism.
Richard,
82 years ago during WW II this famous quote (to speakers of German) was uttered "Das Boot ist voll" (The boat is⅚ full) by the Swiss politician von Steiger. It applied to the refugees, many of them Jews, not being allowed into Switzerland.
I quote this to underline the decisive changes that have taken place since those days.
The refugees then certainly were a mixed bunch. With many with mainly financial motives. But the majority just needed to escape torture and death. But fleeing an inhuman regime within Europe and to a neighboring country is quite something else than what has happened in Europe in the decennia past.
Maybe it can be compared to the Ukrainian refugees nowadays. And there is obviously much less resistance against them than against the global waves of migrants. It's quite clear why this is the case.
An excellent, simple metaphor anyone can understand, if only our "leaders" would use it!
Thank you, Sean! So many seem unaware of the fragility of our situation. They don’t appreciate the dedication, effort and sacrifice it took to build our modern societies and so they don’t appreciate the effort needed to sustain them. Easy come, easy go, eh? We certainly need better leaders but politics is downstream of culture, and ours is unwell.
If you're in Britain you're facing an even tighter situation than we are here in Canada, where at least we have a massive land base. However, the economic problems are the same in both countries: skyrocketing inflation, chronic housing shortages, a growing homeless population, and now, in the US, a major round of layoffs. We're at a very dangerous point on the historical arc of a collapsing civilization. Arnold Toynbee's analysis of hundreds of civilizations in A Study of History, while not meant to be predictive, nevertheless was correct.
"leering a smile at any fool who will let their very nemesis through"
I couldn't think of a more apt description of our current reality. Sadly, our leaders aren't fools. They know what they're doing. It's all intentional, though you probably know that even better than I, considering you were in the know long before me. Great poem, by the way!
Thank you Blair. I tend to think of those who do bad things - even if intentionally - as fools as well.
Good point! I agree with you, Graham.
The situation in Canada is different. The migrants are mostly legal and appear to have plenty of money: housing costs have reached a level I’ve never seen before in my over 70 years. It’s so bad that young people can’t afford to buy or even rent and are living with their parents. There’s widespread outrage and the opposition party is actually mentioning immigration as an electoral issue.
Well- I wished the situation in Europe was like in Canada. They seem to have rational immigration laws. That the real estate market is like it is has IMO economic causes concerning Canadian economic policies.
You've managed to capture some of "the good, the bad, and the ugly" of the immigration phenomenon, which has grown exponentially worse since you first wrote this 20 years ago, and really, in the end, it all kinda boils down, I think, to what exactly is a country, a nation, and is there any legitimacy left to even the concept of a traditional country as historically experienced.
Maybe New Zealand still qualifies. They run a tight ship and there's no Darien Pass into the country.
And Skelator has jumped ship, which has helped enomously.
Jacinda?
The very person.
Jacinda is following the bizarre pattern of the very worst of people, the incompetents, the crooks, the tyrants, the perverts, and the raving maniacs, 'failing upwards,' leaving a trail of catastrophes behind them. A reflection of the inverted values of the current elites, perhaps?
Correct. An astute observation.
No comprendo.
I would certainly agree with your contention that "the pretty miniscule and niche public appetite for (poetry) in our time has meant that there is no effective filtration mechanism to cause the best to rise to the top," and that the digital realm has caused a proliferation of bad poetry. Though to be fair, the proliferation of creative writing faculties during the past 50 years had already well prepared the ground for this explosion of poetic weeds. Academia slit its own throat as regards the public appetite for poetry by buying wholesale into postmodernism during that same period, privileging the poet's supposed cleverness with word games over accessibility of message.
Is it any wonder the masses turned in their millions instead to the popular songs of Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Van Morrison, Neil Young, et al? These, I argue are the modern inheritors of the poetic tradition as a popular medium, not the academic poets. It's for this reason that as a poet I steered clear of academia, opting instead for a lifelong study course in the poetic greats of history as my mentors, rather than some university prof with a fetish for the latest aesthetic drivel masquerading as poetry.
I would however, challenge your "reservations about the poetic form"—let's not mistake malpractice of the art for the art itself. In Elizabethan poet Sir Philip Sidney's "Defence of Poesy," he says poetry is the best vehicle for the "purifying of wit." A similar conclusion was reached by T.S. Eliot when he wrote in Four Quartets: "...where every word is at home, / taking its place to support the others... The common word exact without vulgarity, / The formal word precise but not pedantic, / The complete consort dancing together..." It was Eliot who argued that "no verse is free for the man who wants to do a good job." Such precision of language and expression requires skill and craft, a far cry from the instant celebrity so many today demand simply by branding themselves "poets," "artists," or "musicians."
