Vox Populi
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Doug Anderson: Morning Prayer
I get up in the morning and dive into it
like those polar bear types
who break the ice for a swim in February,
not knowing if I’ll come up out of the hole.
Here is more language: what else
have we got except pictures and you can make pictures
with language. The world is in its usual
state of eternal return—
this must have scared Nietzche’s ghost
even as his sister was shaping his work for the Nazis.
I am an eternal innocent: I believe in love,
I believe in the ability of human beings
to transcend their repetitive ignorance.
To what do I attribute the present failure?
Spiritual exhaustion? Greed?
Being made numb and bumbling
by the images they ingest daily
without questioning? Having sold out
the human part of themselves, including imagination,
for the great soma? All of the above?
And yet I get up in the morning and say to myself
let’s go one more round. Let’s get up
and try again. Dear Spinoza’s God:
if everything is you how do you explain the excrescence
on your surface that is the present government?
How do you explain the stupidity of its followers?
Of all the ideas of God yours are the most palatable,
but why? You whisper back to me it is our mind,
the condition of. I’ll be the first to agree, still,
how heavy this bag of knowledge as I hit the road again,
the road inside me, the questioning, the yes, hope,
that finally, in a day I’ll not live to see, we’ll be free.
Or not: our telescopes and satellites still roaming
when the earth is an orbiting, smoking ash,
sending back the knowledge that might have saved us.
~~~~
Doug Anderson’s many books include the collection of poems Undress, She Said (Four Way, 2022). His work has appeared in many literary journals including Ploughshares, Poetry, Southern Review and Virginia Quarterly Review. He lives in Massachusetts.
Copyright 2025 Doug Anderson
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Love the polar bear type, love the telescopes…and how this poet dives in. Refreshing.
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There is a side of me which some people conclude, it’s a little nutty. But it’s part of my artistic side, my acting perhaps. But should I apologize? However, what I try to accomplish is perfectly sane. It’s just that the method may be a little different, and to some it looks a little nutty, like writing long. It’s just that I’m using my writing to explore the subject. Not all things I read require exploration, but in writings such as Doug’s poem, The Prayer, it needs thinking and analysis. It’s not a Robert Louis Stevenson, “I Had a Little Shadow.” It’s that when I’m writing, I look, then I compare and weigh my thoughts. Then perhaps, afterwards I can write short.
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No need to apologize, Luz. I find your long comments very interesting.
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In the poem, the poet declares what he believes should be the course of life in a human community. He says, ” I am an eternal innocent, I believe in love, I believe in the ability of humans to transcend their repetitive ignorance.” The poets’ claims are deeply spiritual, they suggest establishing goodness and justice for all. However, the poet speaks of experiencing a great dilemma. He describes how all around him he observes a reality that is contrary to establishing goodness, justice for all, and being led by love. The poet then gives what may be the reasons for the negative behavior of many others. He states, “To what do I attribute the present failure? Spiritual exhaustion? Greed?”
In this poem, the poet seems to be experiencing the travails of many poets and writers throughout human history. It seems that at a specific time in the history of human communities, there developed a decay in morality, where poets and writers decried such negative behavior within the people and warned that if not stopped, it would lead to the nations demise. Plato speaks about corruption among rulers in his writings in “The Republic”, and various Greek plays admonish against social corruption. Rome’s history is well known for its abundance of corruption within its government and among its people, where in such plays as “I Claudius” the corruption of Emperors and the Roman Senate is explored. Then there is the history of the European Middle Ages which is replete with the Greed of Kings and aristocrats and the accumulation of decadent opulence and grand castles, while most of its people were treated with injustice, were thought of as vermin, and lived sickly life’s, were overworked and died young.
However, there is one ancient history which gives a unique reason for these never-ending cycles in human history. Such histories are found in various books of the Old Testament. such as Ezequiel, Amos, Kings, and Malachi. Within these histories the reasons for negative behaviors given by the poets, philosophers and writers of the Old Testament history is very similar to what our poet gives in his poem: the poet says “Being made numb and bumbling.by the images they ingest daily without questioning. Having sold out the human part of themselves, including imagination, for the great soma? The imagination focused on the great soma seems to be one of the main reasons for forsaking the spirituality of love. In Deuteronomy 3:9-12 and Ezequiel 16, one of the reasons given for the people repeating the cycle of oppression and wrongdoing is presented as ” These people have forgotten where they came from.” The cycles continues because those who have suffered oppression have decided to forget their oppression, so when others helped them and they healed and prospered, they started doing to others as was done to them. They began to act as their oppressors.
The reasons given by Ezequiel and Deuteronomy, seem to be very evident in the history of the great immigration of the poor from Europe to America. Once they found their fortune, they simply forgot their suffering, and the treatment they received for millenniums by their oppressors, and worse yet they decided to treat the new poor with the same persecution, oppression and contempt as their former Dracula-like Masters.
We can say that as a modern history, which applies imperial/objective data, perhaps we can say that modern society has made much social, and scientific gain, but the poet is writing about how the people experience their lives at this present time. so that in spite of all the gains, the people look aghast at the corruption, the alienation, the feelings of disconnection from the whole, and the loneliness. So that the spirituality of love, equality and justice is diminished.
