Monday, May 18, 2009

Letter to W.H. Auden


Letter to W.H. Auden

“In its opening stanzas, “Letter to Lord Byron” presents itself as a confession: a guilty revelation of the personal. But Like Don Juan, Auden’s epistle offers many other things: news of the day, poets’ shoptalk, pottered history, gossip and innuendo.”—Richard Bozorth, “Politics and Authority in the 1930s,” Auden’s Games of Knowledge: Poetry and the Meanings of Homosexuality

The Great Utopia—Snakepit USA
The Withered State—Late Capitalism drag
The Dream of being—both sexes at once
Or is it some kind of—Tiresias Curse?
The Two-Party System—dog and pony show
Two wings—of the same moneyed class
Smoke and Mirrors—voting machine sham
The Teleportation—of Roman Precincts
Descending from the sky—onto the Beltway
The same temples—the same Egyptian pylons
Sad old domes—celestial county courthouses
Everything a perfect fit—with a nice little click
But best of all—the same old sad senators
Playing the same old—squirrelly SPQR game
The lonely old whores—of the Neocon Right

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