No Complaining

"Laus et vituperatio"
Geoffrey Hill, from The Triumph of Love

Boating and alcohol and boots you can't break in,
and other things I'd explain if I knew where to begin.
It's true this family is a train wreck
scattered back to the Fall,
but there's no one to blame.
Those are your own footsteps in the hall.
That's all.

Bring misery match sticks,
I'll bring/ catastrophe kindling--
and meet me in the next dry forest--
we'll beat sparks from the same dead horse.
Now you work in the factory
where they make gods and governments
(but you're still not funny)
and angels that say, "No complaining"
to orphans who say, "No complaining."

Thatcher and Reagan. Pete Rose. Gene Simmons. You.
It's maybe okay I had nothing to say.
Who would I have said it to?
You said our anger was all fashion, you said
our heroes were all liars.
And we were only fifteen but what we saw in the city
looked like real blood, real fires.

Bring misery match sticks,
I'll bring/ catastrophe kindling--
and meet me in the next dry forest--
we'll beat sparks from the same dead horse.
I used to work in the factory where they make
intestines and breastbones. We tuned them like radios
to angels that say, "No complaining."

Now I live on a mountain side.
We drop high hopes from great heights
and most fall but some fly
up among the Angels of Praise and of Blame.

You still work in the factory
where they make gods and governments,
(and you're still not funny)
and angels that say, "No complaining"
to orphans who say, "No complaining",
and rich men who say, "No complaining",
and junkies who say, "No complaining",
and widows who say, "No complaining".