Poems of Society
Society is a vast category in which all kinds of artistic endeavour are possible. My poetry under this heading is diverse in its subject matter, reflecting all sorts of experiences with people in daily living. Sometimes this can lead to poetry about the lives of individuals (I've written a couple about members of my own family), or situations (such as waking in hospital after an operation), or behaviours (such as habit). In surveying my work overall, I find a few common themes. Increasingly my focus has moved to what I regard as the idiosyncrasies of modern living: the obsession with technology, with security, with immediate gratification, and so on. This lends itself to satire, which is the underlying tone of Spirit of the Times and You Must Have ID. Satire is also evident in poems I have written about bureaucracy, though there you might find an all-too-easy slide into frustration and anger, as in The Glass Cage, which is listed under Poems of Loss and Strife.
The twentieth century produced poetry that was quite brilliant in its commentary on society, Yeats, T.S. Eliot and Auden being just three examples. Among my favourites from previous centuries are Pope, Shakespeare and Chaucer. There is a particular skill, which I much admire, in using the voices of people written about (that is, not the poet) in making their own kind of poetry - Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood for instance. In this regard, Thomas and Eliot have inspired some of my more recent writing.
THE SOUL’S COMPLAINT
We are too much flesh:
The bloated gut and fetid breath,
The feet which pained plod
Forever pointed unto death.
We are too much noise,
With techno-scaffolding tricked out –
Halo swapped for headphone,
All bulk and chatter and shout.
I want a better life:
To thin to an idea, a sprite, a sigh,
Free to live as God would have,
To be just I.
SPIRIT OF THE TIMES
Busy busy busy be
Busy busy busy be
Pound the street
Remorselessly
Race and chase
All novelty
Around downtown
Wear a frown
There’s cause for worry
Cause for hurry
Wear a frown
Around downtown
Spend and get
Without let
Bloat and grow
Promote promote
Nail success
Exceed excess
Light the fire of desire
Copulate populate
Get some fun
On the run
Get the beat
Repeat repeat
Can I grab
Yes let’s grab
But make it short
Make it short
Short and sweet
Strong and sweet
Now we’ve got
Now we’ve got
Near what we want
Now we’re hot
But still we’re cool
A crazy lot.
YOU MUST HAVE ID
From birthing all our livelong lives
We seek our liberty:
Invasion’s horror we detest.
So we are held in liberty
Thankfully
At our own behest.
ID please.
Do you have ID?
At every step along the way
We have security:
To hold a job
Join a club
Pay a debt
Surf the net
Drive a car
Enter a bar
Send a note
Cast a vote.
To guard our hard-won liberty
We have (thank God) security.
ID please.
Do you have ID?
When Robin Hood roamed our lands
He had a forest to negotiate;
We have log-ins, passwords, coded commands
That endlessly proliferate.
Though only words (not even words),
They secure identity:
Identity security like iron bands.
ID please.
Do you have ID?
*fre^dom*is**********#
**fre^dom*was*******#
***fre^dom*lost******#
****fre^dom*will*be**#
*****fre^dom*trapped*#
******in^security*****#
ID please.
Do you have ID?
Alphanumeric manacles
Wrap round our lives like tentacles.
We need them for our liberty.
Ah, the tyranny of
Security.
Such irony.
ID please.
Do you have ID?
