Mister Window
#Mister Window
Mister Window lives in town
At 18 Window Lane
And every day that comes around
Is roughly just the same
He rises spryly every morn
At promptly half past five
And thanks his Window God
For being blessed to be alive
He falls upon his knees
And thanks his God to be alive
At quarter-to he shuffles to
His feet and into socks
Peeks out the door to grab the news
And turns to Window Stocks
Window Tech is up three points
But Window Coal is down
And Window Futures are unchanged
He notes with a slight frown
“I voted to make Windows great”
He says with a slight frown
At six-oh-five he pecks his wife
Austerely on the cheek
And Misses Window thinks of lives
She'll dream but never speak
Just plops his breakfast on a plate
But as a small revenge
Serves extra bacon in the hope
He'll meet a quicker end
Three extra slices, wishing that
He'll meet a quicker end
But Mister Window pays no mind
And chews it without cheer
His teeth go up and down and grind
Like clockwork little gears
And as he eats, he reads the front
Page of the Window News
And learns that sometime in the night
They rounded up the Jews
They finally got the borders tight
Deporting all the Jews
By now it's ten to seven and
That means he's got to go
A final gulp of Windows Brand
Decaffeinated Joe
And off he flies and out the door
A spring comes to his stride
For all is right in Window Town
His heart swells up with pride
There's nothing wrong with Window Town
Nor Window Township Pride
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Posted May 20, 2017, 8:43 PM UTC · edited
Chilling. Very chilling, Lana. I love the use of repetition in the piece. Idk if mockery is the right word but when you repeated "with a slight frown" I laughed a bit because there's a selfishness in the man that I recognize from people I know and it's like saying "of course with a slight frown" because when something goes astray from your plans it's the end of the world, right? It's more work for you.
And then there's "Window", which I think describes the Town as predictable. There's a cycle you've established by noting the time. Everything in Window Town is tamed by pride, which is right, and that's what I find chilling. Overall, another great piece with many things I missed no doubt.
Thank you, I appreciate your thoughts on this. It's an unusual style for me, I don't normally advocate mixing rhyme with politics, but I sort of thought the treatment here works in spite of it.
I'm curious what your thoughts are on stanza 3, was the shift to Missus Window distracting at all?
I'm also curious what your thoughts are on the big "reveal" in stanza 4. Was this change in tone too abrupt? It's meant to be shocking, but I was worried I had gone overboard into bathos.
Not commenting proper because I can't think of a way to make this poem better at what it wants to be. I think the form is effective: it takes inspiration from folk ballads and light-hearted verse and implements it really tightly, the writing rushes along with life and sharp wit.
As to your particular concerns, I would prefer "Misses" to "Missus" largely because the narrator everywhere else feels too removed from the scene to be chummy with these characters. I also think that stanza 4 is for me right on the edge of going overboard: but that's probably better than playing it safe.
Thanks man, I made that alteration.
The mix definitely works for me. The rhythm pulls me along with my eyes closed and with the kick from the third stanza and the reveal in the fourth I was stunned in a good way.
In terms of shifts you go from Mister to Missus (intimate) to Jews (strangers) and then the town (mass), so I think it was a gradual shift to the larger picture.
May I ask why you decided to go with "Window"? It's okay if you want to let the piece sit for a bit before answering.
So the idea with Mister Window was to anthropomorphise the hubris of Jingoism. Let me expand on that a bit and break it down.
Jingoism is the idea that one's country is always great and perfect and never ever wrong. Country above all. The Germans did this with their Nazi slogan "Deutchland über alles", translated literally "Germany above all". And America is doing it now with Trump's "America First" ideology.
This is, it occurs to me, an idea saturated with hubris. It's destined to fail. It cannot succeed on its own merits because humans are inherently faulty creatures, prone to both making mistakes, and also genuine evil.
I wanted to put this hubris in human, mortal form, because it's easier to relate to humans than nebulous, abstract concepts. Our brains are just wired that way. And I wanted the audience to "see it clearly and plainly" in the character I created. He needed to be thinly transparent in his every thought word and action. This is why the POV is from a godlike, omniscient third-person perspective. I needed to be able to show not just what he does, but why he does it. That wasn't possible from first-person perspective because humans always lie to ourselves in big and small ways.
Therefore, Mister Window was born. A human personification of the ideology of national and religious pride over all other moral or ethical considerations. He is almost pathologically inclined to distance himself from everyone around him, including his wife. And motivated by the pure hubris of pride.
That is super cool!! Thank you for sharing your ideas. It makes a lot of sense. Do you believe in the guilty until proven innocent saying?
Thanks, I'm glad the shift worked for you.
I'll let this sit for a day or so but yes, I'll make sure to come back later and post the reasoning for "Window".