Random Sestina; On Capital

• by
• Charles Martin

Random Sestina

So if I were to choose six random words,
Ignoring utterly their sound and meaning
And set them down while keeping my mind free
Of any aim, would this turn out to be
All that much different from how John Cage
Conducted operations by pure chance?
 
The process surely would increase the chance
Of chance determining just how the words
Fell into place, with—let’s see—the word, “cage”
Deployed with no attention to its meaning
At the end of the third line—wouldn’t this be
The perfect way to set a poem free
 
Of ego’s shackles? I mean almost free:
Though partly liberated, there’s small chance
That such a composition could ever be
(Because of the duplicity of words)
Divorced from what we think of as its meaning,
Like finches fleeing from the wicker cage
 
Someone left open. (Was it you, John Cage?)
Closed forms, which we do not describe as “free,”
Like this sestina, ought to have some meaning
Or meanings not attributable to chance.
Some human purpose ought to guide the words
Into their places, set them up to be
 
The very thing that they were meant to be.
The finches flutter back into their cage.
(By “finches” you will see that I mean “words,”
Freshened, perhaps, by being briefly free.)
And if you want to know what purpose chance
Plays in all of this great dance with meaning,
 
This poem comes out of a single meaning—
Meeting, I meant to say, but let that be—
When Donald Justice learned how to use chance
Operations in an encounter with John Cage.
He liked how the technique could set him free,
But also liked manipulating words
 
Too much to free them utterly: that words
Must be selected for both sound and meaning
He’d known before, by chance, he met John Cage.
 
 
 

On Capital

 
You only have to walk through Hudson Yards
To understand that inequality
Isn’t a problem that the Overlords
Have given time or thought or energy
Of any kind to solving recently,
If ever: praise the genius who designed
This never to be unbuilt place where envy
And ostentation are so well aligned.
 
The Overlords are happy to allow
Their visitors a glimpse of the estate
And look down distantly as tourists flow
Along the High Line, out to demonstrate
Their satisfaction with time briefly spent
In the sanctuary of the one percent.