We Shall Show the Flame Affirming
Today is Wednesday, 31 December 2008.
I.
“For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives
In the valley of its saying where executives
Would never want to tamper; it flows south
From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,
Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,
A way of happening, a mouth."
[Auden, “In Memory of W. B. Yeats”]
II.
News flash this day: Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina, white and wealthy from the “real estate finance” trade, and champion of limiting government aid, has relented, and will allow the state, with the 3rd highest unemployment rate in the nation, to apply for Federal unemployment funds, only hours before the state fund to support the unemployed would have run dry.
III.
Gov. Sanford, who is not unemployed, who lives on the exclusive enclave of Sullivan’s Island, in Charleston Harbor, population 98% white, and whose sole previous distinction, as a Congressman, was, to vote, along with self-avowed white supremacist and anti-Semite Congressman Ron Paul, against legislation to preserve sites of the Underground Railway, imagined the state agency charged with calculating the SC unemployment rate was corrupt in its calculation, and should be audited.
IV.
“All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie…”
[Auden, “1 September 1939”]
V.
“In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.”
[Auden, “Yeats”]
VI.
VII.
“We must love one another or die.
Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies:
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame."
[Yeats, “1 September]
VIII.
Thank you, dear friends of The Museum of the Bourgeois, for helping me to show an affirming flame in 2008.
IX.
One of my favourite high school teachers, sadly long deceased, wrote in my high school year book: "We, I think, have lit some candles".
X.
XI.
Comrades: we shall show the flame affirming in 2009!
I.
“For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives
In the valley of its saying where executives
Would never want to tamper; it flows south
From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,
Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,
A way of happening, a mouth."
[Auden, “In Memory of W. B. Yeats”]
II.
News flash this day: Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina, white and wealthy from the “real estate finance” trade, and champion of limiting government aid, has relented, and will allow the state, with the 3rd highest unemployment rate in the nation, to apply for Federal unemployment funds, only hours before the state fund to support the unemployed would have run dry.
III.
Gov. Sanford, who is not unemployed, who lives on the exclusive enclave of Sullivan’s Island, in Charleston Harbor, population 98% white, and whose sole previous distinction, as a Congressman, was, to vote, along with self-avowed white supremacist and anti-Semite Congressman Ron Paul, against legislation to preserve sites of the Underground Railway, imagined the state agency charged with calculating the SC unemployment rate was corrupt in its calculation, and should be audited.
IV.
“All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie…”
[Auden, “1 September 1939”]
V.
“In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.”
[Auden, “Yeats”]
VI.
VII.
“We must love one another or die.
Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies:
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame."
[Yeats, “1 September]
VIII.
Thank you, dear friends of The Museum of the Bourgeois, for helping me to show an affirming flame in 2008.
IX.
One of my favourite high school teachers, sadly long deceased, wrote in my high school year book: "We, I think, have lit some candles".
X.
XI.
Comrades: we shall show the flame affirming in 2009!
posted by HH at 9:39 PM
1 Comments:
Solidarité toujours, HH! Happy New Year to you & Mrs. HH and to all the MoB contributors and lurkers-at-large! We love ya!
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