Apr 15, 2006

the more wretched one

Apologies to WH Auden. None to the Dean of Students at Coral Academy, who thinks Auden's too racy for a poetry recital.



Watching the bumbling Dean, I know quite well
That, for all I care, she can go to hell.
No blinkered horse is half so blind
As a prude with a bridled, harnessed mind.

"Turn off the world outside, the unpristine.
When all is darkness, all equally clean."
If equal cleanliness, though, cannot be,
Let the more wretched one be me.

A Dean that won't endure "hell" or "damn"
Has the moral vigor of a jellied ham.
(Especially if the ham's a butt;
How's that for inappropriate?)

If jellied hams were all to rot away
Would they be mourned, even for a day?
Or would we jeer them, damn them all to hell?
Only time and poetry will tell.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have read all of your opinions with interest. The Judge in this case is a Republican and a past Attorney General of the State of Nevada. Some have said that this was a liberal decision. Judge Sandoval ruled the words hell and damn used in this context were neither vulgar or obscene. So much for the school policy manual.
What has been missed is Mrs. Ladouceur has resigned from a school she loved because of this prissy unreasonable school adminstration. Mrs. Ladouceur is my daughter and I can't tell you how proud I am of her. She supported her student even though she knew she would pay a price. She knew the meaning of the 1st Admendment. This nation is full of sheep and I'm proud to say my daughter is not one of them.

Jim Anderson said...

Indeed he did. The bleating is muffled, if only for a while. Cheers!