Thought it was America
Is there anything which isn’t made in China?
The answer is… of course there is, the question
Was rhetorical, a crude attempt to palliate
China’s late renaissance; eighty years ago you’d say
That nothing was – or nothing much that
Mattered was, and still been wrong.
I’d clipped my nails, don’t like them long and chanced
To read the label on the tool, I thought it read
‘Made in China’, there’s the fool. It wasn’t, had
Been made next door, okay it’s nearly China but
Before we criticize my knowledge of geography, where
Would you say Korea came in terms of foreign policy?
Who would, you think, influence the ginkgo country
Most? And while we gabble on that point, why do we pay
Much more for petrol now than was the case ten years
Ago? It hasn’t showed a causal raise in costs that makes
The price okay, although inflation sways much more these
Days than all those years ago. And ponder on some more.
The reason to the fore, at least in ‘Honest (as the day as
Short)’ Johnny Howard’s call, is bloody China. He blames
The Chinese for the hike, says their growth was all it
Takes to push the market price beyond our reach. It’s not
Excise or foreign debt, but Chinese being just like us.
Crikey, all the time I thought it was America!
Related poetry:
- Thought Thought, I love thought. But not the juggling and twisting of already existent ideas I despise that self-important game. Thought is the welling up of unknown life into consciousness, Thought is the testing of statements on the touchstone of consciousness, Thought is gazing onto the face of life, and reading what can be read, Thought […]...
- Sonnet 01 – I thought once how Theocritus had sung I thought once how Theocritus had sung Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years, Who each one in a gracious hand appears To bear a gift for mortals, old or young: And, as I mused it in his antique tongue, I saw, in gradual vision through my tears, The sweet, sad years, the […]...
- America America I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing. America two dollars and twentyseven cents January 17, 1956. I can’t stand my own mind. America when will we end the human war? Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb. I don’t feel good don’t bother me. I won’t write my poem till I’m in my […]...
- Sonnet 44: If the dull substance of my flesh were thought If the dull substance of my flesh were thought, Injurious distance should not stop my way; For then despite of space I would be brought, From limits far remote, where thou dost stay. No matter then although my foot did stand Upon the farthest earth removed from thee; For nimble thought can jump both sea […]...
- The Results Of Thought Acquaintance; companion; One dear brilliant woman; The best-endowed, the elect, All by their youth undone, All, all, by that inhuman Bitter glory wrecked. But I have straightened out Ruin, wreck and wrack; I toiled long years and at length Came to so deep a thought I can summon back All their wholesome strength. What images […]...
- Sonnets 10: Oh, My Beloved, Have You Thought Of This Oh, my beloved, have you thought of this: How in the years to come unscrupulous Time, More cruel than Death, will tear you from my kiss, And make you old, and leave me in my prime? How you and I, who scale together yet A little while the sweet, immortal height No pilgrim may remember […]...
- Part 3 of Trout Fishing in America SEA, SEA RIDER The man who owned the bookstore was not magic. He was not a Three-legged crow on the dandelion side of the mountain. He was, of course, a Jew, a retired merchant seaman Who had been torpedoed in the North Atlantic and floated There day after day until death did not want him. […]...
- I Thought I was not Alone I THOUGHT I was not alone, walking here by the shore, But the one I thought was with me, as now I walk by the shore, As I lean and look through the glimmering light-that one has utterly disappeared, And those appear that perplex me....
- Song II: Have No Thought for Tomorrow Love is enough: have no thought for to-morrow If ye lie down this even in rest from your pain, Ye who have paid for your bliss with great sorrow: For as it was once so it shall be again. Ye shall cry out for death as ye stretch forth in vain Feeble hands to the […]...
- Images of snow – february 1996 snow is a thousand flowers The chinese probably said Hundreds and thousands this morning Drop their garlands on my head Last night the festoons started Long before we went to bed Snow is a white-furred rabbit The chinese probably wrote Hedgerows and fields this morning Wear a similar fluffy coat Last night the winter danced […]...
