1927 by Terry Allen from The Art Culture and HIstory Anthology

 

1927

 

“Alright, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.”

—Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard

 

With only thirty-seven million casualties,

the war to end wars is over.

Yeats warns that the center cannot hold

and the Fitzgeralds are in Paris.

 

The Jazz Age is in full swing

and prohibition is the law

of the land at home

and damn is it profitable.

Al Capone earns sixty million dollars

by year’s end from alcohol sales alone.

 

Louis Armstrong cuts his first recording

and Duke Ellington settles in as pianist

and bandleader at the Cotton Club,

while Al Jolson sings and speaks

in the first talkie,

which will prove to be the ruin

of some silent film stars like Norma Desmond.

 

Flappers go out to all night parties

without a man

to look after them.

They drive fast cars,

smoke in public,

drink booze,

wear makeup

and hold men’s hands

without wearing gloves.

 

They dance the Charleston,

the Shimmy and…oh my…the Black Bottom

dances that fit

their fast-paced lifestyle.

 

As the world’s population

reaches 3 billion

and a post-war generation

clings to youth as if it could be

taken from them at any moment,

the center cannot hold

and all is expanding.

 

And yet in a quiet New York studio,

Georgia O’Keeffe fills a large canvas

with two giant red and orange poppies

with deep purple centers,

so inviting and dark

that one can almost

fall into them.

Biography

Terry Allen is an Emeritus Professor of Theatre Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, where he taught acting, directing and playwriting. He directed well over a hundred plays during his thirty-eight years of teaching. A few favorites include: Candide, Macbeth, Death of a Salesman, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and The Threepenny Opera. He is the author of five poetry collections: Monsters in the Rain, Art Work, Waiting on the Last Train,Rubber Time,andPreserving the Past for the Present.