exabyte choruses of jumbled debris
detritus and hubris, humility and dignity
Mao’s last dancer lifting Pol Pot corpses
in a ballet of ideologies as
art crumbles into propaganda
song lyrics and lyrical nightmares
conspire to create vistas of twisted
surrealist mindscapes, beautiful disease
even Charles and Ray fell prey
in a day/night haze of stalled flight
Isaiah Berlin argues value pluralism
beating a drum in honor of human tragedy
young pioneers of socialist realism dancing
immortalized with graphic clarity
denouncing enemies of the state
of a unified ego / positive freedom
collapses under the weight of oppression
a conscious self-mastery schoolmistress
raps her knuckles in the theater of mind/war
constructing corrective labor camps for the
multiplicity which refuses to comply with
posted slogans knowing the flogging will
continue until morale improves
an undecayable, sainted body
arises in a self-perpetuating
cult of personality,
becomes the god
birthing scribes who
indoctrinate the newly formed history
solidify the moral superiority
of the family of origin
in an attempt to root out the shame
of a peasant, anti-intellectual upbringing
there’s no escape
from the fatherland
cellular memories,
spinning ballerina delusions,
brought about by behavioral epigenetics
while vertigo overwhelms the
perpetually still dancer
Francisco de Goya, Saturno devorando a su hijo 1819-1823 (public domain)
War is anthropophagy,
Leningrad gangs roaming
streets lined with
bread made of sawdust
picking dog-meat from
between their teeth
with rat-bone toothpicks
the Butcher salivates
examining the thigh –
castrates his male victim
Wendigo psychosis of leadership
warmongering cowards consume
the poor, these huddled masses
blood lust dilated pupils
loll in sockets reddened
by thoughts of feasting
ideological sacrifices for
120 seconds of silence
organ donors to greed
black acrimonious humor
gives the Butcher a voracious
appetite for human flesh
war profiteers gather and gain
vorarephilia inspired erections
rubbing together in orgiastic frenzy
crunch, squelch, he wipes
grease from his cheek, excretes
gluttonous cries of pleasure
millions are slaughtered
in a ritualistic, magical
cannibalism mimicking
Lord’s Resistance Army
training, in a flurry of
deadliest conflict
one-upmanship
Saturn devours
his children
one by one
Map of Cannibalism (public domain)
Written for Poetics prompt at dVerse Poets Pub where I tried to follow Karin’s advice to take no prisoners: http://dversepoets.com/2012/11/10/armisticetruce-making-peace-with-poetics/
wrote love’s stages
their rages inked
taut cages wrought
here she first taught
what he sought out
she caught his core
James Joyce’s score
‘strange-eyed whore’, Nora –
jibdoor obscene
Letters unclean
to be seen, shown,
his keen mind blown
gifts to atone
she alone knew
his moan’s timbre
Written for Form for All at dVerse Poets Pub on Than Bauk http://dversepoets.com/2012/11/08/formforall-than-bauk/. James Joyce and Nora Barnacle’s erotic letters were the inspiration for this piece. A jibdoor is a door made flush with a wall without dressings or moldings and often disguised by continuing the finishings or decorations of the wall across its surface.
dissection commences upon these
orphans of ideology
birthed of greed and invention
razor wire twined minds
inoculated against thought
suffering attachment disorders
imprecations rain when drawn near
our distended bellies emetic fed
military industrial complex choke-chain
asphyxiates a discernible truth,
speak for us we moan
as our mouths are sewn shut –
who threaded this needle?