- What He Thought We were supposed to do a job in Italy And, full of our feeling for Ourselves (our sense of being Poets from America) we went From Rome to Fano, met The Mayor, mulled a couple Matters over. The Italian literati seemed Bewildered by the language of America: they asked us What does “flat drink” mean? […]...
- The things we thought that we should do The things we thought that we should do We other things have done But those peculiar industries Have never been begun The Lands we thought that we should seek When large enough to run By Speculation ceded To Speculation’s Son The Heaven, in which we hoped to pause When Discipline was done Untenable to Logic […]...
- Perception of an object costs Perception of an object costs Precise the Object’s loss Perception in itself a Gain Replying to its Price The Object Absolute is nought Perception sets it fair And then upbraids a Perfectness That situates so far...
- Thought Of Ph – a At News Of Her Death NOT a line of her writing have I, Not a thread of her hair, No mark of her late time as dame in her dwelling, whereby I may picture her there; And in vain do I urge my unsight To conceive my lost prize At her close, whom I knew when her dreams were upbrimming […]...
- Dream Song 130: When I saw my friend covered with blood, I thought When I saw my friend covered with blood, I thought This is the end of the dream, now I’ll wake up. That was more years ago Than I care to reckon, and my friend is not Dying but adhering to an élite group In California O. Why did I never wake, when covered with blood […]...
- Part 10 of Trout Fishing in America WITNESS FOR TROUT FISHING IN AMERICA PEACE In San Francisco around Easter time last year, they had a Trout fishing in America peace parade. They had thousands Of red stickers printed and they pasted them on their small Foreign cars, and on means of national communication like Telephone poles. The stickers had WITNESS FOR TROUT […]...
- A Thought or Two on Reading Pomfret's I have been reading Pomfret’s “Choice” this spring, A pretty kind of sort of kind of thing, Not much a verse, and poem none at all, Yet, as they say, extremely natural. And yet I know not. There’s an art in pies, In raising crusts as well as galleries; And he’s the poet, more or […]...
- Part 9 of Trout Fishing in America SANDBOX MINUS JOHN DILLINGER EQUALS WHAT? Often I return to the cover of Trout Fishing in America. I Took the baby and went down there this morning. They were Watering the cover with big revolving sprinklers. I saw some Bread lying on the grass. It had been put there to feed the Pigeons. The old […]...
- Part 7 of Trout Fishing in America THE PUDDING MASTER OF STANLEY BASIN Tree, snow and rock beginnings, the mountain in back of the Lake promised us eternity, but the lake itself was filled with Thousands of silly minnows, swimming close to the shore And busy putting in hours of Mack Sennett time. The minnows were an Idaho tourist attraction. They Should […]...
- Part 6 of Trout Fishing in America THE HUNCHBACK TROUT The creek was made narrow by little green trees that grew Too close together. The creek was like 12, 845 telephone Booths in a row with high Victorian ceilings and all the doors Taken off and all the backs of the booths knocked out. Sometimes when I went fishing in there, I […]...
- America America, you ode for reality! Give back the people you took. Let the sun shine again On the four corners of the world You thought of first but do not Own, or keep like a convenience. People are your own word, you Invented that locus and term. Here, you said and say, is Where we […]...
- I Hear America Singing I HEAR America singing, the varied carols I hear; Those of mechanics-each one singing his, as it should be, blithe and strong; The carpenter singing his, as he measures his plank or beam, The mason singing his, as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work; The boatman singing what belongs to him in […]...
- Thought for Thursday Tomorrow’s Thursday again, Swept with the days’ meandering flow: This, that, and the week goes, Hearing time splash through cracks. Whose arrangement now seems Spaced in distance of memories, Recollections, recurring regrets, The trickle of moments at hand. Once I encountered a woman, A stranger, traveling like I did: We shared our origins, Our parched […]...
- The right to perish might be thought The right to perish might be thought An undisputed right Attempt it, and the Universe Upon the opposite Will concentrate its officers You cannot even die But nature and mankind must pause To pay you scrutiny....
