If God writes down a little poem
And flatly christens it "John Smith"
Many in all likelihood a**ess it
As trite, its art-effects as unaesthetic.
Especially if the creation, in every way,
Shows everyday behavior; trowels bricks to earn
His honest bread; does not trill like a bird
In some archaically gorgeous grove,
But by hand -and not by beak- expresses
Himself in melody of slow-moved bricks
Bringing joy or sorrow into being.
Loving with sensational tenderness,
Stubbornly, his children and his wife,
And loving -with no trumpeting- his neighbors
Next door, in China and America,
While his blood courses placidly,
Or rapid with a thunder not quite muffled.
Does not have certain sure opinions
About an obscure universe,
But doublethinks, feels truly what great lies
Are told in every slogan that stokes bloodthirst
By means of bloodless bland abstractions
Against the planet's living or
His little world around the evening table.
Has no easy fix for life's snafus,
Whose life itself isn't always an easy thing
But is a stickler for such little joys
As can be seized from the hour that blossoms away
Over the manure of dying days.
Believes, and in no cynical ennui,
In beauty and good will beneath this sun,
And in the future mankind has no hope for
And does not grieve, nor leaves it to the winds,
But forges with his own two hands, or else
Holds on with patience and a striving faith.
John Smith. A work who won't
Delight the epicureans, won't console
The degradation-buffs with better days,
Rightly a displeasure to the salesmen
That peddle ideological panaceas,
The yawn of all the critics, the reviewers
And maybe even you.
But God, a modern poet,
Finds self-expression in this century's language.
Simply will not be bothered with entreaties
To create, from his blood or another's,
Anything new through routine revolution
(Which would be old-school!) but composes
For the mere few who understand,
With simple heart, a man whose title
Is modernly and modestly John Smith--
With otherworldly tenderness expressed
In this everyday dust of ours sincerely.