A modern poetic mentor I highly recommend would be San Francisco poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, whose wonderful little book Poetry as Insurgent Art should be required reading for all aspiring poets. Not an instruction book, it's a series of Ferlinghetti's aphorisms or original proverbs on poetry that are so luminous, they'll have you lunging for your pen and paper (or keyboard), they're so inspirational. Among my favourites are: "Poetry should arise to ecstasy somewhere between speech and song."
I think we agree more than we disagree. My reservations are just that....and tentative only. I very much like your comments about academic throat slitting.... and about precision of language. If, as I said, there was a relable curator of truly excellent poems, I would like to read some. Which of Lawrence Ferlinghetti's would you suggest?
And what did you make of mine by the way?
Coney Island of the Mind, is vintage Ferlinghetti. "Let us go then, behind the gas mains, where dogs do it." Also his novel, Piblocto Madness.
Thank you, and I'll check this out....that is a compelling line.
We do agree. I was really offering reassurance that poetry, written by skilled poets, remains a vital force. "It's the driver, not the car."
Ferlinghetti's classic is of course A Coney Island of the Mind, although he did a wonderful little chapbook called Pictures of the Gone World that's actually my personal favourite, now very rare but available in Selected Poems editions. Keep in mind Ferlinghetti is a very different poet than the classic English poets of the 20th century, very much in the Walt Whitman tradition of the long, loping line in a kind of stream of consciousness. He's really the only one of the American Beat poets I like; I find Ginsberg rambles on too long and lacks poetic discipline. Long lines look easy but in fact are the hardest to master because "in the multitude of words there does not fail to be transgression," to quote the Biblical proverb. I often wondered why so little was written by poets about the JFK assassination at the time, then discovered Ferlinghetti's eloquent lament, Assassination Raga.
My poetic tastes and mentors range widely, and include far more formal poets such as T.S. Eliot, Leonard Cohen and Rainer Maria Rilke, playful poets such as E.E. Cummings, and the great Pablo Neruda, who was seemingly capable of anything in poetry. Grab Neruda's Book of Questions if you can find it! For Rilke, any one of his masterpieces, The Book of Hours, Duino Elegies, or Sonnets to Orpheus. And don't forget to order Ferlinghetti's Poetry as Insurgent Art. That little book has provided so much inspiration for me over the years. A desert island book for sure.
The Poetry Foundation in the US has excellent biographies and sample poems of poets' works: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/lawrence-ferlinghetti
I haven't analyzed your poem yet and have also been annoyed by Substack's poor formatting for poetry when I've posted poems. Verse structure and line breaks are so important and it really breaks up the composition when Substack runs it all together.
As a native German speaker and lover of Rilke I wonder which translation you used. Unless you master German, of course.
And maybe you know Georg Trakl. In case you don't try some of his poems.
I have several different translations of Rilke's work. One of my favourites is Selected Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke translated by American poet Robert Bly. Both Sonnets to Orpheus and Uncollected Poems translated by Edward Snow are very good, though I don't speak or read German so it's hard for me to judge. Snow is one of the most famous English translators of Rilke. More recently, Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows Love Poems to God (their version of A Book for the Hours of Prayer) provides yet another English translation. Of course, poetry is by far the hardest thing to translate, since more than any other form of writing the poet uses words that can have multiple meanings. As Macy and Barrows explain in their Introduction, the translator is faced with the choice: do I transliterate, i.e. exact translations of words; or do I instead translate for meaning? Both have their pitfalls, and so the translator becomes almost a second writer of the poems via their interpretation.
You definitely have a skilled way with words my friend. Another excellent piece.
I really liked the poem, but I must that the following line exploded off the page to me....
'What rankles above all perhaps is this chattering class’ foolish and reckless assumption that the civilisation that has succoured them will still be there however much they mess with its cohesiveness and however much they undermine it with their ‘globalist’ sentimentalities.'
That is the truest statement and something I constantly find myself thinking about when stupid ideas are allowed to permeate throughout our society and take hold like a tick spreading lime disease on its host.
For years it's been like the globalist/leftist/communists have been offering ideas and implementing stupid policies that have done nothing except destroy the country in a death by a thousand cuts scenario.
The problem now is that we're well beyond the thousand cuts and are many more thousands of cuts deep and we're seeing the result of that destruction play out right in front of us, particularly with the mass invasion at the border.
