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:
- a-tempest-in-a-teacup.html
- To The Right Honourable William, Earl Of Dartmouth, His Majesty’s Principal Secretary Of The State For North-America, by Phillis Wheatley
- Come Skating by Shel Silverstein
- Михаил Лермонтов – Валерик
- Song—The Birks of Aberfeldy by Robert Burns
- Robert Burns: Epistle To John Goldie, In Kilmarnock: Author Of The Gospel Recovered.
- The Pact by Sharon Olds
- Liebestod
- Journey with God by Raj Napal
- Thomas Lux – Thomas Lux
- Ladies And Gentlemen In Outer Space by Ron Padgett
- Orlando Furioso Canto 16 by Ludovico Ariosto
- june_sick_room.html
- Hast Thou A Song For A Flower by William Gilmore Simms
- Before the Altar poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
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
- Алексей Толстой – Ушкуйник
- Алексей Толстой – Угораздило кофейник
- Алексей Толстой – Ты знаешь, я люблю
- Алексей Толстой – Ты жертва жизненных тревог
- Алексей Толстой – Ты почто, злая кручинушка
- Алексей Толстой – Ты не спрашивай, не распытывай
- Алексей Толстой – Ты любишь в нем лишь первую любовь
- Алексей Толстой – Три побоища
- Алексей Толстой – То было раннею весной
- Алексей Толстой – Темнота и туман застилают мне путь
- Алексей Толстой – Тебя так любят все
- Алексей Толстой – Сватовство
- Алексей Толстой – Стасюлевич и Маркевич
- Алексей Толстой – Средь шумного бала, случайно
- Алексей Толстой – Смеркалось, жаркий день бледнел неуловимо
- Алексей Толстой – Слова для мазурки
- Алексей Толстой – Слепой
- Алексей Толстой – Сижу да гляжу я всe, братцы, вон в эту сторонку
- Алексей Толстой – Шумит на дворе непогода
- Алексей Толстой – С тех пор как я один
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.