Beating In The Wind Poem by gershon hepner

Beating in the void my wings that are
not luminous, in Angels’ City I
resemble Arnold’s Shelley, film that’s noir
the vehicle that might best clarify
my lifestyle and my modus operandi
when I attempt to soar, and dearly wish
that everyone though I was fine and dandy,
the equal––and why not? ––of Percy Bysshe.
Perhaps the world is tone deaf, but that shouldn’t
deter me. Giving up prosperity––
and is there any poets, say, who wouldn’t? ––
I’ll wait until the verdict of posterity.
Till it arrives, I’ll bind my LA time,
and scan the world like poetry, in rhyme.


Inspired by a letter in today’s WSJ by Ronald L. Trowbridge, “What if It Was Bush’s ‘Fishy’ Plan? ”

Samuel Johnson and Matthew Arnold would have agreed with Dorothy Rabinowitz's charge that Obama is 'tone deaf' ('Obama's Tone-Deaf Health Campaign, ' op-ed, Aug.11) . Dr. Johnson said, 'The purpose of travel is to govern the imagination with reality.' Barack Obama should probably travel more. And Matthew Arnold said, befitting President Obama, that the poet Percy Shelley was 'a beautiful and ineffectual angel beating in the void his luminous wings in vain.'
Ronald L. Trowbridge

8/13/09