The People, Yes Read online

  and the Encyclicals of the Popes?

  Will somebody be coocoo then?

  And if so, who??

  84

  In the chain store or the independent it is the people meeting the people: “Would you like to be waited on? Could I wait on you? Could I be of assistance? Is there something you would like? Is there something for you? Could I help you? Anything I can help you to? What will yours be? What can I get for you? What would you like? Is there something?”

  The rodeo hoss wrangler, the airplane stunter,

  the living cannonball shot from a gun,

  die animal tamer amid paws and fangs—

  they use up their luck ahead of time,

  they bet their necks and earn a living:

  they play fair with their seen galleries

  the same as lone hunters and explorers

  aim to please unseen acres of fine faces,

  aim to tell about it later maybe

  if a public cares to hear.

  In this corner the spotlighted challenger,

  in this corner the world’s heavyweight champ

  along with camera boys grinding,

  lads at the mikes giving round by round,

  they aim to please,

  to put it over big

  for the fish on the spot,

  for the many more fish beyond,

  one sports writer quizzing another,

  “How many of the fish are here?

  “What’s your guess?”

  The world series pitcher pets his arm,

  prays he won’t get a glass arm:

  he too strives to please:

  he would like to put smoke on the ball

  and throw a hitless game:

  when the big-boy home-run hitter

  has an off day and fans the air,

  at the umpire’s cry “three strikes”

  he may hear from the bleachers,

  “Take the big bum out.”

  One movie star arches her eyebrows

  and refers to “my public.”

  One soda-jerker arches his eyebrows,

  curves malt-milk from shaker to glass

  and speaks of “my public.”

  The dance marathon winning couple

  bow sleepy thanks to their public.

  The fire department ladder truck driver

  sees his public at a standstill

  on the sidewalk curbs.

  The going-going-gone jewelry auctioneer

  plays to another public.

  And at every street intersection

  these publics intersect.

  Ringmasters in top hats, clowns on mules,

  circus riders in spangles,

  little ladies doing somersaults on horses,

  acrobat families in pink tights

  sliding their own human toboggans—

  the peanut, popcorn, and red lemonade sellers

  they feel their crowds and read crowd moods.

  “I know why I lost my crowd tonight,”

  said a flame of an actor.

  “I never can do anything with them

  unless I love them.”

  The breezes of surface change blow lightly.

  The people take what comes, hold on, let go.

  The high wheel bicycle was a whiz.

  Eskimo pie raked in a lot of jack.

  The tom thumb golf courses had a run.

  Yo yo charmed till yo yo checked out.

  The tree sitters climbed up, came down.

  Sideburns, galways, handlebar mustaches, full beards,

  they flitted away on winds whistling,

  “Where are the snows of yesteryear?”

  meaning snow and stage-snow, the phony and the real

  gone to the second-hand bins, the rummage sales,

  the Salvation Army wagons.

  Stronger winds blow slow.

  Trial balloons are sent up.

  The public says yes, says no.

  The whim of the public rides.

  A hoarse cry carves events.

  The platoon of police in uniform,

  the drum-major with his baton

  and a gold ball high in the air,

  The silver cornet band, the fife-and-drum corps,

  the Knights of Pythias in plume and gilt braid,

  the speakers of the day with mounted escorts,

  the fire department, the Odd Fellows, the Woodmen,

  the civilian cohorts following the local militia,

  American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars,

  they march between sidewalks

  heavy with a human heave,

  heavy with vox populi.

  “Me too, count me in.

  “I want to belong.

  “I do what’s regular.

  “I’ll sign up.

  “A trial package can’t hurt me.

  “Here’s my name and dues.

  “I’ll try anything once.”

  This is the tune of today’s razzle-dazzle.

  Tomorrow the tune is never quite the same.

  Tomorrow’s children have it their own way.

  When the yes-men no longer yes

  or the no-men shift their no

  anything is in the cards.

  Ask the public relations counsel.

  He is a shortstop and a scavenger

  smooth as a big league umpire

  cool as a veteran horse race jockey

  cool as a cube of cucumber on ice.

  He will tell you there is a public

  and this public has many relations

  and you can’t have too much counsel

  when you’re trying to handle it.

  Our ghost writers will ghost for you:

  they write it, you hand it out

  or you speak the speech written for you

  and nobody knows but the ghost

  and the ghost is paid

  for helping you with your public.

  The cheer leader struts his stuff,

  wigwags the swaying grand stand,

  throws himself into alphabetical shapes

  trying to orchestrate his crowd:

  the fads and fashions innovators,

  the halitosis and body odor frighteners,

  the skin and complexion fixers,

  the cigarette ads lying about relative values.

  the nazi imitators, the fascisti imitators,

  the ku klux klan and the konklave’s wizard,

  the makers of regalia, insignia, masks,

  hoods, hats, nightshirts, skull-and-crossbones,

  the spellbinder calling on all true patriots,

  the soapboxer pleading for the proletariat,

  the out-of-works marching marching

  with demands and banners, “why? why?”

  the strike leader telling why the men walked out,

  the million-dollar-national-sales-campaign director,

  the headache copy writer groping for one new idea,

  the drive organizers planning their hoorah,

  the neighborhood captains of tens and twenties,

  the best-seller authors, the by-line correspondents,

  the President at the White House microphone,

  the Senators, Congressmen, spokesmen, at microphones—

  Each and all have a target.

