Continued..
Of course it used to be that only the aristocracy enjoyed culture to the point of transcendence. At the neo-classical court of Louis XIV, the heroes of antiquity were emulated to such an extent that writers like Racine composed tragedies that were the last word in 'realism'. An extraordinary claim, unless you consider that such hyperbolic cultural artifice was based on the conviction that the natural was a product of culture and training. According to Erich Auerbach, "it became possible to consider natural what at all times and under all conditions move men's hearts: their feelings and passions. The natural was at the same time the eternally human".
Today such royal coteries, living the high life in Versailles, are expanding into global consumer culture, just as supercilious, remote from and indifferent to ordinary terrestrial concerns; such as the 'suffering (of all species)' I mentioned above. Modern Western culture is just as unreal, profligate and unsustainable as Louis XIV's, except its become a global plague.
But since this thread is devoted poetry, and I don't know any bleak enough, I'll have done with the politics.

Allow me to Thank You all for your inputs
into this thread.

I thought it appropriate to end the thread with a poem
by Maurice Strangard. I've chosen this poem because
of its poignant insistance that, "Somewhere there
must be a place called Little Peace." An appropriate
ending, along with the hope for our planet's future.
In the words of Mal Morgan, "La Mama Poetica,":

"Poetry demands that particular talent to reiterate,
to synthesize, in a new and startling way. It is
that creativity which makes fresh the discovery, which
moulds what appears to be the new reality. It is
that clarity of vision which makes one realize that
today is the first day of the rest of your life, which
made Charles Olson proclaim, - 'What does not change
is the will to change.' Because I believe this, my life
over the years, in spite of adversity, has moved towards
fulfilment, with my work and with the people who are
close to me. That there can be change, and that there are
positive alternatives is evident; then let us find and
take direction.

"I notice there is a place named
Little Stringy Bark Creek.

The place I suppose
Where Little Ned Kelly
Shot Little Sergeant Kennedy.

Just a little bit
Enough
To let him know
How other people felt.
The place from which no doubt
They took Little Ned to Melbourne
And hung him.
Just a little bit
Enough
To let him know
That no one need fear death.

Somewhere there must be a place
Called Little Peace.
Where men with little humanity
Do not have the power
To make great decisions.
Where little fears do not lessen
The so small span
Of our lives.

Where
For once
We can know peace.
Just a little
To know the taste of it."

Aww Squeers,

Now I just want to give you a hug.

From my lowly perch I see someone who has climbed the ivory tower (sorry about the monkey reference before), scanned the far horizons, observed it is 'vanities of vanities' and are now intent on shouting down to the rest of us; “It is all crap so you have to stop enjoying yourselves right this minute!”

A bit like a Houyhnhnm telling us all to stop Yahoo-ing about, then when one of us jokingly asks why such a long face, you are at a loss because you can't find a poem bleak enough.

But in speaking of Swift I am reminded of his epitaph which he wrote for himself in Latin and was poetically translated by Yeats as;

Swift has sailed into his rest.
Savage indignation there
cannot lacerate his breast.
Imitate him if you dare,
world-besotted traveller.
He served human liberty.

The light Swift shone on his culture was fierce and in some fashion you are doing the same. So good winds good Sir.

Eek!

Sorry Foxy, I didn't realise you had closed the curtains. That's what I get for composing offline and posting without looking.

Thank you for the thread and your poems. I will be dipping back to reread everyone's offerings at my leisure. Apologies for letting politics intrude.

Csteele,
I despise the ivory towers and can assure you I've had my fill of life experience. I'm aware that my position borders on the ridiculous, but I was trying to validate an alternative critical paradigm to aesthetics and hermeneutics. I might add that while it's an easy gesture to set my position up as risible, this is from someone who (presumably) believes in Biblical Fairy Tales and Christian morality? So who's tilting at windmills?
I'm a big fan of Swift and Cervantes myself btw:

"Nor shall thy beauty fade unsung,
When life forsakes my gelid veins;
My clay-cold lips and frozen tongue
In death shall raise immortal strains,
My soul when freed from cumb'rous clay,
Her flight over Stygian waves shall take;
And while on Lethe's banks I stray,
My song shall charm the oblivious lake"

Ah but the Don, ever the romantic, is incomplete without Sancho.

Foxy,
sorry I didn't get to replying to your last generous lyrical thoughts, and thank you for enduring my worldliness :-)