"The Parade,"
Hollander, John
"Some hand in hand, but never, thank God, in step" —W.H. Auden, In Praise of Limestone Back in the days when the sound Of the various different drummers Pounded out for all corners The same...
...When the narcissistic lilt, The jock's swagger, the airHead's nods and pouting pair Of eyebrows with the salt —Savorless—of affected Gestures of affection Empty of indirection, A mindlessness enacted, Our good sense flags, and weary Grows the old quizzical Frame that held our still Internalized Missouri But "show me" does no good If I am blind to being Shown and so unseeing That plain text reads as code...
...What passes for a hale And hopefully skeptical state We once felt was innate...
...Auden, In Praise of Limestone Back in the days when the sound Of the various different drummers Pounded out for all corners The same unchanging command, To march against Whatever Or to go limp and be Dragged off in the piety Of some general palaver Was only a cut above Proclaiming with shows of passion The hemline length of fashion...
...Look left, look right: the trace Of sameness blurs each face In its appalling mirror...
...this did not stop In our newly benighted land: Idling "hand in hand" Is our way of marching in step...
...Ocular evidence— If I am blind to what Is shown and what is not— Is just the theme of a dance...
...Quality" (what a Schandeh...
...A mass Of various bottled flavors No national cooking savors Stewed to a tasteless mess...
...In unison, ragged and loud That can hardly be Whitman's polyphony Of differences that led A democratic march, As whatever glory was fades, Now factional parades Pass by in a similar lurch "Diversity...
...the virtue claimed By what C. Wright Mills once named The "crackpot realist" (As if "experience" —Dense, Emersonian word— Had best remain unheard Though unembarrassing once...
...When used as an adjective It now just serves to give A sign that a whole agenda Is not to be discussed...
...Street-smarts...
...An intellectual Heil...
...These pound at truth and honor Like goose-stepping jackboots that Slap the pavement in flat Contempt, driven by inner Emptiness, soft terror...
...JOHN HOLLANDER 18 • DISSENT...
...Time passed...
...The young then, and the brave Were no less uniformed Than armies of their day, Well-drilled in their own way, And state-of-the-art well-armed...
Vol. 41 • January 1994 • No. 1
