Skip to main content

POEM FOR SNOWDEN #10: VAS DIAS





The Secret Stalker

Robert Vas Dias



say I'm very interested in you
say you're also interesting to the government
say the government becomes interested in me
            because I'm very interested in you
say you're not interested in the government
            being interested in you

say the government is stalking you
say we don't know the government is stalking you
say the government is stalking me
            because they're stalking you
            and because the government knows
            how interested I am in you

say the fact the government is stalking you is leaked
say I learn the government is also stalking me
say we're more interested in the government
            now the government is stalking us

say we ask the government to put a stop to this
say the government says they'll put a stop to this
            because although they're very interested in us
            they know how upsetting it may be for us

say the government continues stalking us even though
            they said they know it's upsetting us
say we ask the government again to put a stop to this

say the government puts a stop to us



                                                                        Copyright © 2013 Robert Vas Dias

 Robert Vas Dias, an Anglo-American born and now resident in London, has published ten collections in the UK and USA, the latest of which is London Cityscape Sijo (Perdika, 2012).  Still · Life and Other Poems of Art and Artifice appeared from Shearsman, 2010. His poetry and criticism have appeared in about 100 magazines, journals, and anthologies in both countries, including Ambit, Encounter, Envoi, Long Poem Magazine, Ninth Decade, Oasis, Poetry Review, Poetry Wales, Shearsman, Stand, Staple Magazine, Tears in the Fence, and The Warwick Review in the UK, and The Nation, The New Yorker, Partisan Review, and Poetry (Chicago) in the USA. A festschrift, Entailing Happiness, with contributions by 35 poets and writers, appeared in 2011.  He was founder-director of the Aspen Writers Workshop in Colorado and General Secretary of The Poetry Society in London. He is a core tutor with The Poetry School in London. Website: www.robertvasdias.com.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart?  A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional.  Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were.  For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ?  Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets.  But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ?  How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular.  John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se....
3 comments
Read more

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and  Silence of the Lambs .  I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".
1 comment
Read more

THE SWIFT REPORT 2023

I am writing this post without much enthusiasm, but with a sense of duty. This blog will be 20 years old soon, and though I rarely post here anymore, I owe it some attention. Of course in 2023, "Swift" now means one thing only, Taylor Swift, the billionaire musician. Gone are the days when I was asked if I was related to Jonathan Swift. The pre-eminent cultural Swift is now alive and TIME PERSON OF THE YEAR. There is no point in belabouring the obvious with delay: 2023 was a low-point in the low annals of human history - war, invasion, murder, in too many nations. Hate, division, the collapse of what truth is, exacerbated by advances in AI that may or may not prove apocalyptic, while global warming still seems to threaten the near-future safety of humanity. It's been deeply depressing. The world lost some wonderful poets, actors, musicians, and writers this year, as it often does. Two people I knew and admired greatly, Ian Ferrier and Kevin Higgins, poets and organise...
1 comment
Read more