This poem is on a very disgusting subject, but I felt the need to write about it. Pornography is something that suffuses our culture, from fashion to music videos and the advertising industry. Chris Hedges graphically writes about it in Empire of Illusion, a book that everyone ought to read. There are 4.2 million porn websites, 12% of the web, servicing 72 million worldwide visitors monthly. 25%, or 68 million, of all daily search-engine requests are for porn. 40 million Americans are regular visitors to porn sites. The largest users of internet porn are between the ages of 12 and 17. Most female porn actresses are addicted to whole cocktails of drugs as a way to cope with the humiliation they endure.
It is more or less obvious how it degrades women, but it is less obvious how it degrades men. Pornography is not actually about sex, it is about exploitation, domination and cruelty. Women are turned into commodities and men become their degraded torturers, and the most extreme porn is exactly that: torture. There is nothing human about it; all emotion, all love and compassion, all empathy is eliminated, everything that is sacred about humanity is defaced. It is the worship of bestiality and ultimately the exaltation of a dying culture's obsession with its own annihilation. Where there is no humanity there is only death.
We watch it on the screen, a piece of meat
For masturbating men to fuck to death,
A moaning corpse that once was pure and sweet,
That once had lovely dreams; now only meth,
Now only liquor, pills to numb the pain,
The agony that kills a little more,
And kills still more with every shot, again
With every time they laugh and call it “whore.”
It dies for us, this strange commodity,
This spectacle for inward-dying men,
Who groan and lust for death’s cold ecstasy,
Alone and panting in their secret den.
And as we watch we die a little more
With every “bitch” and “cunt” and “fucking whore.”
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Monday, August 23, 2010
Erin's Eyes (2010)
A world resides in Erin’s eyes
That makes my thought drift far away,
To emerald hills and cloudless skies,
To where the woodland forests rise,
Which hide the faeries from the day.
A world resides in Erin’s eyes,
It over-brims with warm surprise,
And beckons in the strangest way
To emerald hills and cloudless skies,
Where the wise are fools and fools are wise,
Where some strange magic comes to play.
A world resides in Erin’s eyes:
Enchanted by all this world implies,
I fall beneath the gentle sway
Of emerald hills and cloudless skies,
Where all is green, where nothing dies,
Where life is joy – eternal May.
A world resides in Erin’s eyes
Of emerald hills and cloudless skies.
That makes my thought drift far away,
To emerald hills and cloudless skies,
To where the woodland forests rise,
Which hide the faeries from the day.
A world resides in Erin’s eyes,
It over-brims with warm surprise,
And beckons in the strangest way
To emerald hills and cloudless skies,
Where the wise are fools and fools are wise,
Where some strange magic comes to play.
A world resides in Erin’s eyes:
Enchanted by all this world implies,
I fall beneath the gentle sway
Of emerald hills and cloudless skies,
Where all is green, where nothing dies,
Where life is joy – eternal May.
A world resides in Erin’s eyes
Of emerald hills and cloudless skies.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Poetry's Blossom (2010)
Part One: Lament
Poetry’s blossom is dying,
For insects have gnawed it away,
Devouring the petals still trying
To bloom for their funeral day;
But helpless, they wilt and decay.
Around it its ruins are lying,
The wreck of its forsaken past;
While earth in its sadness is sighing
That beautiful things cannot last
In the face of the plague and the blast.
Poetry’s blossom is crying –
The dirge of its silent despair;
The insects are tearing and prying
Till nothing is left that is fair,
But a song, trailing off in the air.
Part Two: Celebration
Were poetry’s blossom to die,
And a long and dark winter descend
To blanket the earth with the cry
Of the vicious, would loveliness end?
Would the heart at last despair and bend?
Were poetry’s blossom to fall
To the plague of the ugly and cruel,
If the blast of the storm and the squall
Should obscure the pure light of its jewel,
Would the passion of the heart grow cool?
Oh no! For its bloom may subsist
Through the cruelest and bitterest cold,
When poets seem not to exist,
When the earth has grown tired and old,
And the only light is the gleam of gold.
Poetry’s blossom is gone,
And yet it shall never depart!
