THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING
THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING
(Chicago, August 1968;
Washington DC, January 20, 2005)
How simple the world of that past forgiven
when marching through Georgia or dancing
from the highest mountain made life true.
I watched the thousands evaporate with slight
peculiar motions. In Phoenix Park the air stopped
outside the classic hotel the streets were broken
with sighs and the air filtered with grass lisped
into a dangerous melodrama as compared
to buildings collapsing and jumpers leaping
from fire and roof while we pray for relief
by dangling our hands in pools of daily blood.
How innocent we line up behind the Gestapo
like State Police along Constitution Avenue
on Inauguration Day. Sharp uniforms and plush
buttons pushed as lapel tacks signal pure
and not as pure. Has anyone asked why?
Have we lived so dirty that we need storm
troopers in ordinary space for darker nouns
as we assemble we become petrified wood
as words that faulty liar of a speech prepared
like a Hollywood film with as many production
assistants as a 20 minute porno loop bedazzled.
Commentators monitor for each other
minimizing the substance of 20 new coffins
shipped home from this day from Iraq
by way of the President elected to protect
indulgence as a sacrifice and sacrament.
Can death be made so lucrative that we fold
up our tents after the speech and make certain
that paper signs signifying protest are held
up only so far for the multitudes to read?
How we lie as political nouns and verbs
disappear to be replaced by articles of faith
and the promise by the President that he
will return to Texas eight years later.
So much is old in photographs taken
by news hounds and DW Griffith. Does
”Birth of a Nation” recede like linear perspective?
Does it reappear never having actually vanished
in the unknown algebra of our invisible universe
where dark matter waits at the edge of the visible.
If we cannot measure the nature and principles
of dark matter how can go to war in Iraq for lies
repeated as truth no matter how grievous
the loss on World Street New York
where the buildings taken down
by madmen gave birth to that
anti-nation led into slavery by grief
and guilt and the misery of witness.
XXX
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Comments by other Members
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 Felmagre at 18:23 on 16 May 2005
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I heard that currently in America, only artist's are able to paint the picture of truth. Others are too afraid. You are an artist.
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laurafraser at 19:12 on 16 May 2005
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This made me think of investigative journalism work, the rhetoric, the backing up of history to justify your arguments, and the moral. I say this becasue i think the tone lends itself to that genre, rather like you have cut up sections from a larger article nd pieced them together here. 9/11, politics, Bush, death, society etc all titanic subjects,
actually while i am wriitng i am wondering if this oem can go another way. your voice comes out so strongly in this piece, however at times i think perhaps too potent. there are parts of this poem that are poetic wonders:
to buildings collapsing and jumpers leaping
from fire and roof while we pray for relief
by dangling our hands in pools of daily blood.
and:
like a Hollywood film with as many production
assistants as a 20 minute porno loop bedazzled.
'You' are nnot directly saying anything here, the images you have created are.
The question "Has anyone asked why?" for me makeswhat preceded it redundant becasue yes a lot of people have, I think what you arestating there is a truism and for me therefore stole some some of the strength of the poem.
It probably also depends on your intentions for ths piece, but I think that as it stands it is, as all your work that i have had the pleasure of reading so far has been, is of a uniquely sublime and tender standard, yet i thinkk to make this more accessible, less didactic it needs to be less confrontational and more of what there was in the beginning, ie more imagery...? When people are allowed to make their own minds up, the cnclusion they come to can be mightily more unsettling and thought-proviking then when they are told or showed what to think..
But sean another wonderful piece, you really are a master of poetry arn't you? Reading your comments on other people's poetry is almost as good as reading your actual poems I often find!
XLaura
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seanfarragher at 20:13 on 16 May 2005
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Most of the poems I have posted at write words, Laura, were newly written. I have another poem I wanted to post but I thought it too vulgar, too angry, and it frighten me, the writer. So I looked for a poem that I had not posted here but was also fairly recently written. I realized when I read THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING after four months that the poem needs work, perhaps needs shortening or less contemporary journalism. I had a teacher named Joel Oppenheimer (1930-1989) who wrote what he called ocassional poems. He said that the reason for the poem, the drive to it is less with time, and that it was rare that an poem written after a specific event (the Bush Inaugeral) lasts. I am unsure of the poem, which is the reason I posted it.
