The Categorical Imperative

The Categorical Imperative

Must my soul be socialized

At 67 years?

Twist my heart with iron pliers -

Bend my mind to suit the crowd -

Whoever's at my door?
Love them all because they're nice -

And let them all come in -

I don't want to -

I don't like it -

I have never done it – I've

A rotten attitude.

It makes these good and decent people

All dislike me

When they get to know me better.

Maybe I could pray to Jesus -

Go to shrinks and come out right -

Get married, scr-w and have a son

And pop him off to war -

Bumper stickers on my car -

“Support our troops” and “Army dad” -

And get myself tattooed -

Throw away my Shostakovitch,

Cziffra, Bach, “The Merry Widow” -

And buy lots

Of rock and roll and rap -

And when I die a little less

Than what there would have been will go.

 
 

Oh God!

Did I read that “Sweeney Todd” -

Sondheim's bloody gem -

Was written in the 19^th Century,

And meant to be so ludicrous,

Farfetched and absurd,

That not a child who read it

Would do anything but laugh?

But Sondheim with his watery

And limpid melodies -

None that stays in memory -

Pushed it one step further

And intended it as art.

“Sweeney Todd” - “Sweeney Todd” -

Found that only god and odd

Really rhyme with Sweeney Todd.

So Sondheim the resourceful

Made the medium the message.

Poetry & Music

Composers of another generation

May do their best and try to do the thing

Like Verdi, Donizetti and Puccini,

And though the tunes won't come,

They write the notes,

Print and have them sung to faint applause,

Like desperation from the starving crowds.

So poets shatter Keats and to be new

Try to write and cannot make it good.

Little faces looking up from Shakespeare,

Warily, too frightened to be caught

Reading verses no one else can write.

But Shakespeare was a playwright not a poet,

With lines and phrases no one ever thought.

He'll be bested. Finally he will.

Though in the meantime there'll be no one else.