IN SEARCH OF INNISFREE

IN SEARCH OF INNISFREE



In Innisfree upon the lake

Frosted in morning haze

There hides a shrine on magic isle

That misses the gaze of day.



In temple forgotten by time

An ancient secret abides

While slowly it sits

In calm and stately decay

Beneath faded gilt tiles of clay.



No lock bars the doors

Ready to open wide

No person but self

Can look inside to see

A secret true here reside

And touch a formless majesty.



Wherein doth lie

A sacred orb of light.

A center set firm and right.

By creator's quest

In search for inner sight.

Amid the threads

Of mortal tapestry.

-

(At a certain angle and with certain light and low lying clouds, I saw magic one day as I viewed the tops of three buildings in downtown Manhattan from a sixteenth story window, One Bankers Trust Plaza, mortally wounded on 911 and now torn down. The Golden Boy statue on top of the old ATT building mixed with the wedding cake architecture and gilt statues of the Municipal Services Building along with the temple looking top of the old Federal Court Building. They all seemed to be floating on an island cloud and I was reminded of some lines by Yeats. - 1978)




.

Age of Chronic Luxury

The visuals. The visuals. 
They all come quick. 
A life of Visuals, 
quick, quick, quick. 
Incomplete as memory fades. 
Always the taste and 
the draw for more. 
  
I suppose the 
Chev-Ro-Lay 
in Black and White, 
a commercial 
and Dina Saur - we 
called her that - tee hee hee, 
framed a magic moment, 
boomer kids seemed to have 
all the rag tag makings, 
potential glory of a new 
rich golden age. 
  
Instead as it all turned out 
it became a burb age, 
a bubble age, a mindless 
consuming age and 
compared to the rest 
of an unaware humanity - 
we, the many, lived the good life 
the high life - for a short time 
in the America of 
domestic tranquility. 
  
It was a coming age, full of 
promise, progress, a golden time, 
an age yet to be sorted out. 
Global awareness was only 
in books in college bookstores. 
And issues like race, sex, sexuality 
had yet to struggle, come of age. 
It was an age of chaos - the good 
parts are yet to survive and lead us 
elsewhere - but by and large and 
for most of us it was an unprecedented 
Age of Chronic Luxury. 
  
Nothing in history 
to compare with it - nothing 
to compare it to - 
the might of Detroit 
and a Maytag 
washing machine 
and "Queen for a Day" 
on the tube. 
The decades on from the fifties 
were sweet though in retrospect 
in-complete. Those years had glamour 
and simple sight - but little or 
no long lasting soul. 
  
The visuals in the beginning of 
that age had a few companions, 
radio, hi-fidelity, stereo 
and not one but many local 
daily hard copy news-papers. 
When the age ended 
with a crash so to speak, a muted thud, 
only the noise and chatter, 
cacophonic clatter dulled 
virtual, not real, reality 
- cable, i-pod, e-mail, mobile cell phones, 
PCs, the Internet, tweeter - 
as disinterested witness to it all. 
  
A Tower of Babel reborn? Retorn with 
a new dark age of chaos to follow? 
  
The great charade of the big war, 
Vietnam - some growing years, 
and the estimated body counts - 
we always won - we never lost a... 
Mission statement to keep the anthill 
threat of S.E. Asia over 
there - it boosted GM stock. 
  
"What's good for GM is (was) good 
for America" then. Or at least that 
is what the Wall Street mantra then spake. 
A national treasury of gold, ideas, youth 
 - a whole generation wasted, misled, 
misdirected - doped - spun - eventually 
onto a pagan altar of deregulation 
and temporary titanic paper profit? 
  
(That and a moon walk to represent that 
early decade or so.  Anybody lately drink the 
scientific wonder of that age? Tang!) 
  
Fast forward, those other years to 
the modern day - and in between (?) 
Work. Work. Work. 
Marriage, a mortgage, kids. 
401(K) - retirement? 
  
Where did all those golden 
Boomer days go? 
Who counts? 
Upon reflection in a glass 
or into a trash filled lake, 
why does the rest of the 
planet want beef 
plastic credit and 
power muscle cars? 
Silly question silly fool. 
  
And as the recent age of 
chronic luxury collapses (here) 
what is the legacy best? Left? 
Shouting - argumentum 
ad hominem - ad nasueum. 
Hate Radio. Hate News. 
Death to my domestic enemy! 
My bubble world is superior 
to yourrr bubble world!!! 
(on a dying planet) 
  
Whatever happened to God? 
Is he retired - living in Vegas? 
  
Where has the Republic gone? 
The upper half (10%) of an 
economy struggles to recover. 
The bottom 90% is lost forever 
in fifth world bliss 
amidst empty factories and 
empty office towers (for sale - cheap!). 
It's the new economics - 
Broken promises - unfulfilled dreams. 
Plastic card idols and 
the pursuit of fantasy 
-the illusion or was it delusion 
of a common man's world - 
could not last - a temporary 
half century long Camelot? 
  
Lost. So many things amidst 
the fading echo 
and fading visuals - of time gone- 
not properly managed   
an unsustainable age 
that no one questioned 
this passing age 
of chronic luxury. 
  
What next?


.

Oscar Wilde - 1854/1900 - Esperanza

ESPERANZA

Besieged personalities.
Favored essences.
Light transparent not.

Witness to the light and splendor was she,
Before fame that she bore,
Became shame that she wore,
Mixed with Truth,
Bitter harmony.

Wise man make a vision,
Out of darkness's spite.
Wise man make provision,
Lest heaven pierce gloom's night,
And like some faded Greek tale,
Wear a mask that fits all too easily.

There comes a point when all the art
Is nothing more than anger.

To this less than all too mortal world
A final scene is written.

And Esperanza speaks.
No. Esperanza weeps.
For the sorrow that he brought.
For the morrow that he wrought.
False idols to did he pray?
Gone now. Shattered clay.


(It is said that on the night of his mother's death; Oscar Wilde had a vision of her in his jail cell. I take poetic license with her pen name Speranza and add an E. The Spanish word esperanza translates as expectancy and or hope.)


Article Source: New York 1978