As to the early vulgar, angry, violent poem well, I may send it to you in writeword email, if you say it is ok.
It is hard driving and not forgiving. I don't want to start another controversy as I did in poetry seminar with my Byzantium poem.
Thanks for your support. As to your work, dear friend, just push, stay on the edge, take risks, and be open to change, and embrace that change, and then reject it or accept it later. Matisse is one of my favorite artists because he changed as an artist all his life. He always grew. At 80, he began tearing up paper and creating collage, designing stained glass windows, finding new ways to show the line of his art. He also loved women, all of them, young and all. His desire pushed him hard. He was a marvelous man and teacher. My desire pushes me hard, and I think at 62 I am more open to change than I was at 30. Push hard lovely.
xxxx
sean
<Added>
Felmagre thank you for your comments. Art in America is robust and various. I also feel at home in Ireland and in the UK. My ancestors mostly Celt have carried me through the entire world.
We live in a complicated universe, and now Indian, African, Australia, New Zealand feed back to the UK. This beautiful diversity makes the world take risks, and honesty is our best defense against racism, bigotry, and sexism.
<Added>
It feeds back to the US and so the entire world is both source and recepticle. 1000 years ago the world was horse, hand written manuscipts, and several unified religions. It was also sword, bow and arrow. What will it be in 1000 years? Will we exist? That is the art of poetry. We need to keep the words clean so they are capable of growing new and more honest, more righteous, more equitable. Am I too much the optimist?
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Beanie Baby at 21:22 on 16 May 2005
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Hi Sean.
I really think you are a performance poet in disguise! I have no idea what you look like or sound like, but this image came to me of you reading this on a platform, putting as much into it verbally as you put into writing. I love this piece of work. It is so truthful and full of gutsy observation.Felmagre is right. You are an artist - the kind of word artist I can never hope to be. Don't ever stop being a poet!
Beanie
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seanfarragher at 22:05 on 16 May 2005
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I do love to read in public, but have not for the past three years after losing my knee in an auto accident. I was known at some rock clubs as Uncle Sean where I would do poetry (NOT MUSIC) improvisations. I never participated in poetry slams. I find the slam and its aggression and competition antithetical to the spirit of my poems.
I am a big burly man of 62 with a full head of white hair. I am Irish looking, whatever that means with a Kirt Douglas Cleft, but I am more UK than Irish.
My Mom's family is half from Ireland and the other half Manchester, and my dad's family, on the Marshall side was descendants of the same line as the Marshals and Jefferson who migrated to the colonies in the 17th century and became Chief Justice and President.
I mention this because my great, great grandfather was Chapman Marshall, the fifth son of General Anthony Marshall.
Chap, born in Dublin (I assume when his father was posted there), immigrated to America from Plymouth with English wife in 1859 and was with others the founders of Cresco, Iowa.
Chapman Sr. later became an elected Iowa state senator, but MOST IMPORTANT, he was a stump preacher who spread the word and his faith over all of Eastern Iowa according to his full page obituary.
He died in 1906 but his obituary helped me understand my roots in language and my capacity to speak and recite poems spontaneously.
When I was 12 I could write lyrics to rock songs that were different than the ones on the radio. I did it to entertain folks, but never thought of myself as a poet until much later.
Your intuition was right. UK and Ireland are the natural homes of many great cultures, and as the colonies feed back to their mother/father land the dispersal is wonderful and we are all enriched.
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Felmagre at 11:30 on 17 May 2005
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Yes, 'That is the art of poetry'
Biblical quote'the pen is mighter than the sword, will be familar to you, and it is correct. Words if as you say are 'kept clean' will be 'capable of growing new and more honest, more righteous, more equitable' they will be able to make people take stock, to think and imagaine themselves in the other persons shoes, their situation, their world.
Whilst I am less of an optimist than I used to be, having become somewhat cynical I believe the world needs people like you, so don't stop being 'too much of an optimist' it gives those of us who have lost sight of the wonder and resilience of human nature a renewed hope.
Thank you for your poetry and your contributions to the group. Very much appreciated.
Kind regards
felmagre.
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