Yesterday, 04:16 PM
(This post was last modified: 5 hours ago by RiverNotch.)
West
1. The Birth of Capitalism
A giant from the northern coasts of France
struck with a club the giant sat on the shining
cliffs of Dover, stomped on his slumping back,
and shouted "Now I'm lord of all this land!"
Wiping away the brains about the knot
of wood he used for a weapon, he drew a knife
and started to skin and butcher the corpse beneath him,
passing the ribs for braising and loins for frying
to gluttons he called peers---to himself leaving,
beside the nutritious offal, the foremost right
to settle any disputes that should arise
between his peers and the corpse's former dependents
kept somewhat free as labor-selling tenants.
Thus started a vicious cycle: with all this work
vended for mere subsistence and laws too rigid
to license overt exploitation, the emphasis shifted
to making the land more productive, to feeding the city
where workshops and factories sprang, to birthing a world
where markets could supplant both laws and lords.
2. The Fountain of Youth
This gift of God was found in Florida's tip
first by the peoples to whom the land was given
then by the peoples who through war and sickness
stole it: a drink which all those later founders
esteemed to grant them vigor, making them young
at heart and body, if not at mind and soul.
Rather, it proved the reverse. A single sip
and the vessel stays its course, gathering worms
while the crew is all replaced by mewling babes,
but how could the conqueror have learned all this
without experiment? Why should they trust
the word of beggared ghosts or beaten dogs?
And should a slave be risked to reach a state
for which the free repine? So thought the men
who first imbibed the fountain's blessed waters,
making immortal imbeciles of themselves:
a gloomy circle of gaunt and grey-haired figures
huddled around a pair of upturned gargoyles
that drool forever with divine revenge.
3. Acapulco
Here was another giant: a cruel frame
of bulging forehead, crooked eyes, and lips
perennially drooling, yet housing a tender soul.
Often he sat on the shore, dreaming of boats
that came in from the ocean laden with riches
his vision could only sketch, could only shape
and color as fuzzy forms, as mere abstractions,
for which he would offer the singular treasure he thoughtÂ
he had in his hoard: silver and precious stones.
Often was monthly turned weekly turned daily turned hourly
turned every waking minute he'd rather spend
by the sea---he no longer slept---he was the shore,
his friends found moss and ferns and grass on his back
give way to shrubs and trees, the bones exposed
as an incoherent scaffold of white sand,
until all that was left of himself was his mad dream.
4. Guam
Their Empire's western border is the eastern
edge of the sea named after us: those islands
we once considered sisters, yet they never
fought for their freedom when we fought for ours.
Perhaps they believed that when our latest common
masters allowed us to leave, they would become
more than a stopping point for treasure-hunting
galleons turned into steamships on their westward
courses, that their lonely little boulders
floating like lost coconuts near the center
of the Pacific would instantly be considered
destinations in and of themselves, exchanging
the beggarly commonwealth for the one more brutal---
5. Pearl
Pearl of the Orient Seas: what does this mean?
What sort of pearl are we? Formed by a clam---
gigantic, oft mistaken for its shell
by lacking the usual luster---or by an oyster?
How are we built? A perfect sphere, a teardrop,
perhaps a malformed button or even something
completely uneven---again, more like the shell
of our molluscan mother---whence our color:
are we the white of noon? the pink of dusk?
the black of a moonless night? the golden spears
thrust by the sun across the sky at dawn?
or even some kind of rainbow, our nacre skin
burnished beyond recognition to something born
of earth and flame and not of flesh and water?
Were we dredged up or farmed? What sort of use
became of us: a bead in an endless string,
one half a pair of earrings, or the chief
draw to some tall crown or weighty locket?
Whose hands have held us? Who continues to hold?
And will we be passed down again or sold
or, as the parable goes, cast off to pigs
and crushed at last between their greedy teeth?
1. The Birth of Capitalism
A giant from the northern coasts of France
struck with a club the giant sat on the shining
cliffs of Dover, stomped on his slumping back,
and shouted "Now I'm lord of all this land!"
Wiping away the brains about the knot
of wood he used for a weapon, he drew a knife
and started to skin and butcher the corpse beneath him,
passing the ribs for braising and loins for frying
to gluttons he called peers---to himself leaving,
beside the nutritious offal, the foremost right
to settle any disputes that should arise
between his peers and the corpse's former dependents
kept somewhat free as labor-selling tenants.
Thus started a vicious cycle: with all this work
vended for mere subsistence and laws too rigid
to license overt exploitation, the emphasis shifted
to making the land more productive, to feeding the city
where workshops and factories sprang, to birthing a world
where markets could supplant both laws and lords.
2. The Fountain of Youth
This gift of God was found in Florida's tip
first by the peoples to whom the land was given
then by the peoples who through war and sickness
stole it: a drink which all those later founders
esteemed to grant them vigor, making them young
at heart and body, if not at mind and soul.
Rather, it proved the reverse. A single sip
and the vessel stays its course, gathering worms
while the crew is all replaced by mewling babes,
but how could the conqueror have learned all this
without experiment? Why should they trust
the word of beggared ghosts or beaten dogs?
And should a slave be risked to reach a state
for which the free repine? So thought the men
who first imbibed the fountain's blessed waters,
making immortal imbeciles of themselves:
a gloomy circle of gaunt and grey-haired figures
huddled around a pair of upturned gargoyles
that drool forever with divine revenge.
3. Acapulco
Here was another giant: a cruel frame
of bulging forehead, crooked eyes, and lips
perennially drooling, yet housing a tender soul.
Often he sat on the shore, dreaming of boats
that came in from the ocean laden with riches
his vision could only sketch, could only shape
and color as fuzzy forms, as mere abstractions,
for which he would offer the singular treasure he thoughtÂ
he had in his hoard: silver and precious stones.
Often was monthly turned weekly turned daily turned hourly
turned every waking minute he'd rather spend
by the sea---he no longer slept---he was the shore,
his friends found moss and ferns and grass on his back
give way to shrubs and trees, the bones exposed
as an incoherent scaffold of white sand,
until all that was left of himself was his mad dream.
4. Guam
Their Empire's western border is the eastern
edge of the sea named after us: those islands
we once considered sisters, yet they never
fought for their freedom when we fought for ours.
Perhaps they believed that when our latest common
masters allowed us to leave, they would become
more than a stopping point for treasure-hunting
galleons turned into steamships on their westward
courses, that their lonely little boulders
floating like lost coconuts near the center
of the Pacific would instantly be considered
destinations in and of themselves, exchanging
the beggarly commonwealth for the one more brutal---
5. Pearl
Pearl of the Orient Seas: what does this mean?
What sort of pearl are we? Formed by a clam---
gigantic, oft mistaken for its shell
by lacking the usual luster---or by an oyster?
How are we built? A perfect sphere, a teardrop,
perhaps a malformed button or even something
completely uneven---again, more like the shell
of our molluscan mother---whence our color:
are we the white of noon? the pink of dusk?
the black of a moonless night? the golden spears
thrust by the sun across the sky at dawn?
or even some kind of rainbow, our nacre skin
burnished beyond recognition to something born
of earth and flame and not of flesh and water?
Were we dredged up or farmed? What sort of use
became of us: a bead in an endless string,
one half a pair of earrings, or the chief
draw to some tall crown or weighty locket?
Whose hands have held us? Who continues to hold?
And will we be passed down again or sold
or, as the parable goes, cast off to pigs
and crushed at last between their greedy teeth?