Ennui

Tea leaves thwart those who court catastrophe,
designing futures where nothing will occur:
cross the gypsy’s palm and yawning she
will still predict no perils left to conquer.
Jeopardy is jejune now: naïve knight
finds ogres out-of-date and dragons unheard
of, while blasé princesses indict
tilts at terror as downright absurd.

The beast in Jamesian grove will never jump,
compelling hero’s dull career to crisis;
and when insouciant angels play God’s trump,
while bored arena crowds for once look eager,
hoping toward havoc, neither pleas nor prizes
shall coax from doom’s blank door lady or tiger.

Sylvia Plath, "Ennui"

Insult, then Give it the Lie

Go, soul, the body's guest,
Upon a thankless arrant;
Fear not to touch the best;
The truth shall be thy warrant:
Go, since I needs must die,
And give the world the lie.

Say to the court it glows
And shines like rotten wood,
Say to the church it shows
What's good, and doth no good:
If church and court reply,
Then give them both the lie.

Tell potentates, they live
Acting, by others' action;
Not lov'd unless they give;
Not strong, but by affection.
If potentates reply,
Give potentates the lie.

Tell men of high condition,
That manage the estate,
Their purpose is ambition;
Their practice only hate.
And if they once reply,
Then give them all the lie.

Tell them that brave it most,
They beg for more by spending,
Who in their greatest cost
Like nothing but commending.
And if they make reply,
Then give them all the lie.

Tell zeal it wants devotion;
Tell love it is but lust;
Tell time it meets but motion;
Tell flesh it is but dust:
And wish them not reply,
For thou must give the lie.

Tell age it daily wasteth;
Tell honour how it alters;
Tell beauty how she blasteth;
Tell favour how it falters:
And as they shall reply,
Give every one the lie.

Tell wit how much it wrangles
In tickle points of niceness;
Tell wisdom she entangles
Herself in over-wiseness:
And when they do reply,
Straight give them both the lie.

Tell physic of her boldness;
Tell skill it is prevention;
Tell charity of coldness;
Tell law it is contention:
And as they do reply,
So give them still the lie.

Tell fortune of her blindness;
Tell nature of decay;
Tell friendship of unkindness;
Tell justice of delay:
And if they will reply,
Then give them all the lie.

Tell arts they have no soundness,
But vary by esteeming;
Tell schools they want profoundness,
And stand too much on seeming.
If arts and schools reply,
Give arts and schools the lie.

Tell faith it's fled the city;
Tell how the country erreth;
Tell manhood, shakes off pity;
Tell virtue, least preferreth.
And if they do reply,
Spare not to give the lie.

So when thou hast, as I
Commanded thee, done blabbing;
Because to give the lie
Deserves no less than stabbing:
Stab at thee, he that will,
No stab thy soul can kill!

—Sir Walter Raleigh, "The Lie"

"Give the lie" - to show that something is not true

Upon the Broken Pillar

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan
The proper study of Mankind is Man.
Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A Being darkly wise, and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;
In doubt to deem himself a God, or Beast;
In doubt his mind and body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err;
Whether he thinks to little, or too much;
Chaos of Thought and Passion, all confus'd;
Still by himself, abus'd or disabus'd;
Created half to rise and half to fall;
Great Lord of all things, yet a prey to all,
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl'd;
The glory, jest and riddle of the world.

A. Pope, "The Riddle of the World"

The Broken Column House at Désert de Retz (1993) - Photo by Michael Kenna.

Defining the Post-Modern

The Man from Another Place...and BOB!

Through the darkness of future past
The magician longs to see.
One chants out between two worlds
Fire walk with me.

Chinese Math

Calculating Your Social Worth

Johnson's word 'merit' is carefully chosen. The claim of merit is that it exists outside of the social context in which its' worth to other people may be determined; the OED's oldest sense of the word is 'The quality [...] of being entitled to reward from God.' The merit of a work of poetry, in this traditional view, is therefore separate from and discontinuous with its' social worth or economic value; Milton would have been truly entitled to more or less esteem if Paradise Lost had sold 10,000 copies or 10 copies in the first two years.

The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary British and Irish Poetry
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Nothing speaks grief so well as to speak nothing
-Crasham.

There is a pang that spurns all soothing cares:
The pang the mourner feels. It matters not
If worldly goods and social worth be there,
Refinement and the cultivated man.
The case they meet not. Strong but tender cords
That link the heart to heart, the soul to soul,
Are rudely snapt; and this by Hand that gives
And takes at pleasure. When His rod afflicts,
And He the trembling soul wrings from the lump
Of vanquished clay, and dark and desolate
The scene, nor tears nor moans nor magic wand
Can change the stern, the final dread decree .
In vain our sympathetic nature weeps ;
And all that we can say or do is vain:
Dead silence is by far the better part.
The heart that still survives is struck as with
The hand of death. In moans and tears it may
Relief obtain, but comfort none; no more
Than can the pulseless heart for which it sighs.
The rupture far too deep for aught but balm
That comes from God direct, 'Tis He alone
Can soothe our woe; and He can soothe it well.
Who thus can wound, the pain can well allay;
And time, in power to heal, stands next to Him.
His instrument is time, and this He wields
For wisest purposes. And time, old time
Eternal is, except so far as He
Shall cut it short. And time shall bear away
Our woes, our pains, our sufferings, our name,
Our memory -- all, as on a gentle, sweet,
Delicious stream, to dark oblivion.
And as we thus glide on, the pangs we felt
We feel them less and less. The wounds are healed
To rigid scars; and all by kindly means
Which God vouchsafes and sends to our relief.
Forever more adored His holy name!

-Levi Bishop, "Teuchsa Grondie A Legendary Poem- The Funeral"