So where is God? Where is the Great I am, or where is the essence of goodness. which at times we see in nature. Spinoza says, “it is our mind, the condition of.” As Isaiah said, alluding to spirituality “You will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive”
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Oh my, Luz. What a response! Thank you!
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Correction: On the fifth paragraph (O my God, I wrote a fifth paragraph) second line, the word imperial, should be empirical.
Thank you, Michael, my response to Doug Andersons poems/writings is to write a lot, but I’ve found I’m not the only one. Writers who have reviewed his work also write a lot, as if they had a hard time stopping. He’s magical in that respect, as if one is writing under some kind of enchantment.
But in any case, I wish I could re-write my opinion, perhaps it would be more concise, shorter.
I stopped and didn’t mention how much I enjoyed the way he constructed his poem. One first reads the Title, “Morning Prayer” and one sets a warmth in one’s mind as if for prayer, but then one is hit with an unexpected devise in the first line, which feels “ice cold.” The line is “I get up in the morning and dive into it like those polar bear types
who break the ice for a swim in February,”
Immediately with the words prayer and ice, one is made ready to read the subject of his poem. After this first line, every other line is connected to depths of meaning. For example, his discussion on “not knowing if I’ll come up out of the hole.” The situation in the poem creates doubt, and perhaps even death.
Then, “Here is more language: what else
have we got except pictures, and you can make pictures
with language.” What I hear in these lines is, that the only weapons we have are words and pictures to defend ourselves. There is a very old belief about the power of words, which appears in Hebrews 4:12, it mentions that it is describing God’s word, however if a poet or a writer is being imputed with the power of Goodness and a mission, it describes the words of the poet. The passage says, “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and is able to discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”. It moves mountains!
What about the line, “The world is in its usual
state of eternal return—”
Many of the writers who reviewed Doug’s work, wrote that they found themselves memorizing many of Doug’s lines.
I’m tempted to memorize the last lines from this poem,
“I’ll be the first to agree, still,
how heavy this bag of knowledge as I hit the road again,
the road inside me, the questioning, the yes, hope,
that finally, in a day I’ll not live to see, we’ll be free.
Or not: our telescopes and satellites still roaming
when the earth is an orbiting, smoking ash,
sending back the knowledge that might have saved us.”
WARNING: BEWARE THIS POEM GROWS ON YOU!
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Loved this poem. It harbors the duality of life. In the face of” man’s repeatative ignorance” to the pure act of hope of every morning, getting up to ‘dive in again”
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I couldn’t agree more. Thanks, Lori!
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Me too, Lori. Love this poem.
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Just right for a month that feels like only Mondays. Gave me a kick in the proverbial in order to start thinking again. I was a bit pralised by recent and ongoing events.
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Me too, Rose Mary. A kick in the proverbial!
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Read after morning meditation. I stop. Reread. There is sun on the prayer flags outside my window. I imagine these words rising with the flags, the breeze. A tiredness, not from lack of sleep, my eye and brain linger in each eclectic symbol on my altar, this poem/prayer will help me to rise one more time, my grandchild still sleeping.
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Beautiful comment, Barbara. Thank you.
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A perfect example of the kind of poet that has been called the “wry observer” (see Danusha Laméris’s “Nine Lenses” online sessions). The wry observer’s voice is dry, ironic, self-deprecating; they share a laugh with the reader over the absurdities of existence and human foibles; they often include a phrase or passage which, in contrast to the prevailing tone of wise-foolery, reveals a vein of profound pain (“how heavy this bag of knowledge”); they sometimes fold in lessons from mythology or philosophy. It takes a great deal of talent to successfully write in the wry observer mode!
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Thank you, Therese, for this intelligent germane comment.
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This is a prayer against weariness of spirit, one I needed this morning. And I appreciate the way in which this is to be considered a prayer: an apostrophe of sorts, granting itself permission in the face of doubt, of even unbelief. The “faith” here is in “the ability of human beings/ to transcend their repetitive ignorance,” a faith that’s shaken daily, and one which this poem helps to strengthen, at least for another day.
Thank you Doug. And thanks, Michael for Vox Populi.
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Thank you, Richard. You are an important part of VP.
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A poem that helps me understand the complexity of our own times, especially in dealing with the deep question: To Be or Not to Be (both personally and as a culture).
And Nietzsche’ ghost once again throws up its hands in disgust or despair, at how its philosopher is still being used to justify rule by oligarchs who believe selfishness is a virtue, and who claim wealth proves their superman superiority.
Yet we non-oligarchs rise to each new day. His poem, in its thoughtful way, helps me do that. I hope it helps Doug Anderson continue to rise too.
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‘And Nietzsche’ ghost once again throws up its hands in disgust or despair…’ This line will stay with me, Jim. Thank you.
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OMG, Doug Anderson, you have summed it up beautifully, right down to holding on to hope in the face of so much that seems hopeless. Thank you for sharing this, Michael.
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It’s a great poem, isn’t it? It glides effortlessly from the personal to the political to the spiritual.
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Thank you, Michael. I’ve shared it on Facebook. Happy New Year (if one can possibly be happy about the incoming administration).
D
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Thanks, Doug. Eva and I have been down with the flu the last few days, so I’ve been neglecting VP. You’ve trusted me with your work since the first days of VP ten years ago.
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