"orthodoxy" poems - Hello Poetry

(for Christopher Isherwood) Seated after breakfast In this white-tiled cabin Arabs call the House where Everybody goes, Even melancholics Raise a cheer to Mrs. Nature for the primal Pleasure She bestows. *** is but a dream to Seventy-and-over, But a joy proposed un- -til we start to shave: Mouth-delight depends on Virtue in the cook, but This She guarantees from Cradle unto grave. Lifted off the ***** Infants from their mothers Hear their first impartial Words of worldly praise: Hence, to start the morning With a satisfactory Dump is a good omen All our adult days. Revelation came to Luther in a privy (Crosswords have been solved there) Rodin was no fool When he cast his Thinker, Cogitating deeply, Crouched in the position Of a man at stool. All the arts derive from This ur-act of making, Private to the artist: Makers' lives are spent Striving in their chosen Medium to produce a De-narcissus-ized en- During excrement. Freud did not invent the Constipated miser: Banks have letter boxes Built in their façade Marked For Night Deposits, Stocks are firm or liquid, Currencies of nations Either soft or hard. Global Mother, keep our Bowels of compassion Open through our lifetime, Purge our minds as well: Grant us a king ending, Not a second childhood, Petulant, weak-sphinctered, In a cheap hotel. Keep us in our station: When we get pound-notish, When we seem about to Take up Higher Thought, Send us some deflating Image like the pained ex- -pression on a Major Prophet taken short. (Orthodoxy ought to Bless our modern plumbing: Swift and St. Augustine Lived in centuries When a stench of sewage Made a strong debating Point for Manichees.) Mind and Body run on Different timetables: Not until our morning Visit here can we Leave the dead concerns of Yesterday behind us, Face with all our courage What is now to be.

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W. H. Auden

The Geography of the House

(for Christopher Isherwood) Seated after breakfast In this white-tiled cabin Arabs call the House where Everybody goes, Even melancholics Raise a cheer to Mrs. Nature for the primal Pleasure She bestows. *** is but a dream to Seventy-and-over, But a joy proposed un- -til we start to shave: Mouth-delight depends on Virtue in the cook, but This She guarantees from Cradle unto grave. Lifted off the ***** Infants from their mothers Hear their first impartial Words of worldly praise: Hence, to start the morning With a satisfactory Dump is a good omen All our adult days. Revelation came to Luther in a privy (Crosswords have been solved there) Rodin was no fool When he cast his Thinker, Cogitating deeply, Crouched in the position Of a man at stool. All the arts derive from This ur-act of making, Private to the artist: Makers' lives are spent Striving in their chosen Medium to produce a De-narcissus-ized en- During excrement. Freud did not invent the Constipated miser: Banks have letter boxes Built in their façade Marked For Night Deposits, Stocks are firm or liquid, Currencies of nations Either soft or hard. Global Mother, keep our Bowels of compassion Open through our lifetime, Purge our minds as well: Grant us a king ending, Not a second childhood, Petulant, weak-sphinctered, In a cheap hotel. Keep us in our station: When we get pound-notish, When we seem about to Take up Higher Thought, Send us some deflating Image like the pained ex- -pression on a Major Prophet taken short. (Orthodoxy ought to Bless our modern plumbing: Swift and St. Augustine Lived in centuries When a stench of sewage Made a strong debating Point for Manichees.) Mind and Body run on Different timetables: Not until our morning Visit here can we Leave the dead concerns of Yesterday behind us, Face with all our courage What is now to be.