"The porchlight coming on again,
Early November, the dead leaves
Raked in piles, the wicker swing
Creaking. Across the lots
A phonograph is playing Ja-Da.
An orange moon. I see the lives
Of neighbors, mapped and marred
Like all the wars ahead, and R.
Insane, B. with his throat cut,
Fifteen years from now, in Omaha.
I did not know them then.
My airedale scratches at the door.
And I am back from seeing Milton Sills
And Doris Kenyon. Twelve years old.
The porchlight coming on again."
The circular structure and temporal
complexity of this poem adds to the significance of its somber theme.
Obviously, Kees was not twelve years old when he wrote this, yet
phrases like “the wars ahead,” “fifteen years from now,” and
“I did not know them then” help to make this historical narrative
timeless. There is a sense that everything that will ever happen has
happened already, and that humanity will continue to live out in
these same patterns of innocence, violence, and nostalgia. Kees
demonstrates immense skill in documenting an era. The audience can
easily place themselves both within the Roaring Twenties and within
the frame of a post-WWII fallout. Instead of glorifying the
supposedly heroic acts of war, Kees alludes to a better and more
noteworthy time. The juxtaposition of profound tragedy with such
innocuous childhood memories, emphasizes the “banality of evil”
and the arbitrary nature of violence among men. Kees almost detaches
his post-war self from his childhood self, as he describes both
events impersonally and without emotion. In this way, Kees
accentuates the severity and scope of war, as he implies that he will
never be able to return to “1926.”
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