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Recorded Reading (3:28): https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/a1c4ts2dqmywaszdofb4c/Class-Dismissed.m4a?rlkey=osw8ganpa6j5qym6p2yuvm6rv&dl=0

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(Companion to immediately prior posts “Tammany Hall I & II,” and “Superiorority.“

Being, on one side, granddaughter of an NACA scientist and daughter of an architect on the team which created America’s first indoor shopping mall, and, on the other, the issue of an European ducal house, “class” is bred into this poet’s very bones ~ and she is constantly astonished to discover that those higher elements of society here which should be assumed to possess and practice it can by no means be counted on to do so)

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Class Dismissed

All of us are anxious
The rich no less than poor
All of us are questioning
What we have all been heading for

Plenty of the wealthy
Are poorer than they seem
Or much more charitable are
Than the public deem

And plenty of the poor care not
Affirmative contribute to
Any effort may be made
A better day bring into view

All of us are wondering
How tangled we this web
All of us know resources
Are coming to an ebb

All of us are limited
Personal perspective in,
This much we must acknowledge
Before we can begin

To make our way together
A few workable answers to —
I need to leave off wondering
Which “class” you fit into

And you, by the same token,
You must begin to see,
Will need to leave off wondering
The same thing about me

For I’ve seen wealthy women act
Like fishwives in the marketplace
And ladies of the “primitive”
Comport themselves with grace

Of bearing and demeanor
Of motivation pure
Of an exquisite, delicate
Fully civilized allure

Nor in our august drawing rooms
Is noble sacrifice more found
Than in the squalid residences
Girding them around

Perhaps you know at table
Which fork one should correctly use
But this knowledge is meaningless
If you forcibly excuse

One who knows instead about
Something else which you do not:
In order your car work again,
Which part had best be bought,

How to conduct the power
With which you will stay warm,
Expecting not he will to
Your chosen skill set conform

And likewise must those artisans
Understand the role
Preservers of the val’uable
Contribute in the whole

Museum patrons and collectors
Fully as essential be
As are the basic laborers
Of our society

I give short shrift to citizens
Puffed up with pointless pride
Unceasingly refer to some
Completely fictive “class divide”

For if those bounds on any level
Legitimate were
This poet would live other
Than she does, you may be sure

‘Mongst souls who equally exist
Refined, yet grounded in good earth
Prepared to judge all value
By its own intrinsic worth

And not upon some silly scale
Spur’ious current fashion of —
“Class multipliers,” functioning
In universal love

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