What we have is equivalent to what the Roman Empire had to deal with involving the Visigoths which was the linchpin that caused the fall of Rome.
Thanks again for all you do and keep pumping out the content. I'll try to do the same here on my end.
Thank you for these comments and so pleased you liked the poem.....poetry doesn't always transmit that well. It would seem that you and I are very much on the same page.
"to conjure much in few words which is - to my mind - the essence of a good poem. "
Well put. And your poem embodies it well.
Thank you jesse.
Nice one--some evocative imagery in it
'regime' and 'name' I would guess rhyme near perfectly in a west midlands accent...
Thank you Shade. As I say on this post, I don't often write poems but when I do, my poetic style - such as it is - mixes rhyme, semi-rhyme, non-rhyme and alliteration... in both regular and irregular patterns. The aim always is to string together strong, accessible imagery in a way that has a strong rhythm....a lilting rhythmic pace. Pleased you also like 'Take Me to Your Experts'. Hope this will mind you to check out some others.... and take a free subscription to get them to your inbox? (one per month)
Sure why not
Welcome Shade...and I've followed you.
Thanxxx
But why not subscribe after all? More symmetrical and all that sort of thing you know...
OK Yes will do. I only hestitated because I had the impression of it being aimed mostly at a Romania-specific readership.
No man Ronnie James Dio is popular everywhere...
But really no...if you're interested in HBD beyond 'whites are smarter and more conscientious than blacks but Asians even more so and JEWS ARE BEST OF ALL' then you will probably find something to enjoy on my slightly 'gonzo' substack (it's a growing archive by the way...so check back regularly!)
Your poem is an interesting synthesis of free verse and traditional end-rhyming, with the rhymes irregular, which to my ears is always less sing-songy or potentially trite than an AA/BB or AB/AB rhyme scheme. Great opening couplet. A fascinating cascade of images throughout the poem. An interesting reference to Walt Whitman, turning his Song of Myself on its head—instead of Whitman's powerful declaration of individuality, in the context of illegal immigration it becomes a song of narcissism (in some migrant cases).
While economic migrants aren't a new phenomenon in history, at this stage of civilizational collapse, some discretion between those fleeing ethnic cleansing and those just seeking a higher standard of living should be exercised by governments. Kicking the doors open wide won't work, as in Richard Casselle's apt metaphor of the lifeboat.
Here in Canada we have young generations of native-born Canadians who can't afford a home or even a car (except an old junker), even working flat-out. Justin Trudeau admitted this was a problem yet still allowed a half-million immigrants into the country last year. I'd argue for a case of cognitive dissonance if I didn't know better—Trudeau is an acolyte of the World Economic Forum, whose ideology sees national borders as "retrograde" and in need of breaking down. To be replaced, of course, with a global government of unelected oligarchs and technocrats.
Thanks for that. Your characterisation of my poem feels quite apt... and not unlike how I would say it myself. When I was younger I used to write songs.... Dylanesque / Cohenesque ones. It was a big deal for me right into my mid thirties. My more recent poetry comes out of that song lyric writing past. And about half my brain is clogged up with lyrics from Rock's 60s to 90s back catalogue.
Most poetry listened to is in the form of pop songs. Which is where I hear it, if I hear it, tho most lyrics are more doggerel than P poetry. Those who like rap often like the rhymes, as do I sometimes, yet want a bit more beauty. I’m certainly not a qualified critic, but would say this is a good effort, with a fine aspiration for meaning,
The repeat of Gene
with a nearby gene
didn’t work for me,
even with the rhyme to clean.
The pictures were effectively evocative.
Thanks.
The people printing up and marketing Stop _____
In this case Human Trafficking…
….
Are using our tax dollars for…
Human Trafficking .
So there’s that
Someone has to start publishing active polls on the issues of our day.
The US president election is a good place to start:
Trump, Biden, Rishi, Jones, Smith, Kuldeep, Newcolm, Pelosi, Johnson, Rense, Abbot, Farve,… Putin, King Charles, Netenyahoo, Merkel, Iotola Komani, Lincoln…
Get some demographics on the voters.
Take the most egregious situation, law, grant, program, non competitive bid or tax policy you can find and parse it with AI into questions regarding its particulars.
Should the direct election of Senators be returned to the States?
The uniform tariff and tax schedule may be the best place to start, but pick the Abortion Issue because the text of the laws is readily available and everyone has an opinion. Or pick the new Treaty with the World Health Organization…
Post: *The Questionnaire* on your web site.
Charge the voters, your patrons, a $ fee to vote on it.
Have the same AI take the patrons demographics and quantify the base of knowledge; education, reading, business experience, children raised taxes paid and post that too.
