NOT UNDERSTOOD

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 916, 1 March 1957, Page 11

NOT UNDERSTOOD

(Dedicated to the Bardic Secret Brotherhood) U and Non-U: Fundamental basis of classification of New Zealanders, devised by the poet T. Bracken. Not understood. We move along asunder, The mists get thicker as our syntax goes, And in the fog we marvel and we wonder That any line we write, in verse or prose, Is understood. Not understood. We bury all our meanings, And dig them deeper as the years So by, Indulging thus our obscurantist leanings; And it will be no wonder if we die Not understood. Not understood. Despondency and madness Attend us as communications tail; We poets in our youth begin in gladness But end in Paul's or Whitcombe’s Christmas sale, Not understood. Not understood, Our tendency is laudable, Uttering, for elevation of our thought, In thick, sonorous voices, quite inaudible To the vast multitude; our books unbought, Not understood, Not understood. Poor souls with stunted vision Oft measure giants by their narrow gauge; The poisoned shafts of falsehood and derision Are oft impelled ’gainst us who mould the age, : Not understood. Not understood! How many hearts are aching _ For poems that are plain, and language terse! The poetry you write is epoch-making, Yet, wanting the accomplishment of verse, Not understood. O God, that bards could be a little clearer, Or write less often when they’ve nowt to say! O God, that bards would live a little nearer To us, and in the light of common dayNot under Milk Wood.

A. R. D.

FAIRBURN