WHERE ART IS A MIDWIFE By Tom Paulin

In the third decade of March,

A Tuesday in the town of Z--

The censors are on day-release.

They must learn about literature.

There are things called ironies,

Also symbols, which carry meaning.

The types of ambiguity

Are as numerous as the enemies

Of the state. Formal and bourgeois,

Sonnets sing of the old order,

Its lost gardens where white ladies

Are served wine in the subtle shade.

This poem about a bear

Is not a poem about a bear.

It may be termed a satire

On a loyal friend. Do I need

To spell it out? Is it possible

That none of you can understand?

From “Scanning the Century: The Penguin Book of the Twentieth Century in Poetry,” edited by Peter Forbes (Penguin UK: 596 pp., $22.95)