Its seed, though forgotten, sleeps on,
Awaiting the time when its art
May lighten once more the failing heart.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Mistress of the Western Seas (2006)
O Mistress of the western seas
I've sought you by the shores,
Amongst the rocks, the cedar trees
And where the ocean roars
And crashes. I have felt a breeze,
A seaside whispering;
I've lain through afternoons of ease
To sirens listening.
For they, commingling with the foam
Which caps the spumy waves,
Were telling of your hidden home
Where poets make their graves.
By every morning that I've strolled,
As often I've beheld
The gulls and terns, their voices rolled
In yours, a song has welled
From some deep recess, secret sea
Of waters dark and cold;
Yet flush with truths invisibly,
Eternally retold.
To them I've listened, listened well
For all these many years;
I've known their melancholy swell -
The salt of human tears.
I've walked beneath the lonesome moon
When all the noise of day,
The sirens of the afternoon,
Had all but died away.
My Mistress you were clearer then,
And clear your gentle moan;
Yet still you flitted from my ken
And I was left alone.
Fade not into the deep, fade not
From one so like to you!
Imbue me with your sacred draught,
Though misery ensue.
O Mistress, I'll behold the dawn,
I'll watch the dying day;
I'll see your spirit sail upon
A cloud, or on a ray
Of amber light, to take your rest
Upon the ocean's lip;
I'll press that moment to my breast
That it may never slip
Away again. Though it may burn
And yield me up its pain,
My heart for you shall ever yearn
To mark your mournful strain.
So happy would I be to score
Your plaintive song but once:
The music of the ocean's core
For which my spirit hunts;
To send amongst my fellow men,
And hear their joyous cries
At this - the child of my pen
Before this body dies.
Then Mistress, if my fortunes hold
I'd slip beneath your waves,
And sleep amid my forebears old,
Where poets make their graves.
I've sought you by the shores,
Amongst the rocks, the cedar trees
And where the ocean roars
And crashes. I have felt a breeze,
A seaside whispering;
I've lain through afternoons of ease
To sirens listening.
For they, commingling with the foam
Which caps the spumy waves,
Were telling of your hidden home
Where poets make their graves.
By every morning that I've strolled,
As often I've beheld
The gulls and terns, their voices rolled
In yours, a song has welled
From some deep recess, secret sea
Of waters dark and cold;
Yet flush with truths invisibly,
Eternally retold.
To them I've listened, listened well
For all these many years;
I've known their melancholy swell -
The salt of human tears.
I've walked beneath the lonesome moon
When all the noise of day,
The sirens of the afternoon,
Had all but died away.
My Mistress you were clearer then,
And clear your gentle moan;
Yet still you flitted from my ken
And I was left alone.
Fade not into the deep, fade not
From one so like to you!
Imbue me with your sacred draught,
Though misery ensue.
O Mistress, I'll behold the dawn,
I'll watch the dying day;
I'll see your spirit sail upon
A cloud, or on a ray
Of amber light, to take your rest
Upon the ocean's lip;
I'll press that moment to my breast
That it may never slip
Away again. Though it may burn
And yield me up its pain,
My heart for you shall ever yearn
To mark your mournful strain.
So happy would I be to score
Your plaintive song but once:
The music of the ocean's core
For which my spirit hunts;
To send amongst my fellow men,
And hear their joyous cries
At this - the child of my pen
Before this body dies.
Then Mistress, if my fortunes hold
I'd slip beneath your waves,
And sleep amid my forebears old,
Where poets make their graves.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Three Poems Given as Christmas Gifts (2006)
To Julia, in a volume of Lord of the Rings
Remember when, reclined on father's chest,
Or snug by mother's side, this cover turned,
And lo! It was Hobbiton! So did the quest
Begin. How many fiery logs were burned
With Frodo, Sam, in halls of Rivendell
When Strider was revealed, and too the ring;
And how we gasped before Tom Bombadill
Had saved us from that horrid cryptic thing!
Adventures in the deeps of Khazad-dum
When Gandalf fell and shadows dimmed our eyes –
O horrible fate! Then Boromir's fell doom:
A land of sorrow under gloaming skies.