the omniscient coroner sings:
humanity is a crooked timber
from which no straight thing
can be built (or imagined)
twisted images spin the picture
like crime scene photos
of abundance and stability
politicians and CEOs mistake
words of confidence for reality,
monuments of ego for power
missiles of tyranny
parading as democracy
mere echoes of Pericles’ stones
immuring liberty
flags dyed in blood from
renewable resources
(the marginalized and foreign)
nourishing the warmongers
in the ethical wasteland
these post-apocalyptic landscapes
leveled playing (killing) fields
are littered with mutilated animals
and fetid dead tossed in mass graves
waiting to be tallied by infallible machines
selected from the masses
the coroner’s team prepares to plastinate
stages of fixation, dehydration
forced impregnation, and hardening begin
pumping formalin through our arteries
removing skin, our fatty and connective tissue
a baptism in acetone
precedes vacuum impregnation
silicone rubber penetrates each cell
we are now posed, death grimaces
cured with gas, light, and heat
to a preserved splendor
harnessed for display
coroner proclaims science
has become more beautiful than art
our diorama, a stripped Arc,
impoverished ecology frozen in time
a testament to its endeavor –
technological mutations
of philosophy’s thunder
this towering foundation of Platonic ideals
denatures with rot, denies human striving
an exit wound embedded with fragments of skull
terrors devour and obliterate rationality
massive impersonal forces rumble
demarcating the territory where
vacuous monsters spew acid
dissolving thin barriers of freedom
as the great experiments fail
Notes: This is a significantly expanded rewrite of my poem Dystopia, previously posted in April 2012. If you’d like to better understand plastination you can read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastination. Also, thank you to Jeff Ball, my best friend, for the use of his photograph from the exhibition I had the honor of naming, RuiNation. More of his stunning photography can be viewed here: http://jeffballphotography.com/.
‘My gloom will not be illuminated.’
-from a Cherubina de Gabriak poem
in this house under a pear tree
I lay to rest the overheated verses of my youth
dying in exile for anthroposophical views
my threat distilled to these lines upon the page
wondering what unspoken secret carried me here
to the foothills of the West Tian Shan Mountains
Tashkent’s walls overwhelmed by the Lion Chernyayev
and a Russian Orthodox priest clutching his cross
to echo the destruction rained by Gengis Khan
I now know Voloshin’s prison of discovered places
Apollo, you ignited my star
gentle Voloshin brought the offering
playing the trickster to show the world its folly
crafting my identity to fan their imaginations
conflagration as readers melted with love
Gumilyov became obsessed with my creation
wrote intimate letters to my Silver Age image
more suitable for consumption, mirroring male need
my crippled body hobbled the aspirations of my mind
paeans and poetry, a lyre created for Apollon’s honor
Baroness Cherubina birthed and slain
Gabriak defeated in his impish protection
our ruse exposed through crude sexual aggression
Gumilyov’s love burnished to hate
insisting the duel be fought where Pushkin fell
you will not understand that Cherubina
has never been a game for me
Cherubina was my birth, but, alas, it was a stillbirth –
brine blood of my creative endeavor
I buried her in a child’s coffin at Delphi
mysterious and mystical woman
rich, cloistered, fictitious
within her lay the temptations of sin and my voice,
now cloaked as Li Xiang Zi through another’s invention –
to escape the duality, I must always be fluid
Tell me before the last, will my lands be ever conquered, all my treasures plundered?
* This poem is based in the historical duel between Nikolay Gumilyov and Maximilian Voloshin over the imaginary poet Cherubina de Gabriak (pen name of Elisaveta Dmitrieva)
Miyamoto Musashi Killing a Giant Nue by Utagawa Kuniyoshi
‘I have not followed the paths of other men. I have lived without the benefit of a teacher and by my own devices I became master of myself and thereby master of the sword and the brush never differentiating between any of these arts.’ – Musashi (1584-1645), Japanese Kensei, author of the Book of Five Rings
Fierce Shout: Before battle to unsettle the enemy!
Book of Earth
No man is invincible
there is only honor and dishonor,
his death written in the calligraphic ink of his study
Endeavor to know all things
becoming more aware of the world
an essential strategy to defeat the enemy
The work is more important than the worker
you are the spiritual conduit
become one who sees what cannot be seen
Book of Water
All life is the battlefield, focus your intent
the brushstrokes and strikes of practice
are not separate from their execution in life
Man and brush have one purpose
communion with the spirit of the thing, this is the
way of the warrior, sword embodying the soul of the samurai
Be as falling leaves, with no preconceived notions
Stab the heart with your expansive mind
Extend your spirit above the enemy
Fierce Shouts: Each time you strike, to maintain your resoluteness of spirit!
