ALICIA OSTRIKER
289
her a baby! and loving Johnny just to make him happy. . and writing
sermons to the Americans! because if! will not, who will do it?" To be use–
ful makes Goodman happy, obviously. And to be rejected makes him miser–
able. Balked in his will, he feels frustration, exhaustion, stupidity, in–
ability- "My countrymen have now become too base,! I give them up,"
''I've come to hate, it is appalling,! Adam I used to love" (Adam is man–
kind), "and I give no joy at all to anybody" -over which he suffers, until
next time: "oh today! I'll bring low those insolent giraffes!" (The giraffes
in this case are General Motors and the F.B.I.) . When lonely, he talks to
God, in whom he does not believe, but whom he considers responsible for
his gifts and burdens. He writes many' 'little prayers" asking endurance and
patience.
As a subjective moralist, we can link Goodman through Wordsworth to
Milton
(cf.
especially Sonnets 7 and 19, the introspections of a duty-driven
being), after whom he wrote many political sonnets, ("these hand-me–
downs of Milton's that I wear" ) some of them of almost unbearable poi–
gnancy. In "Flags, 1967," for example:
How well they flew together side by side
the Stars and Stripes my red and white and blue
and my Black Flag the sovereignty of no
man or law! They were the flags of pride
and nature and advanced with equal stride
across the age whenJefferson long ago
saluted both and said "Let Shays' men go.
If you discourage mutiny and riot
what check is there on government? "
Today
the gaudy flag
is
very grand on earth
and they have sewed on it a golden border,
but I will not salute it. At our rally
I see a small black flag of little worth
and touch it wistfully. Chaos is Order.
Not Miltonic at all, on the other hand, is Goodman's ability to score large
psycho-socio-political points by small talk, as in this neat dialogue-with–
swallowed smile:
What are they doing? Making a thread
of sand to sew the shards together.
Won't that at least keep them busy?
No, frustration leads to aggression.
What are you doing? As you see,
we are giving a press conference.
Don't you get frustrated too?
Yes, but we are pacifists.
