All the Members of My Tribe Are Liars

A
Think of a self-effacing missionary
Tending the vices of a problem tribe.
He knows the quickest cure for beri-beri
And how to take a bribe.

And so the mind will never say it’s beaten
By primitive disturbance of the liver;
Its logic will prevent its being eaten,
Get it across the river.

But faced with this assured inconsequence
That damns the very method that is used,
It leaves the heart unproselytised and hence
Admits that it’s confused.

I know I’m acting, but I still must act.
I melt to foolishness, and want it ended.
Why it continues is this simple fact:
I’d hate to end it.

For now the jungle moods assert their terms
And there’s no way to check them if they lie:
The mind attempts to solve the thing, but squirms
And knows exactly why.

The world is everything that is the case.
You cannot see it if you are inside it.
That’s why the tortoise always wins the race:
the very terms decide it.

I cannot help it if I am contented
With being discontented that I falter:
That’s why psychology was first invented
So that we needn’t alter.

It is a strange position to be in.
It would be different if I didn’t know
Why the unlikely animal should win,
Which cannibal should row.

You’d think there’d be a way of cutting out
Those self-destructive layers of introspection.
To reach the truth at last without a doubt
Of making the connection.

That’s why the missionary, on his guard,
Is wondering why the cannibal’s so merry,
And why it is so very very hard
To be a missionary.
52
Rating:

Comment form:

*Max text - 500. Manual moderation.

Similar Poems:

Madeleine in Church by Charlotte Mew
Charlotte Mew
Here, in the darkness, where this plaster saint
Stands nearer than God stands to our distress,
And one small candle shines, but not so faint
As the far lights of everlastingness,
I’d rather kneel than over there, in open day
Where Christ is hanging, rather pray
To something more like my own clay,
Not too divine;
Read Poem
0
86
Rating:

The Death of the Hired Man by Robert Frost
Robert Frost
Mary sat musing on the lamp-flame at the table
Waiting for Warren. When she heard his step,
She ran on tip-toe down the darkened passage
To meet him in the doorway with the news
And put him on his guard. ‘Silas is back.’
She pushed him outward with her through the door
And shut it after her. ‘Be kind,’ she said.
She took the market things from Warren’s arms
And set them on the porch, then drew him down
To sit beside her on the wooden steps.

‘When was I ever anything but kind to him?
But I’ll not have the fellow back,’ he said.
‘I told him so last haying, didn’t I?
If he left then, I said, that ended it.
Read Poem
0
97
Rating:

Home Burial by Robert Frost
Robert Frost
He saw her from the bottom of the stairs
Before she saw him. She was starting down,
Looking back over her shoulder at some fear.
She took a doubtful step and then undid it
To raise herself and look again. He spoke
Advancing toward her: ‘What is it you see
From up there always—for I want to know.’
She turned and sank upon her skirts at that,
And her face changed from terrified to dull.
He said to gain time: ‘What is it you see,’
Mounting until she cowered under him.
‘I will find out now—you must tell me, dear.’
She, in her place, refused him any help
With the least stiffening of her neck and silence.
She let him look, sure that he wouldn’t see,
Read Poem
0
67
Rating:

Hotel François 1er by Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein
It was a very little while and they had gone in front of it. It was that they had liked it would it bear. It was a very much adjoined a follower. Flower of an adding where a follower.
Have I come in. Will in suggestion.
They may like hours in catching.
It is always a pleasure to remember.
Have a habit.
Any name will very well wear better.
All who live round about there.
Have a manner.
The hotel François Ier.
Just winter so.
It is indubitably often that she is as denied to soften help to when it is in all in midst of which in vehemence to taken given in a bestowal show than left help in double.
Having noticed often that it is newly noticed which makes older often.
The world has become smaller and more beautiful.
The world is grown smaller and more beautiful. That is it.
Yes that is it.
Read Poem
0
91
Rating:

I Wish I Want I Need by Gail Mazur
Gail Mazur
The black kitten cries at her bowl
meek meek and the gray one glowers
from the windowsill. My hand on the can
to serve them. First day of spring.
Yesterday I drove my little mother for hours
through wet snow. Her eightieth birthday.
What she wanted was that ride with me—
shopping, gossiping, mulling old grievances,
Read Poem
0
64
Rating:

Andrea del Sarto by Robert Browning
Robert Browning
But do not let us quarrel any more,
No, my Lucrezia; bear with me for once:
Sit down and all shall happen as you wish.
You turn your face, but does it bring your heart?
I'll work then for your friend's friend, never fear,
Treat his own subject after his own way,
Fix his own time, accept too his own price,
And shut the money into this small hand
When next it takes mine. Will it? tenderly?
Oh, I'll content him,—but to-morrow, Love!
I often am much wearier than you think,
This evening more than usual, and it seems
As if—forgive now—should you let me sit
Here by the window with your hand in mine
And look a half-hour forth on Fiesole,
Read Poem
0
111
Rating:

Ben Jonson Entertains a Man from Stratford by Edwin Arlington Robinson
Edwin Arlington Robinson
You are a friend then, as I make it out,
Of our man Shakespeare, who alone of us
Will put an ass's head in Fairyland
As he would add a shilling to more shillings,
All most harmonious, — and out of his
Miraculous inviolable increase
Fills Ilion, Rome, or any town you like
Of olden time with timeless Englishmen;
And I must wonder what you think of him —
All you down there where your small Avon flows
By Stratford, and where you're an Alderman.
Some, for a guess, would have him riding back
To be a farrier there, or say a dyer;
Or maybe one of your adept surveyors;
Or like enough the wizard of all tanners.
Read Poem
0
81
Rating:

A Death in the Desert by Robert Browning
Robert Browning
[Supposed of Pamphylax the Antiochene:
It is a parchment, of my rolls the fifth,
Hath three skins glued together, is all Greek,
And goeth from Epsilon down to Mu:
Lies second in the surnamed Chosen Chest,
Stained and conserved with juice of terebinth,
Covered with cloth of hair, and lettered Xi,
From Xanthus, my wife's uncle, now at peace:
Mu and Epsilon stand for my own name.
I may not write it, but I make a cross
To show I wait His coming, with the rest,
And leave off here: beginneth Pamphylax.]

I said, "If one should wet his lips with wine,
"And slip the broadest plantain-leaf we find,
Read Poem
0
103
Rating:

Wildflowers by Richard Howard
Richard Howard
for Joseph Cady

Camden, 1882 Is it raining, Mary, can you see?
Read Poem
0
101
Rating: