Today leaders are focused on the practical,
which might include war. They don’t care what the news says
and fine old English poems are spoiled in retrospect
by American slang. Double meanings
wherever you go.
Ignorance and sly innuendo.
Isherwood goes to China. Huxley lands
in California. Current events are old.
The “big picture” always implies “conspiracy theory”
so today we focus on something small—
an airstrike on television—
unlike the famous world leaders
who hardly talk and hide their children.
Auden spoke of a waterfall as both “loose”
and “compact.” O that’s the best poetry for me.
The kind which gained favor in nineteen-thirty-three.
That Romantic crap is too far away.
War photography turned poetry grey.
In fiction the untrustworthy speaker
is finally the one trusted, as I was, wasn’t I,
in the beginning of our affair?