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God Is In The House -- Nick Cave

(Poem #52)God Is In The House
 We've laid the cables and the wires
 We've split the wood and stoked
 the fires
 We've lit our town so there is no
 Place for crime to hide
 Our little church is painted white
 And in the safety of the night
 We all go quiet as a mouse
 For the word is out
 God is in the house
 God is in the house
 God is in the house
 No cause for worry now
 God is in the house
 
 Moral sneaks in the White House
 Computer geeks in the school house
 Drug freaks in the crack house
 We don't have that stuff here
 We have a tiny little Force
 But we need them of course
 For the kittens in the trees
 And at night we are on our knees
 As quiet as a mouse
 For God is in the house
 God is in the house
 God is in the house
 And no one's left in doubt
 God is in the house
 
 Homos roaming the streets in packs
 Queer bashers with tyre-jacks
 Lesbian counter-attacks
 That stuff is for the big cities
 Our town is very pretty
 We have a pretty little square
 We have a woman for a mayor
 Our policy is firm but fair
 Now that God is in the house
 God is in the house
 God is in the house
 Any day now He'll come out
 God is in the house
 
 Well-meaning little therapists
 Goose-stepping twelve-stepping Tetotalitarianists
 The tipsy, the reeling and the drop down pissed
 We got no time for that stuff here
 Zero crime and no fear
 We've bred all our kittens white
 So you can see them in the night
 And at night we're on our knees
 As quiet as a mouse
 Since the word got out
 From the North down to the South
 For no-one's left in doubt
 There's no fear about
 If we all hold hands and very quietly shout
 Hallelujah
 God is in the house
 God is in the house
 Oh I wish He would come out
 God is in the house
-- Nick Cave

All You who Sleep Tonight -- Vikram Seth

(Poem #51)All You who Sleep Tonight
 All you who sleep tonight
 Far from the ones you love,
 No hand to left or right
 And emptiness above -

 Know that you aren't alone
 The whole world shares your tears,
 Some for two nights or one,
 And some for all their years.
-- Vikram Seth

The Unknown Citizen -- W H Auden

(Poem #50)The Unknown Citizen
 (To JS/07/M/378 This Marble Monument Is Erected by the State)
 
   He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be
   One against whom there was no official complaint,
   And all the reports on his conduct agree
   That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint,
   For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.
   Except for the War till the day he retired
   He worked in a factory and never got fired,
   But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.
   Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views,
   For his Union reports that he paid his dues,
   (Our report on his Union shows it was sound)
   And our Social Psychology workers found
   That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.
   The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day
   And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.
   Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,
   And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but left it cured.
   Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare
   He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Installment Plan
   And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,
   A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.
   Our researchers into Public Opinion are content
   That he held the proper opinions for he time of year;
   When there was peace, he was for peace; when there was war, he went.
   He was married and added five children to the population,
   Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation.
   And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education.
   Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
   Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.
-- W H Auden

Five Ways to Kill a Man -- Edwin Brock

(Poem #49)Five Ways to Kill a Man
 There are many cumbersome ways to kill a man.
 You can make him carry a plank of wood
 to the top of a hill and nail him to it. To do this 
 properly you require a crowd of people
 wearing sandals, a cock that crows, a cloak
 to dissect, a sponge, some vinegar and one
 man to hammer the nails home.
 
 Or you can take a length of steel,
 shaped and chased in a traditional way,
 and attempt to pierce the metal cage he wears.
 But for this you need white horses,
 English trees, men with bows and arrows,
 at least two flags, a prince, and a
 castle to hold your banquet in.
 
 Dispensing with nobility, you may, if the wind
 allows, blow gas at him. But then you need
 a mile of mud sliced through with ditches,
 not to mention black boots, bomb craters,
 more mud, a plague of rats, a dozen songs
 and some round hats made of steel.
 
 In an age of aeroplanes, you may fly
 miles above your victim and dispose of him by
 pressing one small switch. All you then
 require is an ocean to separate you, two
 systems of government, a nation's scientists,
 several factories, a psychopath and
 land that no-one needs for several years.
 