But there was joy as well: with Legolas
And Gimli; horns of the Rohirrim
Wildly blowing! Eowen, daughty lass!
Shield-maiden who withstood the Witchking grim.
Triumph to despair, to triumph again,
And tears with Sam and Frodo on the verge
Of Doom's abyss, when magma fell like rain
And flowed around, death looming on the surge.
Then later to the west: wistful farewells;
Unwelcome end, but earnest called the sea!
How long ago, yet still the memory swells
Today, of evenings spent so happily.
Perhaps one day, with children of your own,
By fire's side, you'll open wide this door
To Middle Earth, and they when they are grown,
And so these joys live on forevermore.
To Valerie, in a volume of Shelley and Keats
A book! But no mere book: ten thousandfold
A portucullis to high poetry.
Beneath these gilded arches, joyful, bold,
Pass through to realms of lofty purity.
But hold! Before you enter this fair land
Transcendent, home to all the sons of light,
Enwreathe yourself with ivy, take in hand
Bouquets of lilies, violets, pansies bright:
This is the realm of Flora: Spring eterne,
Where fair-eyed youths disport themselves at ease,
For all is joy where powers be to turn
Despondency to eminent thoughts which please.
So enter! John and Percy now await
With high discourse in mankind's highest state.
To Mom, in a volume of Shakespeare
Proud Shakespeare, patron of the English tongue,
Still claims achievement's summit: Everest
Mere hillock quaint. None come before have sung,
Nor after, of such truths so well expressed.
Those objects of his thought too luminous,
To shield us, clothed in metaphors sublime
By layers on layers ambiguous,
Begat ideas discovering with time.
Thus doubly has he gifted humankind:
With thoughts profound, of insight incompared
To elevate the musings of the mind;
And made the richer during moments shared.
So take this book as if a promise made
To seek the mutual infinite in his shade.
Remember when, reclined on father's chest,
Or snug by mother's side, this cover turned,
And lo! It was Hobbiton! So did the quest
Begin. How many fiery logs were burned
With Frodo, Sam, in halls of Rivendell
When Strider was revealed, and too the ring;
And how we gasped before Tom Bombadill
Had saved us from that horrid cryptic thing!
Adventures in the deeps of Khazad-dum
When Gandalf fell and shadows dimmed our eyes –
O horrible fate! Then Boromir's fell doom:
A land of sorrow under gloaming skies.
But there was joy as well: with Legolas
And Gimli; horns of the Rohirrim
Wildly blowing! Eowen, daughty lass!
Shield-maiden who withstood the Witchking grim.
Triumph to despair, to triumph again,
And tears with Sam and Frodo on the verge
Of Doom's abyss, when magma fell like rain
And flowed around, death looming on the surge.
Then later to the west: wistful farewells;
Unwelcome end, but earnest called the sea!
How long ago, yet still the memory swells
Today, of evenings spent so happily.
Perhaps one day, with children of your own,
By fire's side, you'll open wide this door
To Middle Earth, and they when they are grown,
And so these joys live on forevermore.
To Valerie, in a volume of Shelley and Keats
A book! But no mere book: ten thousandfold
A portucullis to high poetry.
Beneath these gilded arches, joyful, bold,
Pass through to realms of lofty purity.
But hold! Before you enter this fair land
Transcendent, home to all the sons of light,
Enwreathe yourself with ivy, take in hand
Bouquets of lilies, violets, pansies bright:
This is the realm of Flora: Spring eterne,
Where fair-eyed youths disport themselves at ease,
For all is joy where powers be to turn
Despondency to eminent thoughts which please.
So enter! John and Percy now await
With high discourse in mankind's highest state.
To Mom, in a volume of Shakespeare
Proud Shakespeare, patron of the English tongue,
Still claims achievement's summit: Everest
Mere hillock quaint. None come before have sung,
Nor after, of such truths so well expressed.
Those objects of his thought too luminous,
To shield us, clothed in metaphors sublime
By layers on layers ambiguous,
Begat ideas discovering with time.
Thus doubly has he gifted humankind:
With thoughts profound, of insight incompared
To elevate the musings of the mind;
And made the richer during moments shared.
So take this book as if a promise made
To seek the mutual infinite in his shade.
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