Book of Fire
In mortal combat you must fight to win
mean what you are doing, otherwise
you are performing tricks
Always control the enemy
keep him on the defensive, draw him to you,
be stronger in spirit and resolve
Cross the ravine with the courage of your convictions
impress your attitude upon the world
force imbalance, taking others by surprise
Book of Wind
Clever people do not understand
temperance of spirit, their tricks and false attitudes
are very dangerous to the uninformed mind
Do not be afraid to get in close
attack with power not strength
with quickness not speed
Your attitude at all times is to attack
practice with the spirit of killing the enemy
meditate on this way of strategy
Fierce Shout: In victory to honor the spirit of the thing itself!
Book of Mu (No-Thing)
The spirit of the universe is an emptiness
which is no-thing, man can have no
understanding of this place
Everything is revealed
to all men as they desire it to be revealed,
by their own definitions alone
True no-thing-ness is Mu,
the universe in relation to your art
and your art in relation to the universe
Everything is within, everything exists,
seek nothing outside yourself,
you are the spirit of the thing itself!
Tomb on Mount Iwato
‘With every note
of the mountain temple
sunset bell
sorrow arises as
day turns dark’*
‘to introduce among them the habits and arts of civilization’
FADE IN:
Scene 1 EXT. DENVER, COLORADO (1864) – DAY – ESTABLISHING
BLACK KETTLE CHEYENNE CHIEF (Voice Over)
. . . we came to the conclusion to make peace with you . . .
we want true news from you in return . . .
Scene 2 INT. MAYOR’S OFFICE – DENVER, COLORADO – NIGHT
MAYOR WYNKOOP to MESSENGER
We’ll release our prisoners in exchange for the release of theirs
tell Black Kettle’s Cheyenne and Left Hand’s Arapaho bands
to go to Fort Lyon and camp 40 miles outside at Sand Creek
there they’ll be under the protection of the United States troops
Scene 3 INT. FORT LYONS, COLORADO – DAY
CLOSE ANGLE ON COL. JOHN MILTON CHIVINGTON
Damn any man who sympathizes with Indians
I have come to kill Indians, and
I believe it is right and honorable to use any means
under God’s heaven to kill Indians
Scene 4 EXT. ENCAMPMENT OUTSIDE SAND CREEK, COLORADO – NIGHT
The camp is full of soldiers drinking heavily and celebrating the victory to come
CAPTAIN SILAS S. SOULE
He means to attack a peaceful settlement
all to further his political ambitions
LIEUTENANT JAMES D. CANNON
He risks court-marshall
what are we going to do?
CAPTAIN SILAS S. SOULE
Refuse to let our companies join in
I don’t see any other way
Scene 5 EXT. SAND CREEK, COLORADO – DAY
MONTAGE:
A) Bodies are strewn through the creek and along the banks B) Women, children, and elderly are clearly among the dead or dying C) Cannons have been used against the civilian population D) Small bands of soldiers are shooting unarmed people pleading for their lives E) The tribes horses are either dead or let loose F) CHIVINGTON’S soldiers are looting the gifts given to the tribes in the peace treaty G) LIEUTENANT JAMES D. CANNON and CAPTAIN SILAS S. SOULE return to the white encampment
END MONTAGE
Scene 6 EXT. SAND CREEK – DAY
Several days have passed, the soldiers have left the survivors have fled
CAPTAIN SILAS S. SOULE (Voice Over)
The massacre lasted six or eight hours (beat)
it was hard to see little children on their knees having
their brains beat out by men professing to be civilized (beat)
they were all horribly mutilated . . .
Scene 7 INT. CONGRESSIONAL HEARING – DAY
LIEUTENANT JAMES D. CANNON
Men, women, and children’s privates cut out
I heard numerous incidents in which men had cut out
the private parts of women and stretched them
over their saddle-bows and hats . . .