  Each one aims for the ping ping

  the bling bling of a sharpshooter.

  Here is a moving colossal show,

  a vast dazzling aggregation of stars and hams

  selling things, selling ideas, selling faiths,

  selling air, slogans, passions, selling history.

  The target is who and what?

  The people, yes—

  sold and sold again

  for losses and regrets,

  for gains, for slow advances,

  for a dignity of deepening roots.

  85

  One memorial scone reads:

  “We, near whose bones you stand, were Iroquois.
/>   The wide land which is now yours, was ours.

  Friendly hands have given us back enough for a tomb.”

  Breeds run out

  and shining names

  no longer shine.

  Tribes, clans, nations, have their hour,

  Hang up their records and leave.

  Yet who could chisel on a gravestone:

  “Here lies John Doe,” or,

  “Here rest the mortal remains of Richard Roe”

  And then step back and read the legend and say,

  “Can this be so when I myself am John Doe,

  when I myself am Richard Roe”?

  pack up your bundle now and go

  be a seeker among voices and faces

  on main street in a bus station at a union depot

  this generation of eaters sleepers lovers toilers

  flowing out of the last one now buried

  flowing into the next one now unborn

  short of cash and wondering where to? what next?

  jobs bosses paydays want-ads groceries soap

  board and clothes and a corner to sleep in

  just enough to get by

  when its lamplighting time in the valley

  where is my wandering boy tonight

  in the beautiful isle of somewhere

  the latest extra and another ax murder

  he’s forgotten by the girl he can’t forget

  she lives in a mansion of aching hearts

  tickets? where to? round trip or one way?

  room rent coffee and doughnuts maybe a movie

  suit-cases packsacks bandannas

  names saved and kept careful

  you mustn’t lose the address

  and what’ll be your telephone number?

  give me something to remember you by

  be my easy rider

  kiss me once before you go a long one

  flash eyes testaments in a rush

  underhums of plain love with rye bread sandwiches

  and grief and laughter: where to? what next?

  86

  The people, yes, the people,

  Until the people are taken care of one way or another,

  Until the people are solved somehow for the day and hour,

  Until then one hears “Yes but the people what about the people?”

  Sometimes as though the people is a child to be pleased or fed

  Or again a hoodlum you have to be tough with

  And seldom as though the people is a caldron and a reservoir

  Of the human reserves that shape history,

  The river of welcome wherein the broken First Families fade,

  The great pool wherein womout breeds and clans drop for restorative silence.

  Fire, chaos, shadows,

  Events trickling from a thin line of flame

  On into cries and combustions never expected:

  The people have the element of surprise.

  Where are the kings today?

  What has become of their solid and fastened thrones?

  Who are the temporary puppets holding sway while anything,

  “God only knows what,” waits around a corner, sits in the shadows and holds an ax, waiting for the appointed hour?

  “The czar has eight million men with guns and bayonets.

  “Nothing can happen to the czar.

  “The czar is the voice of God and shall live forever.

  “Turn and look at the forest of steel and cannon

  “Where the czar is guarded by eight million soldiers.

  “Nothing can happen to the czar.”

  They said that for years and in the summer of 1914

  In the Year of Our Lord Nineteen Hundred and Fourteen

  As a portent and an assurance they said -with owl faces:

  “Nothing can happen to the czar.”

  Yet the czar and his bodyguard of eight million vanished

  And the czar stood in a cellar before a little firing squad

  And the command of fire was given

  And the czar stepped into regions of mist and ice

  The czar travelled into an ethereal uncharted Siberia

  While two kaisers also vanished from thrones

  Ancient and established in blood and iron—

  Two kaisers backed by ten million bayonets

  Had their crowns in a gutter, their palaces mobbed.

  In fire, chaos, shadows,

  In hurricanes beyond foretelling of probabilities,

  In the shove and whirl of unforeseen combustions

  The people, yes, the people,

  Move eternally in the elements of surprise,

  Changing from hammer to bayonet and back to hammer,

  The hallelujah chorus forever shifting its star soloists.

  87

  The people learn, unlearn, leam,

  a builder, a wrecker, a builder again,

  a juggler of shifting puppets.

  In so few eyeblinks

  In transition lightning streaks,

  the people project midgets into giants,

  the people shrink titans into dwarfs.

  Faiths blow on the winds

  and become shibboleths

  and deep growths

  with men ready to die

  for a living word on the tongue,

  for a light alive in the bones,

  for dreams fluttering in the wrists.

  For liberty and authority they die

  though one is fire and the other water

  and the balances of freedom and discipline

  are a moving target with changing decoys.

  Revolt and terror pay a price.

  Order and law have a cost.

  What is this double use of fire and water?

  Where are the rulers who know this riddle?

  On the fingers of one hand you can number them.

  How often has a governor of the people first

  learned to govern himself?

  The free man willing to pay and struggle and die

  for the freedom for himself and others

  Knowing how far to subject himself to discipline

  and obedience for the sake of an ordered society

  free from tyrants, exploiters and

  legalized frauds—

  This free man is a rare bird and when you meet

  him take a good look at him and try

  to figure him out because