posted on July 23, 2003 08:55:10 AM new
Hi all. Some one sent me this verse. Thought I might share it. You may have already seen it, but I thought it was share-worthy. Here goes:
The Invitation
It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart's longing.
It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love,
for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of
your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear
of further pain!
I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, fade it, or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, or to remember the limitations
of being human.
It doesn't interest me if the story you're telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.
I want to know if you can be faithful and therefore be trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see beauty even when it is not pretty every day, and if you can source
your life from God's presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of a lake and shout to the
silver of the full moon, "Yes!"
It doesn't interest me who you are, or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the
fire with me and not shrink back.
It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside
when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.
Here's another that's appropriate today as political order disintegrates throughout the world. "Second Coming", refers to the second coming of an evil force.
The Second Coming -- W. B. Yeats
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
posted on July 23, 2003 06:36:24 PM new
Kudos to both of you! What a nice read! Poetry is not goofy at all! I wonder how many "closet" poets we have on the RoundTable board. Okay, everyone step up to the plate. Any originals out there? Now's your time to shine!
posted on July 23, 2003 06:51:33 PM new
This poem's perspective on modern society is very similar to that in George Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley's A Brave New World (among others), two dystopian fictions which reveal modern society's malevolent tendencies by carrying those tendencies to the extreme. The title itself refers t the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, an American monument memorializing those who died in the twentieth century's wars, particularly those who were missing in action. These men lost their identities while performing their "patriotic dutiy," and the monument stands as a reminder of their sacrifice. The unknown soldiers interred there are representative of all the unknown men who have died fighting America's wars. Similarly, the State raises a monument to JS/07/M/378, revering him not for who he was, but for what he was--a productive, conforming member of society. His identity was lost in his service to society just as the Unknown Soldier, and all other M.I.A. casualties of war, lost their identities in military service.
The poem implies that the State watches its citizens from birth, that bureaucratic institutions have instant access to any and all information regarding a person's health, employment record, financial status, political tendencies, consumer tendencies,or any other aspect of his life. In this knowledge the State assumes that it has a complete understanding of who its citizens are. But the poem's underlying message is that neither a man's identity nor his worth is defined by any of the statistics the State utilizes in "understanding" him. A man is a man not with the respect to the things he buys, the job he works, or even the society he lives in. Individual identity is far more complex than numbers, lists, and "reports." A man's identity cannot be summed up by a table or by statistics, for individuality allows men to transcend the "Modern" world and its institutions, and become more than parts of a machine.
(To JS/07 M 378 This Marble Monument Is Erected by the State)
He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be
One against whom there was no official complaint,
And all the reports on his conduct agree
That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a
saint,
For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.
Except for the War till the day he retired
He worked in a factory and never got fired,
But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.
Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views,
For his Union reports that he paid his dues,
(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)
And our Social Psychology workers found
That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.
The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day
And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.
Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,
And his Health-card shows he was once in a hospital but left it cured.
Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare
He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Instalment Plan
And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,
A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.
Our researchers into Public Opinion are content
That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;
When there was peace, he was for peace: when there was war, he went.
He was married and added five children to the population,
Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his
generation.
And our teachers report that he never interfered with their
education.
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.
posted on July 23, 2003 09:51:20 PM new
Helen, I suddenly feel like breaking out into ...."for what is a man, and what has he got, if not himself"........
