Poetry Forum

circular arguments
bedazzle rigid minds

I was reinforced in my dominion
by ignorance and by stubborn pride,
by a belief in only one opinion.
Stand out of my way, sir,
if you know what is good for you.
I lied,
because I could not tell the truth.
Bare facts, an abomination,
lacked the salt of imagination.
I tried
to explain things always in a way
that would meet some expectation.
Unwelcome possibilities
got themselves shot down
like darkies in a cornfield,
like wetbacks in a river.
The bosses didn’t care:
never shouldn’ta oughta bin there.
Mow them down, rat-a-tat-tat
jump in the car and hit the town,
then talk of Rembrandt and Cezanne
and try to fondle Sally Anne.
Do the same old thing tomorrow,
a well-dressed man of constant sorrow.

***
Many versts across the barren fields
from the shining palaces of Petersburg,
a girl with snow-white arms upraised:
O Bog, she says (their word for God),
O Bog, get me out of here!

***
As an unwanted child,
lonely, destructive, anti-social,
I had no trouble believing
that God was indeed a special friend.
Little then did I know
what I've come to know in the end.
The Church, as ever, opened its arms
and welcomed this delusion;
it prays and preys upon
adolescence and confusion.
My son, do you have a vocation?
Get away to fuck.
(Get away to fuck, Father ).
I was not in the habit of talking to strangers,
unless, of course, idiot tourists,
eager and uncertain,
looking for a place to spend hard cash.
A furry masculine moustache
began with the hairs around my groin,
it would join in the fortunes of those parts,
the intricate lies, the broken hearts,
the additions, loans, debentures,
the many cold-eyed cheap adventures.
I held one truth to be self-evident,
that all men procreated
pretty much continuously,
so in order to stand out
one had to be a bit of a bastard.
In fact, I mastered the mechanics
at about the age of six,
an enlightening heady mix
of bluff and certain knowledge,
so that all the blows and cuffs and kicks
of the ambient adult world
became a poor boy’s college.
I’ll tell you one thing,
you can forget the rest:
those to whom evil is done
do certain evil in return.
They burn
with righteous and amoral wrath
they cleave a hard and frightening path
between the innocent and the innocent.
Stand out of my way, sir,
if you know what is good for you.
The guilty they leave well alone
(those boys can be dangerous).
I never really fell in love
until seven years ago.
I had a carapace of immunity,
ready-made, form-fitting,
born of the arrogant impunity
of treating people as things.
But I find love brings
little happiness, less relief.
It is my sad and certain belief
that love can never be learned
nor earned
when a loveless child becomes a man.
My plan
was to rule the world
or at least my little bit of it.
Then the whiskey got in the way.
God bless the whiskey;
pity it wasn’t tears instead.

The first point to make is that I have a real problem with the line
like darkies in a cornfield,

I can understand that you might want to convey the ignorant ideas of the narrator, and I appreciate that this comment would have been used thirty odd years ago, and in some places now. But I don't think that makes it acceptable here. And I think any publisher would be very concerned about it falling foul of the Race Relations Act, paragraph 3 subsection 1, as stipulated in the amendments act (2003).

circular arguments
bedazzle rigid minds
I love this - but I don't think the poem elaborates on this. The poem does give the story of the young man really well, and the Stand out of my way, sir,
if you know what is good for you,
works well in repetition, bringing the poem to a circular point, but it doesn't seem to elaborate on that starting point.

Ugh I wanna read this a few more times before I say something petty about it but I can't help it...
just kidding!
hahaha
seriously though

Ploughing your own furrow again. That's fine. It's a good furrow. Some great bits, which I won't catalogue, but I love the Russian interlude.

Cheers

David

I can understand that you might want to convey the ignorant ideas of the narrator, and I appreciate that this comment would have been used thirty odd years ago, and in some places now. But I don't think that makes it acceptable here. And I think any publisher would be very concerned about it falling foul of the Race Relations Act, paragraph 3 subsection 1, as stipulated in the amendments act (2003).

Rubbish. You are out of order citing regulations. Poetry is the last bastion of freedom.

Minstrel wrote:

I can understand that you might want to convey the ignorant
ideas of the narrator, and I appreciate that this comment would have
been used thirty odd years ago, and in some places now. But I don't
think that makes it acceptable here. And I think any publisher would be
very concerned about it falling foul of the Race Relations Act,
paragraph 3 subsection 1, as stipulated in the amendments act
(2003).

Rubbish. You are out of order citing regulations. Poetry is the last bastion of freedom.

Really? I was advising how a publisher might view this. I think it is acceptable to comment that a line may result in something not being published, and why.

hi ded,

I'd like to ask what kind of feedback you'd like on this piece. It's a long piece with some interesting segues. Reminds me of poetic tumbleweed and yet there is a cohesive quality to the character.

I'd be happy to offer feedback but don't want to shoot in the dark. I can do an inline or not as you prefer. I think you can get away with those very inflammatory lines but you've got to have your x's and y's in order. I don't judge the lines because they relay a type of character but the poem has to be tight top to bottom in my opinion--enough to carry the flack you might get for writing it. It may not be your intent to be published. Please shine a little flashlight will ya?

e

I've edited Minstrel's post to remove the 'f' word which was a tad unnecessary IMO.

Cam

Yo, the lads

This one fell asleep for a week and now it gets a flurry of responses. I love these weird patterns. Look, I take responsibility for everything I write. I get a bit close to the bone from time to time ... and it doesnt happen by accident or oversight. I generally know exactly what Im doing ... if not always the reaction! Bigotry has gone underground, maybe, but it is still there. Only black people can call themselves niggers and only the Irish (had to throw this in!) can call themselves a pack of drunken Paddies. Now we use code words instead. Nothing has really changed as private discourse in pubs and living rooms makes abundantly clear. But that is not really the point of the poem at all. So if you want to tear the thing apart, emuse, please go ahead! Of course I mind, we all do, but I dont mind all that much. I learn a lot from critiques. I make different mistakes the next time.

All the best,
dedalus (Brendan)

Hi Brendan,

Going close to the bone can be very useful in poetry. I also agree that nothing has changed in private discourse - and that there is a history of bigotry, and that it's still there - but underground. I also think that charting the bigotry would be an excellent thing to do - although very very tricky - but if you could pull it off - I would be there applauding when you picked up a poetry prize for doing it! Your wording here doesn't work - it sounds as if the narrator is being derogatory - and that would be associated with you as the author, but if you can re jig it to convey that that was how people used to talk - then it would be a valid point.

You have got quite a few really good aspect to this poem - I'm really like:
My son, do you have a vocation?
Get away to fuck.
(Get away to fuck, Father ). It has that raw teenage energy - and very quickly sets in the reader's mind the type of person you are reading about. But then there is an energy right through that third stanza, and I do hope there is more to come.

Lexilogio and ... just about everyone,

A poem is always an unfinished piece of business. You get as close as you can ... and then you move on. If you don't move on, well, you just start going around in circles. I stick poems in drawers and come back after 6-9 months. It's amazing what new ideas come down. In the meantime, I post what I have, and wait for people like you to tell me how to do it better. I listen, sure, but I have more faith in the 9-month drawer solution. I'm laughing here, OK?

By the way, Seven Shades is moving on (lost in the mist of the midlists)... Karl from the Corpo was part of that poem to start with until it became blindingly obvious that I was dealing with two separate people. Karl is just a spin-off, in other words, the main juice is going down with Liam and the Ladies. He's coming back as a drunken angel, a heavenly helicopter at his own funeral, etc. It's getting a bit weird so I have to stop having fun and try to be serious. Relax, that won't last long ....

Slan anois,
Brendan