The Alien Fleet of Feet
On a sluggish morning
sluggish feet on sidewalks
cannot compete with joggers,
alien fleet of feet
whose engines purr on starting
like models of the newest cars.
No rest for the jealous,
but taken anyway.
I’ll stay sleeping in
while the rest are stepping out.
I, too, have business to attend
like when will the toast be done
and where’s the marmalade.
You know how I like my coffee,
we’ve been through this before.
I like to wake up softly,
gradually build tolerance
to face the goddamned day.
Yes, I know I have to get a job.
Yes, it’s your job to remind me.
But this business of staying home
is natural and satisfying,
textured like an unironed sheet,
its best dreams still in it.
Outside my urban castle
when the tide has ebbed away
I venture to the front stoop
steaming coffee in one hand,
smoking cigarette in the other,
all’s well now with the world.
Presently a radio rapes the air
turning morning silence
into cacophony of crap,
the musiclessness of rap.
I remove my hearing aids
and entertain the thought of nap,
a logical escape
if that goddamned beat
doesn’t twang the bedsprings.
I’m not allowed to smoke inside
under threat of penalty, cruel
and also conjugal, the lack thereof.
As nose she has a smoke detector.
What shall I do with this day?
I don’t want to sleep my life away.
I’ll read and maybe write
and be thankful for what I’ve got
and also what I’ve not.
The others, (Them!) (Those!),
the ones who work from nine to five
and wear suits and ties,
that merchant fleet upon the fiscal sea
who riffle Fortune’s pages,
while playing real Monopoly,
when time has come for them
to shift their weight upon the other leg
they set sail for home upon the evening tide
upon the mixed ship Metaphor.
The tidal current of commerce
that swelled our street in morning
now flows the other way.
At first it trickles like incontinence,
then becomes a sluggish stream
straining for momentum
to break loose in torrents,
but floods with horns instead,
raucous shouts, rote obscenity,
for some, sulking, stewing silence,
all slowed to the speed of clams.
Have they forgotten yesterday?
Once they’ve parked their cars
footfalls follow home their feet,
all echoes being equal,
the daily homeless who have nests,
now nightly drag themselves to them,
home heavy with relief
and sense of underpaid deserving
(satisfaction is a random perk)
bringing bacon and its gravy,
mutely mad, never daring
to bare an honest tongue.
Honey, you’re home. Would you like a martini?
Bolton Street fills up once more
with liquid anxiety galore.
We also serve who stay at home.
Fireflies with folded wings count down
until it’s safe to say good night.
Look, dear, at what I’ve written.
How was your day?
Marmalade Skies --Sarah Ross Thompson
On a sluggish morning
sluggish feet on sidewalks
cannot compete with joggers,
alien fleet of feet
whose engines purr on starting
like models of the newest cars.
No rest for the jealous,
but taken anyway.
I’ll stay sleeping in
while the rest are stepping out.
I, too, have business to attend
like when will the toast be done
and where’s the marmalade.
You know how I like my coffee,
we’ve been through this before.
I like to wake up softly,
gradually build tolerance
to face the goddamned day.
Yes, I know I have to get a job.
Yes, it’s your job to remind me.
But this business of staying home
is natural and satisfying,
textured like an unironed sheet,
its best dreams still in it.
Outside my urban castle
when the tide has ebbed away
I venture to the front stoop
steaming coffee in one hand,
smoking cigarette in the other,
all’s well now with the world.
Presently a radio rapes the air
turning morning silence
into cacophony of crap,
the musiclessness of rap.
I remove my hearing aids
and entertain the thought of nap,
a logical escape
if that goddamned beat
doesn’t twang the bedsprings.
I’m not allowed to smoke inside
under threat of penalty, cruel
and also conjugal, the lack thereof.
As nose she has a smoke detector.
What shall I do with this day?
I don’t want to sleep my life away.
I’ll read and maybe write
and be thankful for what I’ve got
and also what I’ve not.
The others, (Them!) (Those!),
the ones who work from nine to five
and wear suits and ties,
that merchant fleet upon the fiscal sea
who riffle Fortune’s pages,
while playing real Monopoly,
when time has come for them
to shift their weight upon the other leg
they set sail for home upon the evening tide
upon the mixed ship Metaphor.
The tidal current of commerce
that swelled our street in morning
now flows the other way.
At first it trickles like incontinence,
then becomes a sluggish stream
straining for momentum
to break loose in torrents,
but floods with horns instead,
raucous shouts, rote obscenity,
for some, sulking, stewing silence,
all slowed to the speed of clams.