No charges were ever brought against any soldier
Scene 8 EXT. PRISON YARD, FORT MARION, FLORIDA – DAY
RICHARD PRATT (Prison Commander) to HARRIET BEECHER STOWE
The end to be gained is the complete civilization of the Indian
his absorption into our national life (beat)
to lose his identity as such (beat)
the sooner all tribal relations are broken up
the sooner he loses all his Indian ways
even his language, the better it will be
for him and the government
Scene 9 INT. PRISON SCHOOL, FORT MARION, FLORIDA (late 1870s) – DAY
MAKING MEDICINE (CHEYENNE WARRIOR) now DAVID PENDLETON OAKERHATER
You remember when I led you out to war
I went first, and what I told you was true
Now I have been away to the East
I have learned about another captain
the Lord Jesus Christ, and he is my leader
He goes first, and all he tells me is true
I come back to my people to tell you
go with me now in this new road
a war that makes all for peace
where we never have only victory . . .
Scene 10 INT. MISSION SCHOOL, INDIAN TERRITORY, OKLAHOMA – DAY
Indian children are learning English
OAKERHATER, an ordained priest, died in 1931 due to efforts by the Oklahoma Council on Indian Ministries he was named a saint of the Episcopal Church in 1985
FADE OUT:
Cheyenne was a name given to the tribe by the French from the word meaning dog the actual names of the tribes Só’taeo’o and Tsétsêhéstâhese mean ‘Human Beings’
Psalm 23
New International Version (NIV)
A psalm of David.
1 The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
3 he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
for his name’s sake.
4 Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
5 You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
6 Surely your goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
forever.
23 nuclear tests to end all wars, you see,
There’s never been a woman like Gilda,
The first plutonium-cored, pin-up girl,
1946 femme fatal bombshell (she’s already killed twice!)
Stars in B-29 Superfortress, Dave’s (Wet) Dream
Her aim point Nevada, that focal point of sin
Painted whorific red, sex-toy fun for the bombardier,
Amidst 3 obsolete U.S. battleships (well hung),
2 aircraft carriers (top guns), 2 cruisers (playboys),
11 destroyers (bad boys), 8 submarines (spooks),
And 3 German and Japanese ships (losers)
She laps up the Able Target Array carnage
Gives atmospheric nuclear fallout head,
Spewing an ocean of emotional wounds Special Delivery propaganda porno flick:
‘Air power is peace power!’ hard on baby
Film noir fireball glory for a superheated Cold War
Operations Crossroads testing at Bikini Atoll
Depravity reaches the Atomic Ark tasting her full fury
Naval uniforms specially made, the animals dress the parts
She blasts goat #113 after tethering him to a gun turret
While swimmy little piggy #311 comes home sterile
167 native islander witnesses, however, cannot
Her encore will be performed by stunt double Bravo,
Another 15 megaton super dirty girl
‘Men fall in love with Gilda but wake up with me.’
Rita Hayworth, on her five failed marriages
In deep hypnosis the subject,
military or civilian,
can be given a message to be
delivered to say Colonel X in Berlin.
I found myself somewhere
at the edge of the known earth
in an age when there is nowhere left to hide
for you it was always a game
you never think I remember
but the blunt force trauma
entered my mind all twisted,
as a matter of survival
The subject may then be sent to Berlin on any perfectly routine assignment. The message will be perfectly safe and will be delivered to the proper person because…
Your missive arrives
in that cryptographic mind
geography’s incomprehensibility
impossible to decipher
a one-time pad on a sheet of nitrocellulose
it burns instantaneously, leaving small ash
a. the subject will have no memory whatsoever in the waking state as to the nature and contents of the message.
A truly random sequence of letters
trick of modular addition
only I got lost in the ciphertext
mistaking it for meaning
meta-language to transcend what came before
b. it can be arranged that the subject will have no knowledge of ever having been hypnotized.
A tortuous inculcation
using proximity and shame
more like a rearrangement
an anagram, a twisted joke
c. it can be arranged that no one beside Colonel X in Berlin can hypnotize the subject and recover the message.
A spiritual starving
that hollows me out from the inside
even after all this time
with this great distance
it is a violence that wrenches free
dissociates, disembodies, a disease
He will never under any circumstances by a slip of the tongue divulge the true nature of his mission for the very simple reason that he has no conscious knowledge of what that mission may be. He is merely going on a routine replacement… This will be his story and the story which he believes.
