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greatpoetry2025-01-27 10:22 pm
aquamarcia.livejournal.com) wrote in greatpoetry2025-01-27 10:22 pm
'The Course of Empire' by Peter Schjeldahl
The Course of Empire
There is no American meter
Only American compromise solutions
And American unconscious mimicries
We American poets are keeping
This patched-together language alive
By intravenous feedings of foreign matter
Filtered through individual native madnesses
There is no American meter
Only American desperate repetitions
Grasping for mental handholds
In the American constant flux
No meter, but only meter-like tricks
To hypnotize chaos
Our job is only to survive
From line to line, awaiting the first tick
Of a manageable American reality
That would have no place for us
We are holding the crumbling outposts
Of American pride
In the last days of its empire
Our thoughts are giddy and thin
Our stock of words is running low
We will be forgotten
by Peter Schjeldahl
There is no American meter
Only American compromise solutions
And American unconscious mimicries
We American poets are keeping
This patched-together language alive
By intravenous feedings of foreign matter
Filtered through individual native madnesses
There is no American meter
Only American desperate repetitions
Grasping for mental handholds
In the American constant flux
No meter, but only meter-like tricks
To hypnotize chaos
Our job is only to survive
From line to line, awaiting the first tick
Of a manageable American reality
That would have no place for us
We are holding the crumbling outposts
Of American pride
In the last days of its empire
Our thoughts are giddy and thin
Our stock of words is running low
We will be forgotten
by Peter Schjeldahl
america