We are the bearded men in union halls
grown tired of the world as it seems.
Until our demands are met,
there can be no more search for truth.
We’ve grown tired of the world as it seems
from folding chairs in union halls.
There will be no search for truth—
we’ll gaze at our navels and curse.
From folding chairs in union halls
we shall pontificate our malcontent.
We shall gaze at our navels and curse
these indelible holes in the Real.
We shall pontificate our malcontent
at the crack in the wood-paneled wall
that indelible hole in the Real—
it must be filled!
The electric moon in the wall
streams in seductions of blue shadows.
"It must be filled!"
we cry.
The seductions of electric moonlight
make thinking difficult.
We cry,
but the tears only make un-forgetting harder.
Thinking has become more difficult
with each failed arbitration.
Un-forgetting’s so much harder
when forgetting pays the bills.
All arbitration has failed and
our demands remain unmet.
So long as forgetting pays the bills,
we shall be the tired beards in union halls.
Reviews
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Satisfying dissatisfaction
The shades of quatrain here work well, helping to integrate your (interesting) thoughts and work the poem throught to it's (satisfying) inconclusion. Some of the rhyme, particularly the later work with halls and walls, really landed in EXACTLY the right place. Good write. >W<
. Rewarded 6
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dear chicago , I do love your town, I went to school there at Goodman Theater School and ventured down to the southside for a few blues jams, where I met people like Little Son Hite who carried his 25 harmonicas around in a briefcase and shepherded me around to some of the clubs I might have thought twice about going into alone. Then I came back years later and did some organizing on the north side.
This poem strikes out on great footing, perfect picture of a union hall and the members. And for the first four stanzas you repeat full lines from preceding stanzas, but then you break into a different structure and it becomes more abstract, and for me, more powerful.
I would delete the 2nd and 3rd stanzas completely, theyre too much like part of a game or contrived literary structure. Another way is to rewrite those stanzas without the full line repetition and something like youve done in the last line with "tired beards".
Your separate and sequential thoughts have great energy to them like the "indelible hole in the real," and the
"electric moon in the wall". Cheers, MJ
Dont get me wrong with this harsh slicing off of parts, I think this is a fine, powerful evocation of labor struggles in a lot of towns here in the states, but I think it could be stronger by doing away with the line repetition.
. Rewarded 8
Windhover
May 28
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