If you put the mouse cursor over the links and wait a moment, text will appear over (and appear to define) the linked words. This poem appeared originally on Meta/ Phor(e) /Play as Winter Poem. It has since been published in my chap book, Breakfast at the End of Capitalism (free PDF download). You can also purchase a print copy through locofo chaps.
I mention an image that for some days now has been mounting in the sky of the revolution…Chantal’s image is circulating in the streets. An image that resembles her and does not resemble her. She towers above the battles.
—The Envoy in Jean Genet’s The Balcony
Your lost lover becomes a martyr—
a new revolutionary cause—
as the judge, an abandoned father,
conceives the child’s anarchistic calls.
Balconies crack, begin to falter
while the white rose petals start to fall,
and the soft dust now rises up to
cloud our bishop’s visionary realms.
So you saunter down to the twelfth bar.
It’s not very far for you to go—
down the road to the mausoleum,
where knowledge no longer wants to flow,
and wisdom the police chiefs promised
evaporates in blue cloudiness.
My forlorn lovers take one last look,
executioners seal sacred books,
and we dream that time will return us
again to where Chantal’s dance began.
We slip on ice in larch swamps covered
by fog, which obscures the histories
unfolding Irma’s worn tapestries—
lies of the victors, lies of the lost.
We change the general’s blank dance card,
then drop three photographers’ needles
into a heavily falling snow.
Your martyr turns into a lover—
an evolutionary lost-cause.
An old father begins his judgement
with many anachronistic flaws.
And Carmen’s petals flake slowly off
like snow melting in a beggar’s tale
of the freed slave’s magic midnight sun
where my desire has never failed.
And the rose petals? The bruised petals
from the flowers you took the envoy
cover the gravel under your feet.
At first, people were fighting against illustrious and illusory tyrants, then for freedom. Tomorrow they’ll be ready to die for Chantal alone.
Note: In each of the two days I have been working on the poem above, the ones just before I am posting it, exactly 18 people visited my blog, where this originally appeared as Chai equals eighteen (things have changed—yesterday 222 people visited, a more usual number since the beginning of 2017). The poem has four stanzas of 9 lines each, for 36 lines (double 18), not counting the epigrams from Genet. Each line has 9 syllables. The total number of syllables is 324, plus the 36 lines, equals 360—the number of degrees in a circle. Chai, חָי —Hebrew for life, equals 18 according to gematria. So, 36 lines, double 18, is double life. Or, perhaps, a double life. Jean Genet‘s The Balcony may offer a key element to this equation.
Double Life has since been published in my chap book, Breakfast at the End of Capitalism (free PDF download). You can also purchase a print copy through locofo chaps.
At three in the morning
I hand wash my socks,
my bladder emptied,
the toilet flushed.
These pressure socks
help stop the pain
and swelling from
my varicose veins.
I realize the water
will never run clear,
black dye running
away from the
responsibility,
I assume. And
I think, this poem
is not very sexy.
For that, I should
lay next to my wife,
who sleeps in
the next room as
I wring the socks.
We should share
a cigarette. You
know, how the
movies used
to show sex.
Except we don’t
smoke. And we’ve
spent the day
caring for her
mother with cancer
and a broken arm.
I caught up on a bit
of work tonight,
wrote to a couple
of friends, edited
something, sent
a poem or two
to editors who
know or don’t
know me.
Well,
my socks will be
clean. And, I think,
that’s not so bad.
Her (dis)like of poetry showed through
her pure contempt while reading it. She thought
high interpretation of the unintelligible half poets
elevated an autopsy to a false revery for birth, and
that all the academics criticize what they understand
would be detrimental to their careers. She wanted a genuine toad, not a prince, an imaginary secret
garden, no flowers, a raw poem eaten, savored,
complete with a belch after gulping beer.
My students hate the image of an autopsy,
don’t like to consider births except in the abstract,
think if someone says “poetry,” then, poetry.
What use definitions, declinations, nuance
or inflections? Metaphors just hide the truth,
what matters comes out straight and clear.
Who cares about red wheelbarrows, blackbirds, or pigeons, for that matter?