A priori probability is equivocated to
a posteriori where the entropy of plaintext
equals the conditional entropy
of the plaintext given in the ciphertext C
you’ll begin to see where I derailed the equation
Secondly, if by any chance he is picked up through a leakage of information from other sources the message is safe. No amount of third degree tactics can pry it loose, for he simply does not have it in his conscious mind.
All that I have is this legacy of ashes
an unbreakable code
shielding you from your crimes
infinite computing no adversary
for the tangled traumas obscured in my mind
A specific counterintelligence technique could be used against enemy agents… I will take a number of men and will establish in them through the use of hypnotism the condition of split personality.
In a conventional symmetric encryption algorithm
complex patterns of substitutions and transpositions
these places dance to orient me to the key
I begin to see the risks
Consciously they will be ardent Communists, fanatical adherents to the party line, ready and eager to submit to any discipline which the party may prescribe. Unconsciously they will be loyal Americans just as grimly determined to thwart the Communists at every turn in the road.
Data remanence is such a continual problem
simplest overwrite technique
write the same data everywhere
(often just a pattern of zeros)
a way to be nothing/nullify feeling
This sounds unbelievable, but I assure you it will work.
Poetry is a cipher but it isn’t known whether
there’s a cryptanalytic procedure
which can reverse these transmutations
mathematics may be my undoing
While I’m mourning what cannot be recovered
security continually assures me that this technique
is proven to provide the perfect secrecy
Your hypothetical counter spy… will not disclose his true role for the very simple reason that he cannot… if through some leakage, he is suspected of being an informer his true role is safely guarded, locked inside the unconscious and impervious to all assaults from the outside.
* Italicized text taken directly from a declassified CIA document dated June 22, 1954. The poem is a rewrite of my own Perfect Secrecy. Linked to dVerse Poets Pub Meeting the Bar prompt ‘What’s the Buzz’ http://dversepoets.com/2012/07/05/whats-the-buzz/
Wadis of the western desert
Feed the Euphrates as it flows
To its confluence with the Tigris
Operation New Dawn
Reboots ancient civilization
Endgame in the casualties of war
Golden jackals caught in the sharqi
Insurgents and civilians alike
Assassinated scholars (whispering)
‘We took pleasure in silence.
We became still, fearing the secret might part our lips.
We thought that in words laid an unseen ghoul’
Reeds shift in lotus waters recalling
Sumerian Temple Hymns
En-hedu-anna’s symbolic expulsion
First poet’s vertical genius, she is
Birthed beneath a valonia oak
Logosyllabic language touched where
‘The great gods kissed the earth
And prostrated themselves’
Before incipient time
Cuneiform tablets exclaim
‘Stay as you are, a secret world
Not such things as a soul discerns’
Dialectics, ideology, theological questing
European otters hunt amidst the willow
Trained falcons spy above the poplars
‘Spinner of poems, the last muse
In a world whose mirrors are dimmed’
As she becomes conscious of her inner life
‘High mountains, the land
Of cornelian and lapis lazuli’
Arabesque imaginarium of culture
Mouflon roam the Zagros forest steppe
Hooves deftly progress the cliff faces
Of Cheekah Dar
‘I approached the light but the light was scorching hot
I approached the shade but there I met a storm…
My honeyed mouth became venomous’
Manuscripts caught by sparks burn to ash
Artifacts pass into the hands of thieves
Here is the dénouement of Iraq’s art
A self-imposed enforced exile
‘Why do we fear words? Some words are secret bells…
To whom will we pray … but to words?’
Notes: Quotes from Nazik al-Malaika’s ‘Love Song for Words’ and ‘Song for the Moon’ and En-hedu-anna’s ‘Nin-me-sharra: Lady of all the Divine Powers’.
Nazik al-Malaika was an Iraqi poet known for her introduction of free verse into Arabic poetry with her 1949 collection Sparks of Ashes. In 1970 she left Iraq for Kuwait then after the 1990 invasion moved to Cairo. She died in 2007 leaving a legacy of poetry, literary criticism, the University of Basra, and political change through her lifelong commitment to defending women’s rights.