Have they forgotten yesterday?
Once they’ve parked their cars
footfalls follow home their feet,
all echoes being equal,
the daily homeless who have nests,
now nightly drag themselves to them,
home heavy with relief
and sense of underpaid deserving
(satisfaction is a random perk)
bringing bacon and its gravy,
mutely mad, never daring
to bare an honest tongue.
Honey, you’re home. Would you like a martini?
Bolton Street fills up once more
with liquid anxiety galore.
We also serve who stay at home.
Fireflies with folded wings count down
until it’s safe to say good night.
Look, dear, at what I’ve written.
How was your day?
Marmalade Skies --Sarah Ross Thompson
Henry Luce wanted to publish a business magazine called "Power," but his business partner Briton Hadden was not enthusiastic about the idea. Hadden and Luce had been Yale classmates; Luce had been the managing editor at the "Yale Daily News" while Hadden had been the paper's chairman. During a school break they began seriously discussing the idea of creating a magazine that would condense all the news of the week into a brief and easily readable "digest." After graduating they found journalistic jobs, then mutually joined the "Baltimore News," where they spent their nights working on the idea of a news magazine, which they planned to call "Facts." In 1923 they founded "Time." Hadden and Luce served alternating years as the new company's president, but Hadden was the editor for 4 1/2 of the magazine's first six years and, as, the inventor of its revolutionary writing style known as Timestyle, was considered its "presiding genius." After a brief stint in Cleveland, Ohio, the magazine moved back to New York in 1927 and was located for a while in the same building as "The New Yorker," edited by Harold Ross. Hadden and Ross were regarded as the two greatest American magazine editors of the 1920s. Hadden was not enthusiastic about Luce's idea about founding a business magazine to be called "Power," but Hadden died at 31 in Fenruary 1929. Luce took Hadden's name off the "Time" masthead within two weeks of his death. Hadden's will left all of his stock in Time Inc. to his mother and forbade his family from selling those shares for 49 years, but within a year of his death Luce formed a syndicate which succeeded in getting possession of Hadden's stock. He also acquired control of Hadden's papers and kept them at Time Inc., where no one outside the company was allowed to view them as long as Luce lived. In late October 1929 the Wall Street Crash of 1929 occurred, marking the onset of the Great Depression, and "Fortune" made its official debut in February 1930. By 1937, the number of subscribers had grown to 460,000, and the magazine had turned half million dollars in annual profit. During the Great Depression the magazine developed a reputation for Walker Evans' and Margaret Bourke-White's color photographs and for a team of writers including James Agee, Archibald MacLeish, John Kenneth Galbraith, and Alfred Kazin, hired specifically for their writing abilities. Luce went on to launch "Life" in 1936 and "Sports Illustrated "in 1954.
ReplyDeleteA monopoly, from the Greek "monos " (alone or single) and "polein" (to sell), exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity. (A monopsony relates to a single entity's control of a market to purchase a good ; an oligopoly is a few sellers dominating a market). "Monopoly" is a board game developed by Charles Darrow and published by Parker Brothers in 1935; players move around the game-board buying, trading, or selling properties, developing them with houses and hotels, and collecting rent from their opponents, with the goal being to drive them all into bankruptcy, leaving one monopolist in control of the economy.
ReplyDeleteBolton Street is in Baltimore, Maryland, where the poet lives. It is part of an area known as Bolton Hill, a largely residential neighborhood with three-story row houses with red brick, white marble steps, and high ceilings, mostly preserved buildings from the late 19th century. In addition to Jack Scott, other significant residents have included F. Scott Fitzgerald and Woodrow Wilson. Bolton Hill was named after the estate of George Grundy, who named his estate house after Bolton le Moors. Around 1850 the area began to transition to traditional baltimore row houses. Before the advent of real estate speculation and planned developments, many homes were attached to form rows. But a "rowhouse" describes a large group of similar homes built at the same time by the same builder. Unlike the north-south grid of most Baltimore neighborhoods, Bolton Hill was built along a diagonal street grid, constructed by Thomas Poppleton. Baltimore has more rowhouses than any other city in the United States, and the proliferation of these dwelling made Baltimore a city of homeowners. In the late 19th century, 70% of the city's population owned their own homes. Unlike other prominent neighborhoods in Baltimore at the end of the 19th century, Bolton Hill had no restrictive covenants against African-Americans, Jews, or Asians, and many servants for the wealthy Bolton Hill residents lived in the alley houses of Bolton Hill. At the beginning of the 20th century, white residents began moving out.