Furbelow
A
furbelow is fur below
sewn
on to cause a stir below
but
hardly keeps the ankles warm.
In
fact it has no function, only form.
Epitome
of decadence,
what
can it offer but offense
to
someone whose aesthetic taste
or
moral sense eschews such frills and waste?
Now
I’ve seen hungry masses bleed
and
heard them howl, and am agreed
the
we should spurn the pointlessness
of
affluence and decadent excess.
But
there is some philosophy
that
counters this simplicity
suggesting
Life’s a cabaret—
you
know the movie and the Broadway play.
And
operas that enthrall and move
were
not intended to improve.
While
Nero’s tunes, no man condones,
today
some violins make pleasant tones.
The
conscientious acts you do—
I’ve
done them too—are nothing new.
But
Shakespeare didn’t really write
to
change the world forever but delight
the
Globe; while Einstein, Roosevelt,
even
Gene Kelly, will be felt
for
a good while—but none will know
them
in a hundred million years or so.
And
authentic acts of charity
aren’t
earmarked for posterity,
while
any consciousness we raise
will
only be lowered again in a thousand days.
But
let’s sow on, though what we sew
may
only be a furbelow,
for
it is, in fine, a third of All—
along
with foofaraw and folderol.
James B. Nicola
James B.
Nicola’s poetry and prose have appeared in the Antioch, Southwest, Green
Mountains, and Atlanta Reviews;
Rattle; Barrow Street; Tar River; and Poetry
East, garnering two Willow Review
awards, a Dana Literary award, one Best of the Net nom and seven Pushcart
nominations. His full-length collections are Manhattan Plaza (2014), Stage
to Page (2016), Wind in the Cave
(2017), Out of Nothing: Poems of Art and
Artists (2018), Quickening: Poems
from Before and Beyond (2019), and Fires
of Heaven: Poems of Faith and Sense (2021). His decades of working in the
theater as a stage director, composer, lyricist, playwright, and acting teacher
culminated in the nonfiction book Playing
the Audience: The Practical Guide to Live Performance, which won a Choice award. A Yale grad, he currently
hosts the Hell's Kitchen International Writers' Round Table at his library
branch in Manhattan: walk-ins welcome.