Elisabeth Wentworth: Two poems

Modern Management

No-one gets fired these days

We are managed out.

No speeches, no pink slips

Just a mute, vicious, confusing shift

That eats our confidence like acid.

Do it for long enough

And we will propel ourselves

Out the door.

A sudden withdrawal of inclusion.

A substitution of low-grade tasks

For the work we once took pride in.

A small, sharp prodding at our insecurities.

If we already have wounds

So much the better.

Depression quite often leads

To resignation.

They tend to do it ahead of time,

Before the entitlements are earned.

It reduces the payment.

It avoids a claim.

Like most evil it is deliberate but mindless,

Learned from a secret, wicked manual

The strategy invisible to those

Who look for reason in men’s actions.

But your secret is out now.

The word has been spread

Amongst the shattered victims

Who healed only when they learned

It was not personal.

We are onto you.

You will have to find another way.

Elisabeth Wentworth

How to Survive a Catastrophe

Lay down stores in anticipation.

Memorise poems, declaimed in extremis

Across the millennia, to recite in our own dire need.

Day-Lewis turned to Virgil in “the long midwinter”

When folly, once more, threatened obliteration.

Make plans to replant your kitchen garden,

Both laureates advised.

War always ends before it begins again.

Dig in some punctuation for the time of chaos.

When communications are down and we are reduced

To chalked messages on the remains of a wall,

Proper placement of the apostrophe—

It’s safer to the East!—

May give both compass and hope

To an erudite leader, who will stay strong, knowing

All cannot be lost if the rules of grammar prevail.

Cultivate the company of historians.

Whether meek or mighty

They come into their blessed own when all around bewail

And cry out that the world has come to an end.

If asked politely, they will recall the many times

Freedom has followed desolation.

“That went by, this may too”

As Deor tells us from his darkened Saxon hall.

Become familiar with the names and the acts

Of the Righteous Among the Nations.

Know that fear will not keep you safe

And feats of kindness and courage will not be forgotten.

The wicked will always give us false choices

Before they begin their work in earnest.

Learn to be the bystander become honourable

Who chooses to open the door.

And when catastrophe comes, don’t be afraid to pray

Or to share the prayer of the one who is at your shoulder.

Above all, keep the poets safe

So they may record for eternity

that we survived.

Elisabeth Wentworth