Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, VACUUM, by LEE WILSON DODD


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

VACUUM, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: That evening - wow! That evening
Last Line: "nearer my god to thee --"
Subject(s): Parties; Storms


That evening -- wow! That evening! For three days
We had been storm-bound in Selina's camp --
Selina Frew, of course, the radical,
Wife of G. Manville Frew, the millionaire.
Selina had asked our gang up for the week-end,
Promising "winter sports"; but we all went
Hoping to dodge the skating and skeeing
And all the primitive boredom of out-o'-doors,
And -- well, we dodged it. Hardly had we reached
Frew's rustic mountain-palace when the snow
Came sifting like dry mica from the North,
And with it came a wind out of the North
To drive and pile a dry white dust of death
In ten-foot drifts. . . . I've never seen a blizzard
That equalled this one for malignency:
But then, I'm not a traveller in wild paths;
I'm city-broken, therefore, nature-shy;
My natural habitat is called Times Square,
With certain runways down adjacent street
And burrows into theatres and hotels.
In short, I do the "first nights" and a column
Of smartish chit-chat for The Planet. . . .

Well;
There we were, all of us, safe, sound and snug
In all the luxury Selina loves,
And loves above all things to satirize,
And likes to dream she's fighting to abolish.
So we weren't worrying -- not much! Our crowd,
If we knew one thing better than another,
Knows how to take whatever gifts the gods
Offer, and loaf at ease in Zion. Frew's whiskey
Was far beyond suspicion; Frew's cigarettes
Were such as no Young Turk could criticize;

And as for Frew's cigars --! Shade of Lucullus! --
Did we not dine and dance and dine again,
And play seven sorts of poker, from Red Dog
To Deuces Wild, and laugh ourselves to death,
And flirt in shifting couples, and play tag
From cellarge to garret; or else we'd gossip
Witty hours long of Grub Street and Broadway!
We did. I'll say we did. . . . Meanwhile the wind,
A maniac killer from far wastes of death,
Screamed at us, clawed for us -- vainly, and heaped up
His dry white dust swept from the corridors
Of desolation, making blank the world.

We mocked at him, our impotent enemy!
Thus for two days we mocked at him . . . and then,
His fury not abating, and that smother
Of streaming measureless mica never ceasing,
We mocked no more. Something had changed us,
But inperceptibly: we did not know
When, or how or why we had changed.

On Monday morning,
The storm unstilled, we had no golden cream
To enrich our pungent coffee -- just powdered milk
From tins, mixed up with water; and the chef
Was in despair. Selina too looked troubled.
She hadn't stocked her larder for a siege.
No one could pass the roads, though; it might be
A week before such drifts were channeled through.
We weren't in the least danger -- save of one thing,
A vague and brief discomfort; but we hadn't
Bargained for that. It irked us. We grew bored:
First with the storm, then with our precious selves.
No dancing now. I found a last year's novel,
Hugged a withdrawing corner and feigned to read:
But the storm was on my nerves. No longer day

Ever, I'll swear, dragged out of its infinite hours!
Maisie and Jane quarreled that afternoon,
And sulked through dinner -- and I saw Salina
Biting her lips to check a snarl, or tears.
So the evening threatened inner storm to match
The outer wearying tumult; and if a joke
So much as showed its head we wrung its neck.
You know the mood, perhaps.

Well, finally
We huddled in a dour group about the fire
And grouched, and gibed at life, and soon forgot
Our misery in the fun of cursing God.
You couldn't beat our gang for cynicism
That night; we rang all changes on the Doom
Of Man -- we revelled in the Doom of Man!
Poor creatures of a day, ape-generated,
Whose flesh was burning grass on a slight planet --
A slight and transient atom of no account
In Fate's fortuitous Yawn, the Universe.
Thus, having cheered and fortified our souls,
We fell to lengthy and ironic contes,
All pessimistic, all illustrative
Of this dull swindle -- Life. And, last of all,
Old Jemmy Colton, being sombre-drunk,
Brain-seared with a black fire of prophecy,
Began a mad tale of the End of Things: --
"Look forward, say, two hundred years -- what then?
Supposing the world lasts two hundred years;
Though, in some wrecked and arid form, it may
Last billions. Never mind. Two hundred years
From now will find us, I predict, no wiser,
No better -- far more happy. . . . I predict
A swift change in the social state of man.
No, no, Selina; not your Revolution --
That's a child's toy to what I see before us!
Well; I see this:

Man has outrun his strength --
The accumulated knowledge of mankind
Already crushes him. Science has forged
A vast, accelerating mechanism
That, lacking brains to rule it, thrashes on
Toward unimagined chaos. If you have read
Old Henry Adams, and could stumble after
The forked and subtle lightnings of his mind,
You seize my thought, for it derives from him.
Yet I see further, being inspired tonight,
Or being drunk -- or bored -- or . . . well, no matter.
Nevertheless the Veil parts to my glance
And I stare forward, shuddering. And I see
A dull and coddled race of slaves, ruled over
By a small group of Super-scientists:
Earth's last, unbreakable Monopoly,
The Monopoly of Mind, being theirs -- theirs only!
These demi-gods -- a handful -- rule the world.
As for the populace, it lives as silk-worms
Live on their leaves, for Science has set free
The Energy of the Atom and harnessed it;
And -- paid by some two hours of daily routine --
Doles out the luxuries men struggle for
No longer, since all men at last possess them.
A Golden Age of Bland Stupidity:
A billion clouds ruled over, cared for, despised
By fifty Minds -- the Masters! . . ."

But, just then,
As Jemmy Colton paused and sought his glass,
Jane, once his wife, now Billy Miner's wife,

Said: "Oh, for hell's sake, Jemmy, cut it out!
You'll give us all the horrors. As for me,
I love this rotten, meaningless old world!"
And someone else said, "Sure, of course you do!
We all do!" Whereupon, pat to the words,
Baptiste, the head guide of Selina's camp,
Came in and told us that the snow had ceased,
The wind was failing -- and the moon was out.

Lord, how we chattered and laughed and danced that night!

And when we carried Jemmy up to bed
We made it a mock funeral, all forming
A long procession up the stairs, with candles;
All croaking the hymn we all remembered --
"Nearer my God to Thee --"





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