POEM
The Strife between the Poet and Ambition
Money and fame break in the room
And find the poet all alone.
They lock the door, so he won’t run,
And turn the radio full-on
And beat the poor dope like a drum.
“Better sing your snatch of song
Before that ostrich voice is dumb,
Better hit your share of gong
Before the sounding brass is mum:
Tomorrow, tomorrow Death will come
And find you sitting dumb and senseless
With your epics unbegun,
And take away your pens and pencils—
There’ll be no sculptures on your tomb
And other bards will occupy
Your seven-fifty sitting room.”
“Pardon, sirs, my penny face
Bowed to your dollar presences,
Curtsying to Famous Verse,
Flattering wealth with smiles and smirks,
Choking down my hopeless tears!
For someone stole my crate of birds,
And busted up the music box
In which I kept my market flocks
Of bull-ideas and mental bears
And my poetic pocketfox,
My case of literary deers,
My eagle-vans to bat the airs!
They broke the cages and let go
My aviary of metric birds,
And all the diction in my zoo
Was let out by the amateurs!
The fishpond of my Friday words
Is fished out by the days and years.
My whole menagerie of verse
Is ruined by these sly monsieurs!”
The days and years run down the beach
And throw his ideas in the air
And wind his similes up to pitch
And bat his verses out of reach.
He mopes along the empty shore
With gullcries in his windfilled ear.
The hours and minutes, playing catch
With every image they can snatch,
Bat his metaphors to the birds
And cheer him with these bullying words:
“Better sing your snatch of song
Before that ostrich voice is dumb:
Better whack your share of gong
Before the sounding brass is mum:
Tomorrow, tomorrow Death will come
And find your epics unbegun:
There’ll be no statues on your tomb,
And other bards will occupy
Your seven-fifty sitting room!”
Thomas Merton, “The Strife between the Poet and Ambition” from The Collected Poems of Thomas Merton. Copyright © 1968 by Thomas Merton. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.
Source: The Collected Poems of Thomas Merton (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1977)
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