My Ford, my mind...

For me, he’s all I see.
Not even an invitation to a feely will distract me.
I do not know what it’s like to have someone real like him--
And I desperately want to know, I do.
It’s all I think about.
This is probably a good time to take some soma
And relax. A gramme is always better than a damn!
And if I’ve ever had a damn, it can’t be worse than never having him.
Now I’ll know what to do.

The soma makes me act
And I go to him
And he comes to me
And he speaks of forever!
Forever! Together!
Do such things truly occur?
Never mind; all I want is the here and now
(After all, never put off till tomorrow the fun you can have today!)
And I’m here
And it’s now
And he’s here, and so now--

One hit from his hand and I’m down.

For all of his acting as though he does not want me,
All the others more than make up for it with their gazes and their dates.
But, really? It doesn’t matter nearly as much as when he looks at me.
I am just an object for pleasure in their eyes
(But he really sees ME! My Ford, what a thought)
I bounce back and forth between them.
I do enjoy this, I do!
All of them the very best of men.
It’s very respectable, having had more of them than I can count.
Yet something is always missing.
A gramme is always better than a damn,
But do I really deserve nothing better than this or that man?
I stay with one for some time and others begin to notice
And so I move on in search of the next best thing.

When I have found something real
In someone who is even more real
He runs from me.
My ways, they scare him.
But reality, I think it scares me, too. (Soma takes care of that.)
It’s not really my fault, it’s just a result of my conditioning.
I try to make myself available
In every way I know how
But I frighten him
If I don’t make it obvious that I love him,
How else can he see?

Will he take me back?
Will he, will he please?
I make a grand gesture and walk to him with open arms
And he brings me down again.

Since his promises of forever eventually fell...
maybe nothing is really forever, after all.
I mean, that’s what I always thought anyway.
Right?

-Lenina Crowne

Allusion Paragraph

In Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men, the character Cass Mastern is representative of of the Greek legend Cassandra. Cassandra, who had the power to tell the future, is relative to Mastern as his journals serve as a startling message to his descendant Jack Burden. Mastern states that his single act of sin committed with Annabelle Trice upset the fabric of his entire world; because of it, his best friend died and the innocent slave, Phebe, was sold into an unknown future. Jack Burden feels that perhaps he did not finish his analysis of Mastern's journals "because he was afraid to understand for what might be understood there was a reproach to him." These journals serve as foresight to Burden's future as he witnessed the results of his actions in the deaths of Judge Irwin, Adam Stanton, and Willie Stark. Jack's relationship with Judge Irwin had once been fatherly, but changed when Jack uncovered the Judge's splotchy past under the orders of Willie Stark. Jack does not see Judge Irwin as a hero at all times, although the man had attempted to have a fatherly relationship with his biological son. The Greek character Telemachus is abandoned by his father and does not recognize him upon his reappearance; similarly, Jack is left behind by the Scholarly Attorney at a young age and later realizes that he must find the answer to the question, "Who is my father?" before he can answer it in regards to himself.

some slick stone (found poem)

the definitive stab of an icicle
dents the constituency, the very heart of its people
driven, needle-pointed, sent forth with a goal of hatred
it gestures like a delicate distraction--
flushing all again with a tint like blood

the human being is a very complicated contraption:
shining like clean bright gold,
treacherous like some slick stone
a person peeled skinless with the nerves laid bare
defines the narrow category of guilt versus innocence in this game

deep-set blue eyes, blazing like pale ice as he lies
are an untidy blue serge in the souls of the people
he pours upon them words like so much cold, cathartic rain
wiping them clean of all true conviction,
forming humanity into a great mass of uncreated clay

they stare, faces as smooth as marble--

and as emotionless as some slick stone.