Friday, January 4, 2013

Life's Work

Must I a producer be, or harv'ster in the field?
A tinker in the factory, where in metal, ovens wield?
Or oh! a philosopher-king, a ruler of the land?
A voice of reason in the fray
Recalling, "Transcendent!"
Am I the Hammer or Sickle, or the called out one whose stain
Falls to earth and its folk by my words, a summons of Providence-reign?

But what if in Utopia there's left a creeping squalor:
Where rages only but one battle
'midst the Villa and Holler?
Will those in emperor's massive tow'rs and aristocrats be seen
as equal and on par bathing, with hands of Labor's dream? 

And sees all who, but philosopher-kings? 
Vying life's cry for Ideal's fancy
where Marx and Freud and Darwinian reams
The paper of which dictates our Tancy--
(that medicinal flow'r needed every hour
to numb our souls of regimes and power)?

Where do I fit in this massive malaise where in circles turn gears
in an endless gray haze, where hammers swing and sickles's cadence
pound earth's ore and gather its fragrance?

Yet-

If life were the Shire, I would build a warm fire
and sit by the hearth making merry
I'd chop lots of wood and smell flowers in the garden
Drinking what else, but some Sherry?

But then seeps in doubt with its rancor
Recalling the place we're forbidden
Consider it Eden, the ancient lost Spire,
The Castle from which we're all hidden;

Down my hand's book I'd throw, see it fluttering,
Screaming and running with tears
A mad man whose hair is pulled out with self mutt'ring,
By dance, elbows flail in mid air

Alas for my soul trapped in this mean house
Hopkins knows the better our maim
What one is supposed to do in this life, Oh, that a blue print could be plain!
But here festers the wisdom and discernment like tumors
spinning like wheels in the mud.
Scantily clad it flits in the brain and falls on the ground with a thud.

Praise God the Father for the hammer's a wielding
its thud found the nails of the Christ.
Whether fields of fine grain or in steel mills I may be
His call is an emerald's prize.



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