Visit a monkey in the tree of his life
He doesn't eat the fruit before it is ripe
When the sugar turns to alcohol
He shares his crop with one and all

The alcoholic tangerines are free
The alcoholic tangerines for you
The alcoholic tangerines for me

Friday, February 18, 2011

"The Voice of the Wolf" from The Firebird

The institution of Monogamy
Is the mark of a female dominated cultural state

It is the error of the generations
Allowing inferior males to pass on their traits
In which the state of man continually declines

Monogamy is impurity itself
It is the face of perversion

(every feminine institution
of a cultural state
appears as gentle and sweet
but under its cloak hides the cruel repercussion

But let us not forget that the Natural State
Has ended and the Cultural State begun
Because men became inadequate to their task
Stupefied by feminine love
Mercy stayed the noble hands of our ancestors
When violent acts were necessary)

It begins w/ Felicity
(The Firebird)
Riding Leviathan and taming him
Placing Reins upon him

The noble man arises
And he kills and he kills
But he cannot kill enough
Still the degraded hoards come forward
To their slaughter
Born in ignorance
Dumb to their own pain

(The language, the language
is divorced from their minds
They have not the words
Or have not the courage to use them)

And still they come forward
Begetting degradation upon degradation

In the Cultural State, War
(Which in the Natural State
Is fought one man against another)
Is both necessary and good
Exterminating poor men of breeding age
And all their would be descendants
Else we would be over run with poverty

In a beautiful cultural ceremony
The costumed Armies march upon each other
A most noble ritual suicide
With bravery and glory
Blessed with female tears
Their legacy canonized
With feminine sentimentality

2 comments:

Peter Harter said...

This is one character's perspective, from my poem "The Firebird" In the Firebird myth, Ivan kills a wolf, then the wolf is reincarnated and travels with Ivan becoming his companion. He symbolizes the uncultured man--who Ivan must overcome.

Peter Harter said...

The stanza in parenthesis is quoted from William Carlos Williams "Patterson"--when he described the illiteracy of the blue collar townsfolk. It still takes courage to use words. Especially in this illiterate social environment where reading itself can be viewed as a suspicious waste of time.