En-hedu-anna is possibly the first poet; her extant works are considered by some to be the first revelation of an awareness of individual consciousness. Her work displays her keen intellect and understanding of psychology. She was an Akkadian princess, high-priestess, and poet in Ur, a Sumerian city-state, until her death in 2250 B.C.E. She created a corpus of literary works definitively ascribed to her that include many personal devotions to the goddess Innana and a collection of hymns known as the “Sumerian Temple Hymns” that are regarded as one of the first attempts at a systematic theology.
Iraqi scholars and professors have been assassinated since the invasion and occupation and remain targets of violence. Thousands of the intelligentsia fled to Syria and Jordan. Efforts to stem the tide of ‘brain drain’ and rebuild higher education institutions are ongoing. The staggering loss of cultural heritage following the invasion has added to the reluctance to repatriate. Continuing concerns for their safety keep many from returning to Iraq. An alarming number of professors inside and outside the country have PTSD.
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Denise Levertov
When words penetrate deep into us they change the chemistry of the soul, of the imagination. We have no right to do that to people if we don’t share the consequences.
Postmodernism is an intellectual, artistic, philosophical, and/or cultural mindset that questions institutionalism, hierarchy, power, and simple, knowable truth. Alternatively it embraces complexity, contradiction, ambiguity, fractured metaphysics, multiplicity, deconstruction, and diversity. In poetry it offers semiotic liberty.
Robert Anton Wilson
Semantic noise also seems to haunt every communication system. A man may sincerely say, ‘I love fish,’ and two listeners may both hear him correctly, yet the two will neurosemantically file this in their brains under opposite categories. One will think the man loves to dine on fish, and the other will think he loves to keep fish (in an aquarium).
Witold Gombrowicz
Here is the writer who with all his heart and soul, with his art, in anguish and travail offers nourishment – there is the reader who’ll have none of it, and if he wants, it’s only in passing, offhandedly, until the phone rings. Life’s trivia are your undoing. You are like a man who has challenged a dragon to a fight but will be yapped into a corner by a little dog. from Ferdydurke
I’m an Executive Director with a doctorate in education, a consultant, painter, photographer, composer, poet, and vocalist.
Gustav Flaubert
Everything one invents is true, you may be perfectly sure of that. Poetry is as precise as geometry.
Dušan “Charles” Simić
Poetry is an orphan of silence. The words never quite equal the experience behind them.
Monique Wittig
Language casts sheaves of reality upon the social body, stamping it and violently shaping it… Language as a whole gives everyone the same power of becoming an absolute subject through its exercise. But gender, an element of language, works upon this ontological fact to annul it as far as women are concerned and corresponds to a constant attempt to strip them of the most precious thing for a human being – subjectivity. Gender is an ontological impossibility because it tries to accomplish the division of Being. But Being is not divided. God or Man as being are One and whole. So what is this divided Being introduced into language through gender? It is an impossible Being, it is a Being that does not exist, an ontological joke, a conceptual maneuver to wrest from women what belongs to them by right: conceiving of oneself as a total subject through the exercise of language. The result of the imposition of gender, acting as a denial at the very moment when one speaks, is to deprive women of the authority of speech, and to force them to make their entrance in a crablike way, particularizing themselves and apologizing profusely. The result is to deny them any claim to the abstract, philosophical, political discourses that give shape to the social body. Gender then must be destroyed. The possibility of its destruction is given through the very exercise of language. For each time I say ‘I’ I reorganize the world from my point of view and through abstraction I lay claim to universality. This fact holds true for every locutor.
W.S. Merwin
All the things that really matter to us are impossible…Writing poetry is impossible. I don’t know how to write a poem. A poem – there has to be a part of it that is not my own will; it comes from somewhere that I don’t know. There is so much that comes out of what we don’t know and what we don’t have any control over. I think that one of the only things we can learn as we get older is a certain humility. – from Doing the Impossible
Thomas Aquinas
Because philosophy arises from awe, a philosopher is bound in his way to be a lover of myths and poetic fables. Poets and philosophers are alike in being big with wonder.
Chromapoetica 