- It is an honorable Thought It is an honorable Thought And make One lift One’s Hat As One met sudden Gentlefolk Upon a daily Street That We’ve immortal Place Though Pyramids decay And Kingdoms, like the Orchard Flit Russetly away...
- Roaming in Thought ROAMING in thought over the Universe, I saw the little that is Good steadily hastening towards immortality, And the vast all that is call’d Evil I saw hastening to merge itself and become lost and dead....
- America Although she feeds me bread of bitterness, And sinks into my throat her tiger’s tooth, Stealing my breath of life, I will confess I love this cultured hell that tests my youth! Her vigor flows like tides into my blood, Giving me strength erect against her hate. Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood. […]...
- To Him Who Ever Thought with Love of Me To him who ever thought with love of me Or ever did for my sake some good deed I will appear, looking such charity And kind compassion, at his life’s last need That he will out of hand and heartily Repent he sinned and all his sins be freed....
- A Thought went up my mind today A Thought went up my mind today That I have had before But did not finish some way back I could not fix the Year Nor where it went nor why it came The second time to me Nor definitely, what it was Have I the Art to say But somewhere in my Soul I […]...
- Part 4 of Trout Fishing in America THE AUTOPSY OF TROUT FISHING IN AMERICA This is the autopsy of Trout Fishing in America as if Trout Fishing in America had been Lord Byron and had died in Missolonghi, Greece, and afterward never saw the shores Of Idaho again, never saw Carrie Creek, Worsewick Hot Springs, Paradise Creek, Salt Creek and Duck Lake […]...
- Shame You often look at her at some nights, when she is asleep so sound so tight. You wonder how come a child innocent can drive a grown up mad and impatient. Everything comes with a price, and what a tag for this one. Like last night when sleep crawled like a snail, a new day […]...
- A Deed knocks first at Thought A Deed knocks first at Thought And then it knocks at Will That is the manufacturing spot And Will at Home and well It then goes out an Act Or is entombed so still That only to the ear of God Its Doom is audible...
- I found the words to every thought I found the words to every thought I ever had but One And that defies me As a Hand did try to chalk the Sun To Races nurtured in the Dark How would your own begin? Can Blaze be shown in Cochineal Or Noon in Mazarin?...
- I thought the Train would never come I thought the Train would never come How slow the whistle sang I don’t believe a peevish Bird So whimpered for the Spring I taught my Heart a hundred times Precisely what to say Provoking Lover, when you came Its Treatise flew away To hide my strategy too late To wiser be too soon For […]...
- I many times thought Peace had come I many times thought Peace had come When Peace was far away As Wrecked Men deem they sight the Land At Centre of the Sea And struggle slacker but to prove As hopelessly as I How many the fictitious Shores Before the Harbor be...
- I Thought Of You I thought of you and how you love this beauty, And walking up the long beach all alone I heard the waves breaking in measured thunder As you and I once heard their monotone. Around me were the echoing dunes, beyond me The cold and sparkling silver of the sea We two will pass through […]...
- Long I Thought that Knowledge LONG I thought that knowledge alone would suffice me-O if I could but obtain knowledge! Then my lands engrossed me-Lands of the prairies, Ohio’s land, the southern savannas, engrossed me-For them I would live-I would be their orator; Then I met the examples of old and new heroes-I heard of warriors, sailors, and all dauntless […]...
- I thought that nature was enough I thought that nature was enough Till Human nature came But that the other did absorb As Parallax a Flame Of Human nature just aware There added the Divine Brief struggle for capacity The power to contain Is always as the contents But give a Giant room And you will lodge a Giant And not […]...
- Before you thought of Spring Before you thought of Spring Except as a Surmise You see God bless his suddenness A Fellow in the Skies Of independent Hues A little weather worn Inspiriting habiliments Of Indigo and Brown With specimens of Song As if for you to choose Discretion in the interval With gay delays he goes To some superior […]...
- After-Thought I thought of Thee, my partner and my guide, As being past away. – Vain sympathies! For backward, Duddon! as I cast my eyes, I see what was, and is, and will abide; Still glides the Stream, and shall not cease to glide; The Form remains, the Function never dies; While we, the brave, the […]...