Have the AI post the results on line in real time and send the results to the respective councilman, commissioner, judge, congressman, state representative, senator and governor!!
One Questionnaire should earn you many thousands of dollars per month and AI can do it for you!
Use the power of consensus to demand that negative policies be vacated.
An impressive imitation of tangential thinking, pressurized.
The house is burning.
What does a rational man do?
"What rankles is how the virtue-signalling vanities of this university-educated (or as I often uncharitably rephrase it; university sheep-dipped) middle class have imposed costs borne primarily - not by themselves personally but by the non-‘opinion forming’ classes lower down the social scale."
--- If you think the "lower classes" of USA had any plans to fill the jobs that these migrants will, you are wrong. Also, if you think the social services that supposedly are going to these migrants would have instead gone to these lower classes, or the homeless, or any other needy American demographic, or to a universal healthcare system/Medicaid4All, you are also wrong.
'Most Westerners will feel an instinctive empathy for genuine asylum-seekers fleeing for their lives.'
I suspect that any empathy for asylum-seekers I possess was drummed into me by my liberal upbringing and surroundings rather than being instinctive. My instinct is to want to keep them at arm's length. However, I do seem to have an instinct to want to help people who don't need our help, like the Japanese.
Gotta say, I could quite happily read an entire substack post with no poetry in it at all. Last week I read a great post by Zinnia about what it feels like to be a woman but found myself skipping over the poetry. She of course had the excuse of the flowery subject matter, and was perhaps embroidering while she composed it. But it's as though the actors in Apolalypse Now had suddenly and inexplicably burst into song and dance. If forced to read it though, I find the poetry of Larkin and Frost the least annoying.
Yes, as I said in this piece, the vast majority of modern 'poetry' is just self-indulgent tat....except for mine of course! (You've landed on one of only two essays of mine with any poetry in them.)
And Yes the Zinnia piece is a great one
I wish them health, safety, prosperity and kindness. They do the jobs myself and fellow citizens are unwilling too. I see them mowing my neighbors lawn right now.
It amazes me that there are people too lazy to mow their own lawns. They would rather import Third Worlders and see their country slowly disintegrate than get off their fat arses. Pathetic.
It's mostly older retired people but also some younger people who are too busy with work and other commitments.
Yes. I know people who are too busy going to the gym to do their own cleaning. What do they think cleaning is if not exercise?
For part of the year I live in Japan and the Japanese are at least as busy as westerners. Working 9-6 is the norm and they often work longer hours. However, the women wouldn't dream of letting anyone clean their apartment and the men wouldn't dream of not mowing their own lawns (if they have them) or washing their own cars.
I'm sure the young people you are talking about who are too busy to do their own household chores would suddenly and miraculously not be too busy if say, instead of doing chores, you suggested doing something fun like going for a meal or to the cinema. And if they still insist they are too busy, even to go for a meal, then it's safe to say that the way they've organised their lives leaves much to be desired. After all, we we live in neither Dickensian Britain nor Great Depression Era America, despite what the whiners say.
And all this apart, it was you, not me, who claimed immigrants do the jobs we are 'unwilling' - not 'unable' - to do.
Well, by "younger" I didn't mean "young". I meant middle aged people with kids and sometimes grandkids. Young people dashing off to the gym, or a restaurant or the cinema at a moment's notice don't own homes with lawns in the USA. They can't afford it.
What a real family does is do the chores together. 'Come on Chuck, let's go and mow the lawn. Mary Lou, you're in charge of the hose for washing the car'. This is how children learn to do useful stuff and surely it's more fun than them sitting in their rooms and posting on Instagram all day.
Of course, if you claim that that's a very idyllic picture of 1950's life I've just portrayed and not at all reaslistic in today's America, that is surely because many western parents have chosen to raise entitled brats rather than nice children.
Or are you talking about some other demographic? Say, single parents between the ages of 41-43, who have lost a leg in a car crash and who are so friendless that no one will offer help?
"Of course, if you claim that that's a very idyllic picture of 1950's life I've just portrayed..."
---The names Chuck and Mary Lou are very 1950s.
"many western parents have chosen to raise entitled brats rather than nice children."
--- I don't know if it's really a choice. Anyway, kids today will only do chores if paid, and they charge quite a hefty fee. And that's why teachers are quitting left, right and center too. Homeschool isn't the answer because a lot of these "homeschoolers" just let their kids do whatever they want all day. Yet of course homeschooling parents think their kids are special and unique and super-duper smart.
How many is too many?