The Formula

Its formula escapes you; it has lost

The certainty that constitutes a thing.

—W. H. Auden, “Brussels in Winter”

Born into the British Empire,

George VI was king-emperor—

His face was on our postage stamps.

Men died for him at Alamein and Singapore.

The empire is long gone today—

His Royal Navy’s ships are sunk;

While in an office far away

A hulking figure dims the lamps

And wonders what great power’s for.

Thursday, April 24, 2025

Bad Day

Fyodor Dostoevsky, manuscript of The Brothers Karamazov (1880)

"Bad day. Rainy day. Permeated by the suspicion that I am worn out and depleted by—oh, what the hell's the use?"—George Kennan, diary entry, U.S. Embassy, Moscow, September 26, 1934

Table d'hôte

Chaïm Soutine, The Table (ca. 1923), oil on canvas. Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris

Every angel is terrible.

—Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies, No. 1

200 billion vertebrates

Die every year to feed us;

I wonder if they think their lives

Are worth our human fuss.

Before they die, they suffer,

Confined to cruel spaces;

The last thing they live to see

Are killers’ human faces.

Okay, I’m writing doggerel—

It's lingua franca time!

Yahweh's sunk in holy dotage,

Something to do is whine.

At this late stage of mythic rage,

Despairing angels drivel.

Monday, April 21, 2025