 These are, as I began, cumbersome ways 
 to kill a man. Simpler, direct, and much more neat 
 is to see that he is living somewhere in the middle
 of the twentieth century, and leave him there.
-- Edwin Brock

We Real Cool -- Gwendolyn Brooks

(Poem #48)We Real Cool
 THE POOL PLAYERS.
     SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.

 We real cool. We
 Left school. We

 Lurk late. We
 Strike straight. We

 Sing sin. We
 Thin gin. We

 Jazz June. We
 Die soon.
-- Gwendolyn Brooks

The Blues -- Billy Collins

(Poem #47)The Blues
 Much of what is said here
 must be said twice,
 a reminder that no one
 takes an immediate interest in the pain of others.

 Nobody will listen, it would seem,
 if you simply admit
 your baby left you early this morning
 she didn’t even stop to say good-bye.

 But if you sing it again
 with the help of the band
 which will now lift you to a higher,
 more ardent and beseeching key,

 people will not only listen;
 they will shift to the sympathetic
 edges of their chairs,
 moved to such acute anticipation

 by that chord and the delay that follows,
 they will not be able to sleep
 unless you release with one finger
 a scream from the throat of your guitar

 and turn your head back to the microphone
 to let them know
 you’re a hard-hearted man
 but that woman’s sure going to make you cry.
-- Billy Collins

"Hope" Is The Thing With Feathers -- Emily Dickinson

(Poem #46)"Hope" Is The Thing With Feathers
 "Hope" is the thing with feathers -
 That perches in the soul -
 And sings the tune without the words -
 And never stops - at all -
 
 And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
 And sore must be the storm -
 That could abash the little Bird
 That kept so many warm -
 
 I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
 And on the strangest Sea -
 Yet - never - in Extremity,
 It asked a crumb - of me.
-- Emily Dickinson

The God Who Loves You -- Carl Dennis

(Poem #45)The God Who Loves You
 It must be troubling for the god who loves you
 To ponder how much happier you'd be today
 Had you been able to glimpse your many futures.
 It must be painful for him to watch you on Friday evenings
 Driving home from the office, content with your week—
 Three fine houses sold to deserving families—
 Knowing as he does exactly what would have happened
 Had you gone to your second choice for college,
 Knowing the roommate you'd have been allotted
 Whose ardent opinions on painting and music 
 Would have kindled in you a lifelong passion.
 A life thirty points above the life you're living
 On any scale of satisfaction. And every point 
 A thorn in the side of the god who loves you.
 You don't want that, a large-souled man like you
 Who tries to withhold from your wife the day's disappointments
 So she can save her empathy for the children.
 And would you want this god to compare your wife
 With the woman you were destined to meet on the other campus?
 It hurts you to think of him ranking the conversation
 You'd have enjoyed over there higher in insight
 Than the conversation you're used to.
 And think how this loving god would feel
 Knowing that the man next in line for your wife
 Would have pleased her more than you ever will
 Even on your best days, when you really try.
 Can you sleep at night believing a god like that
 Is pacing his cloudy bedroom, harassed by alternatives
 You're spared by ignorance? The difference between what is
 And what could have been will remain alive for him
 Even after you cease existing, after you catch a chill
 Running out in the snow for the morning paper,
 Losing eleven years that the god who loves you
 Will feel compelled to imagine scene by scene
 Unless you come to the rescue by imagining him
 No wiser than you are, no god at all, only a friend
 No closer than the actual friend you made at college,
 The one you haven't written in months. Sit down tonight
 And write him about the life you can talk about
 With a claim to authority, the life you've witnessed,
 Which for all you know is the life you've chosen. 
-- Carl Dennis

Apology to the Wasps -- Sara Littlecrow-Russell

(Poem #44)Apology to the Wasps
 Terrorized by your stings,
 I took out biochemical weapons
 And blasted your nest
 Like it was a third world country.
 
 I was the United States Air Force.
 It felt good to be so powerful
 Until I saw your family
 Trailing shredded wings,
 Staggering on disintegrating legs,
 Trying desperately to save the eggs
 You had stung to protect.
-- Sara Littlecrow-Russell