It's sorta Emily

This might qualify:

America, America!
Delmore Schwartz

I am a poet of the Hudson River and the heights above it,
the lights, the stars, and the bridges
I am also by self-appointment the laureate of the Atlantic
-of the peoples' hearts, crossing it
to new America.

I am burdened with the truck and chimera, hope,
acquired in the sweating sick-excited passage
in steerage, strange and estranged
Hence I must descry and describe the kingdom of emotion.

For I am a poet of the kindergarten (in the city)
and the cemetery (in the city)
And rapture and ragtime and also the secret city in the
heart and mind
This is the song of the natural city self in the 20th century.

It is true but only partly true that a city is a "tyranny of
numbers"
(This is the chant of the urban metropolitan and
metaphysical self
After the first two World Wars of the 20th century)

--- This is the city self, looking from window to lighted
window
When the squares and checks of faintly yellow light
Shine at night, upon a huge dim board and slab-like tombs,
Hiding many lives. It is the city consciousness
Which sees and says: more: more and more: always more.

The parody, to me, lies in the despair.

and the parody is no longer a parody. Beautiful, Cav. "...fools who came to scoff remain to pray."

Uhoh, my young friend. No way did I mean to make this a religious and political discussion. what could I have been thinking?

I am neither political nor religious, so fuggedaboutit! I just think it is a very complex piece...funny in a way, and also so sad...

Here's a lil' S T Coleridge fer ya:

Sir I agree with your general rule
That every politician is a fool
But you yourself show the condition
That every fool is not a politician.

(The original was:

Sir I agree with your general rule
That every poet is a fool
But you yourself may serve to show it
That every fool is not a poet.)

Dang...apologies might be in order here...I will return with a post more in tune with the thread

I WANDERED dumbly as a cloud
That flies on high o'er sandy hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of dark-skinned infidels;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
I left them swinging in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
Thinking of dead infidels.

I didn't change much, seems to sum up Dubya almost all on it's own.

ORIGINAL: (Wordsworth, of course)

I WANDERED lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Hey, thanks, guys. Great! So far we have Emily, Samuel, and William. Back later after I've gotten my head together.

ARNIE

Yah this is the first time
Hardly do I know law by sight
You pester me with issues at all hours of the night with angles I do not know
Someday, the whitehouse.

Original from ALWAYS FOR THE FIRST TIME
Andre Breton

Always for the first time
Hardly do I know you by sight
You return at some hour of the night to a house at an angle to my window
A wholly imaginary house

New York...Canada...you there?