Review of Ralph Angel’s poem ‘It takes a while to disappear’

 Ralph Angel’s poem ‘It takes a while to disappear’

I request reader to read the poem first from the above link and then only my review. Thanks.

The scene of the poem is a typical winter morning in a busy commercial area in USA. There is a pub. There is a traffic junction. Someone is cleaning his shop and the pathway with a hose. Someone has come out a building wearing a flag (of USA?) as his shirt and passerby mom and boy salute the flag. The narrator tells he doesn’t recognize the second person, nor finds her different. In fact the poet says her changing into a different person might never happen at all. Very interestingly the second person is the nation. The following lines have subtle lead:

We must have made a mess of things again, all fuzzy black and white

and greenish at the corners. Some final thing

that put us in our places.

You’re still standing in your winter coat alongside

everything you wanted and deserve. But you were thinner. The desk clerk

looked right through you. The cabby didn’t listen. You were

out of sorts back then, you say, but

you’re still frowning!

The meaning of the expression ‘The desk clerk looked right through you.’ is about the crowds in restaurants or shops forming huge lines. So we infer the poem is about materialistic growth. To confirm this we find another lead:

“ Someone

scrambles down a fire escape, his shirt a flag

that’s shredded. A boy

salutes. And then his mother, too.

She stoops to smooth his collar. She makes a sculpture of her packages.”

Making a sculpture of her packages indicates all that is left for a citizen is to boast about his purchasing power and goods and services exclusive to an urban market. Often poets find a metaphor in something we use and find commonly. But the poet has used an imaginary metaphor to highlight how urbanization has edged out the greenery from the masses:

We must have made a mess of things again, all fuzzy black and white

and greenish at the corners. Some final thing

that put us in our places.

See, he has used the expression we have messed up again. Then when did we mess up earlier? A thought provoking question and its answer left unsaid. We know for sure that the poet points to the two world wars, irreversible shameful blots on the pag

es of history. The poet vented out all his anguish, disappointment and given a wakeup call so subtly and artistically. This impacts lot more than a preaching poem from a pedestal!

Very sadly he is not with us anymore. He passed away in early 2020.