Two Poems by Theodore Roethke

Advice to One Committed

Swift's servant beat him; now they use The current flowing from a fuse, Or put you on a softer diet; Your teeth fall out—but you'll be quiet; Forget you ever were someone— You'll get ten minutes in the sun.

II Remember : if you yell or curse, You'll soon be where things are much worse; Today they took a girl of ten

Down where she couldn't look at men—

Down in the basement, all cement, Where the naked learn how to repent.

Ill To come back from a place like that Takes more than a little mother-wit; They bring you food in a single dish,

It might be meat, it might be fish.

If you worm and whine, if you smirk and screw, A doctor may come in a year or two.

IV So lie like the prison sycophant,

And tell them dreams about your aunt;

Always be cheerful, ready to Do what the staff is paid to do.

So someone put things in your soup?

Remember: we're a happy group.

V

The problems of the State arc weighty; There's one attendant here for eighty; They're feeding you on thirteen cents Until the governor relents— So it's all right if you cut your veins, So long as you don't stop the drains.

VI

The superintendent stomps the halls And stops to count the ping-pong balls; The head nurse puts on her solemn look; The attendant's deep in his comic book— You might as well go along with them, And learn the institutional rhythm, And, if at last they do get bored With looking at you, then you're cured; But it's usually that you've come to stay Till your maker grants eternity: