Two poems of the moment

[Albert Pierce Bales]

 

                                          Music of the Pen

 

Writing well is better than

        A great piece of ass

                     Almost

                                               But a close second

Just the same

 

Spaces between four different

                                Songbirds

Their order and distance

                                              From one another

                     The frequency, rythem and the

                   Duration of their blended songs

                                       Is music

To make love meticulously inhaling

                           Her every moan

             To make love like a Summer moon rise

                                   Like music

         Or to split the arrow in the

                                                              Bulls eye of the story

Each fertillizes the pen and

                                 Pushes the story along

 

 

 

                                    The Marketplace of Apocalyptic

                                  Hamburger and Sexual Tittulation

 

Take an anthropological field expedition

To your local supermarket

Meet the neighborhood freaks, experience

The forced patience of the superior intellect

Express your distaste for perfection

Guard against accidental elequence

Maintain subjective objectivity

Take note of any modifications in the native

Dress and manners and  how strangers inter-

-act in the market place of apocalyptic hamburger

And programmed sexual tittulation

(It's inherent hostilities and frustrations

And other negative ramifications)

The atmosphere in the supermarket seems to cry out for

Spontaneous mayhem in the deli

Perhaps it is the same in the souk

In the moments before a bomb is detonated

 

Visit the unrepentant liquor aisle

And pack up a supply of the best

And brightest libations available there

To appease the capricious

Consumer gods

And goblins 

[Douglas Strang]

'Writing well is better than 

     A great piece of ass'

 

Hi Albert, maybe I'm missing some deep irony, or perhaps you're adopting some kind of Bukowskiesque narrative voice. Either way, those lines just don't seem good to me and I'd be intrigued to know what your intention was. Have you considered that they come across as being offensive and sexist? Maybe they're meant to, maybe you don't care, maybe I'm being over sensitive.

 

Dougie

 

Just a thought

[Albert Pierce Bales]

Good point, Dougie.  I am reminded of an incident that occurred in a commune I lived in back in what some people like to call 'the Nixon years'.  Another male and I felt it neccessary to take a third male aside and try to impress upon him the importance of not using the word 'chick' around the women.  I seem to remember that my main point was that he should'nt do it because it pissed off the women, offended them, not that it was universally offensive like a direct insult.  He was a moron and felt that it was his cherished choice of words and he world not be deterred.  The thing is there are various forms of speech appropriate to different situations.  This is decorum.  The famous quote from Carl Jung applies here, "Where power dominates, love cannot enter and where love holds sway, power is banished."  The guilt that is aroused in educated white men when the taint of sexism appears in public is much like the fear that I felt after my grandmother washed my mouth out with soap for a mere indescretion.  Forever afterwards I edited my every utterance very carefully in the presence of grandma.  

It is hard to believe but at the age of twenty I spent three months living in a marxist feminist women's collective.  I was a clever lad.  (see The Decameron)  These were not part time feminists but career feminists and for awhile I was certain that I had learned something about women that only a man in my situation could possibly learn.  I was mistaken, I was twenty.  But one thing I noticed was that their main thrust was the unfair allocation of power in society.  They tended to see all relationships in terms of power.  As a romantic this offended me gravely.  And while they insisted on enforcing the liberated male rule most of the time, the tame guys were last on the list of men they wanted to go to bed with.   The power of a grandma with a bar of soap is bound to be abused by those who are not anybody's grandma.  You never know what will offend whom and I find that if I feel constrained by arbitrary condemnation I cannot create.  Lastly, is there a hierarchy that includes superior inter-gender love wrestling with writing well? Perhaps only in the sphere of poetic license.  What was wriggling around in my head when I conceived of that line was the notion that the libido is not simply the sex drive but the life force and the life force in me needs both the sensual-spiritual piece of ass and the artistic-aesthetic piece of ass to exist.  One man's joke is another man's shame.  (See Aldous Huxley's essay, Vulgarity in Literature.) 

[Stranger]

Folks say why should I love when so few love me
instead of seeing that love can only be given
only be given freely
and it is thus they who create the shortage in this world
make life bad for everyone...
including themselves

 

... chasing fantasies 'cross the skies,
'what you are is in your size'
eating up what's in our eyes
so don't listen to the cries
just forget whoever dies
to youth wisdom won't suffice
breathing in our world of lies
danger comes as no surprise...

love in hearts the soul denies
spirit shuns this earth's reprise,
nothing given -sure demise!

dreams are certain of love's prize
though deceits materialise
all are one,
no compromise...