Laura Tanne - 6 Short Poems (1925-1928)

Forgotten Poems #113

    
              —: Waitress :—

       It's funny—
       I can't seem to remember anything
       Except 50-cent checks and customers
       Who give a smile
       On the silver plattie of their belly-full good nature.
       I can't seem to remember anything
       Except omelettes and torrents of sweat and dish washers—
       They keep sprawling all over the place
       Greasing my thoughts,
       Clogging them with ugliness.
       God! I'm tired.
       My feet have a spinster's grudge
       Against the laughing gold of my young hair.
       God! I wish I could remember
       Where I once saw a nest of honey-sweet eggs
       In a tree where a strong wind blew.
    

    
              —: Growth :—

       I used to think pretty thoughts
       All dolled up in crinoline and lace
       The color of my little-girl dresses
       Matched my pink and lavender thoughts
       As they strolled along nice roads
       Where the wind was polite
       And the sun never said heated things to one . . .
       . . . But now . . . I am a factory worker
       Listening for silence amidst the dark roar
       Of a hundred machines
       Thrusting black-beast shapes before the sun.
       Sometimes my respectable memories
       Go into convulsions of horror at my thoughts.
       My respectable memories go running
       Down the street of the past
       To hide in yards of crinoline and lace . . .
       Because my thoughts are smoky and grimy,
       They are garbed in red and black;
       They speak blasphemy and feel a strange, fine hate.
    

    
              —: Restaurant :—

       The rats scurry over the dishes.
       The cockroaches play tag in the bread jar.
       Nice designs of grime embroider the greasy soup.
       And inside the liquid.
       Scraps of meat and potatoes float questioningly:
       “Why did that chemist commit suicide?”
       The boss says to the cook, “Step lively, there
       Keep a little cleaner, keep a little cleaner.”
       The cook says to the waitress, “You sleepyhead—
       Where'dja go last night—where'dja go last night?”
       The waitress says to the dishwasher, “G'wan, you black gal,
       Move a little faster, move a little faster.”

       Rat traps.
       Traps of enmity.
       And the lock is Big Change.
       And Big Change is where
       The clouds drift to a summer day.
    

    
              —: Boss :—

       He is a decaying pumpkin in a rosy field.
       Of redwood is the elegant office,
       And round and yellow his senile head,
       Prim and straight I sit taking dictation.
       My hair lies in dark, peaceful folds,
       My fingernails cut in pink foreignness to grime.
       “Yes, sir.” “No, sir.” inhabit my speech.
       But yet I am one of the masses
       A black vicious beetle
       Which will someday inject
       The black cancer of class war
       Into the rosy field of the office
       To suck and destroy the essence of decrepit pumpkins.
     

    
              —: In Dedham Courthouse :—
	              (Where Nicola Sacco was convicted)

       I cannot shut my eyes
       Without the vision of the convict's wife
       Coming to me.

       Her wailing that beat against
       The stone wall of the courthouse
       Until her voice bled.
       The terror in her eyes,
       Crushing the brown flowers sleeping within . . .
       And the passion-strength of her arms
       As she tore into the bars of the cage
       Which imprisoned her loved Nick . . .

       And he with sad comforting hands
       Smooths her tangled red hair
       After he had cried out
       From the despair of his soul,
            “I am innocent!”
    

    
              —: Family :—

       My sister Mathilde is wed to a Norwegian carpenter;
       Their babies are scoops of red fat lost in cream.
       My brother met a young Jewish girl—
       She drinks disillusionment like a good soldier.
       Cousin Helen divorced an Irish Catholic who beat her—
       Their brown-eyed boy justifies all murder and poetry.
       My Swedish grandmother danced too lond
       With a Russian pedlar passing through the Dalarne forests—
       Today her youngest girl dances in alleys of calumny's whispers.
       They are good people . . .
       That is why they locked me out.
       Cast me out of home and refuge . . .
       I love a Negro poet.
    

Laura Tanne (p. 1925-1930s) was considered one of the “Wobbly poets” (Industrial Workers of the World, or IWW). Much of the “Wobbly” poetry “remains scattered in the union's many periodicals and the International Socialist Review, awaiting rediscovery. The sheer number of Wobbly poets is staggering. No one has attempted a full count, but it is a safe bet that the IWW has had more poets than most unions have members. Even more impressive, however, is the diversity and quality of the poetic work these rebellious wage-slaves produced.” (Franklin Rosemont, Joe Hill: The IWW & the Making of a Revolutionary Workingclass Counterculture, 2015)

“Tanne was a gloriously original presence in IWW poetry, and by any standard qualifies as one of the union’s finest creative voices. Her wild, wondrous, spellbinding imagery and her blisteringly bitter proletarian black humor distinguish her from all other American poets of her time—Sadly, nothing seems to be known about this truly extraordinary poet apart from her poems: what is known about Laura Tanne stands just about at zero... I have not found her name in any of the books on the IWW, or in Wobbly memoirs. None of the old-timers I have interviewed or corresponded with remembered her at all. A query of mine about Tanne in the Industrial Worker years ago elicited no response. In view of the consistently high quality of her poetry, the wall of silence around her seems as outrageous as it is inexplicable.” (Rosemont, 2015)

“If America’s educational system were not so abjectly class-biased—so thoroughly under the thumb of capitalist/miserabilist ideology—the works of Joe Hill, T-Bone Slim, Mary Marcy, Jim Seymour, Laura Tanne, and other Wobblies would be a cherished part of the curriculum of every grade school, high school, and college in the land.” (Rosemont, 2015)

    
                —: After Laura Tanne :—
                          by Dick Whyte

“The personal is the political is the poetical...”

                * * *

       bones are buried
       beneath
       the factory:

       sunset          on boot
       tracks

              * * *

       economics are a form of
       violence,

       gardening:   all kinds of
       healing

              * * *

       the contingency
       plan
       was always evacuation,

              * * *

       how many houses?
       how many houseless?

       you do the math

              * * *

       even          the sparrows
       are appalled:

       but still they play

              * * *

       excavation: an ancient
       solution
       to a modern        problem

                * * *

       for a moment
       feeling everything:

       the rain not yet falling
       but it would
    

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