Attack On The Ad-Man
by A. S. J. Tessimond
This trumpeter of nothingness, employed
To keep our reason dull and null and void.
This man of wind and froth and flux will sell
The wares of any who reward him well.
Praising whatever he is paid to praise,
He hunts for ever-newer, smarter ways
To make the gilt seen gold; the shoddy, silk;
To cheat us legally; to bluff and bilk
By methods which no jury can prevent
Because the law’s not broken, only bent.
This mind for hire, this mental prostitute
Can tell the half-lie hardest to refute;
Knows how to hide an inconvenient fact
And when to leave a doubtful claim unbacked;
Manipulates the truth but not too much,
And if his patter needs the Human Touch,
Skillfully artless, artlessly naive,
Wears his convenient heart upon his sleeve.
He uses words that once were strong and fine,
Primal as sun and moon and bread and wine,
True, honourable, honoured, clear and keen,
And leaves them shabby, worn, diminished, mean.
He takes ideas and trains them to engage
In the long little wars big combines wage…
He keeps his logic loose, his feelings flimsy;
Turns eloquence to cant and wit to whimsy;
Trims language till it fits his clients, pattern
And style’s a glossy tart or limping slattern.
He studies our defences, finds the cracks
And where the wall is weak or worn, attacks.
lie finds the fear that’s deep, the wound that’s tender,
And mastered, outmanouevered, we surrender.
We who have tried to choose accept his choice
And tired succumb to his untiring voice.
The dripping tap makes even granite soften
We trust the brand-name we have heard so often
And join the queue of sheep that flock to buy;
We fools who know our folly, you and I.
A few random poems:
- Power of Peace by Rixa White
- Robert Burns: A Grace Before Dinner, Extempore:
- English Poetry. Rupert Chawner Brooke. The Vision of the Archangels. Руперт Брук.
- Юлия Друнина – Ржавчина
- The Other by Sylvia Plath
- Виктор Гончаров – Опять пришла пора дождей
- Don’t know the answer by Vinko Kalinic
- The Other Side of Panic by Martina Reisz Newberry
- Can You See The Pride In The Panther? by Tupac Shakur
- Joy, Shipmate, Joy! by Walt Whitman
- Elusive Lover by Renu Ayyar
- English Poetry. Philip James Bailey. Festus – 45. Филип Джеймс Бэйли.
- Returned To Say by William Stafford
- The Novelist by W H Auden
- A Wintry Picture (II) poem – Alfred Austin
External links
Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry by Fledermaus
Talking Writing Monster’s Page –
Batty Writing – the bat’s idle chatter, thoughts, ideas and observations, all original, all fresh
Poems in English
- On Going Unnoticed by Robert Frost
- On a Tree Fallen Across the Road by Robert Frost
- October by Robert Frost
- Now Close the Windows by Robert Frost
- Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost
- Not To Keep by Robert Frost
- New Hampshire by Robert Frost
- Never Again Would Bird’s Song Be The Same by Robert Frost
- Neither Out Far Nor In Deep by Robert Frost
- My November Guest by Robert Frost
- My Butterfly by Robert Frost
- Mowing by Robert Frost
- Misgiving by Robert Frost
- Meeting and Passing by Robert Frost
- Maple by Robert Frost
- Looking For a Sunset Bird in Winter by Robert Frost
- Lodged by Robert Frost
- Locked Out by Robert Frost
- Leaves Compared With Flowers by Robert Frost
- Into My Own by Robert Frost
More external links (open in a new tab):
Doska or the Board – write anything
Search engines:
Yandex – the best search engine for searches in Russian (and the best overall image search engine, in any language, anywhere)
Qwant – the best search engine for searches in French, German as well as Romance and Germanic languages.
Ecosia – a search engine that supposedly… plants trees
Duckduckgo – the real alternative and a search engine that actually works. Without much censorship or partisan politics.
Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.
Parallel Translations of Poetry
The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works
Arthur Seymour John Tessimond (1902 -1962) was an English poet. He had a tumultuous childhood, ran from boarding school, went to work, somehow attended the University of Liverpool, avoided service in WWI and then discovered that he is unfit for military service after he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which in those days was known as manic depression. A.S. Tessimond is a wonderful poet though maybe somewhat underappreciated poet. He died from in 1962 from a brain haemorrhage.