And certainly, they argue, we don’t dislike
all that we don’t understand.
This piece is part of a series of experimental writing I worked on in 2013. This hybrid-flash has a relationship to surrealism, automatism, Robert Bly‘s leaping poetry, and chaos theory. If you want to explore some of my tangential associations, hover your mouse cursor over the links in this post and see what pops up—follow the links if you wish to engage in a hyper-text non-linear reading. Don’t forget to come back! Such a reading might be determined by initial conditions, and thus fit chaos theory very nicely…
Michael Dickel’s most recent book, The Palm Reading after The Toad’s Garden, which collects series of experimental writing and some more “conventional” narrative, all flash fiction, that I’ve written over the last few years.
This originally appeared on Michael Dickel’s blog in 2013.
In which the poet imagines that time twists around after scientists appear to have accelerated a particle faster than light (but alas, it was a loose wire that resulted in inaccurate measurements, the particle did not exceed light speed.)
Geneva (Reuters) An international team of scientists said on Thursday they had recorded sub-atomic particles traveling faster than light—a finding that could overturn one of Einstein’s long-accepted fundamental laws of the universe. —“Particles found to break speed of light,” Robert Evans, 22 September 2011.
A particle apparently arrived slices
of a millisecond earlier than expected.
Faster than light, it knocked on the door
relatively early on a Saturday night.
The hosts had not readied the party
or sent the invitations yet, as time compressed
events into a singularity—understanding
slipped away and arrived before it left.
The single green parrot flew above the road,
its raucous call cheering the sight of the race
with time and space as a lone soldier stood guard
over the abandoned barracks of this particular dream.
A sub-atomic speeding ticket noted the date and time
of all events but perhaps its clock shifted with condensation,
a dewy drop of time dripping down the broken windshield
while the galactic waltz shifted on its axis at something
much less than the beating butterfly wing.
The whole of history would stop if we observed Shabbat
or made peace or sang a simple harmonic note,
a hidden breath of a name written by the smallest bit
of nothing as it raced to beat itself to the drummer’s distant
dance. It’s another observation point, this faster-than-light
speed, a stretching and tightening of time and space
that allows the smallest slice of a millisecond rest
before the melody continues.
—Michael Dickel
Originally appeared in: Diogen pro kultura magazin / pro culture magazine. Dec. 25, 2012. Online. And in my book Midwest / Mid-East (2012).
This originally appeared in the November 2016 issue of The BeZine. Here it is again, as it also addresses how to overcome hate, or at least, an idea of how harsh judgment is what we really must overcome — our own tendencies to be judgmental, and the judgmental perspectives / positions of others. This does not mean we should not judge — the emphasis should be read on the word harsh judgment.
After the election I find it difficult to write (just, justly) about (love, loving kindness, grace). Followed, as the election was, by the death of Leonard Cohen whose songs and as described (by those who knew him), whose personal life embodied grace, the task has become more difficult. I have lost my balance. I have fallen into (judgment, in this case, harsh judgment). Beauty seems cut off from the Crown, (Understanding and Wisdom) disconnected from (love and judgment). All balance has left me, I stumble up and down stairs as though falling, red faced, my prophetic legs unstable, my right knee (eternally) in sharp pain, my left leg (splendidly) leaning against a wall.
by Michael Dickel
And if these words confuse you, then they have communicated an aspect of my state, some limbs of the tree that sustains me. I will not explain. These fragments may not hold. I will try to find some pieces of the puzzle and lay them on the floor, without hope of putting the image together again. For the image shatters, overfull of signification. Its pieces slide into sounds, letters, words, phrases, a life sentence of confusion.
We may discern that the tree grows. We may figure out most or all of how it grows. However, ask the tree why it grows and it will simply rustle in the air of your breath.
Under the Palm Tree, Devorah sat in judgment. She was a warrior and a leader, yet her judgment was not harsh. She led because her judgment was seen as righteous and fair. My family name as I was born to it, Dickel, does not transliterate into the Hebrew aleph-bet very well. However, Dekel does work in Hebrew letters, דקל, and is a common enough family name in Hebrew. So when my wife and I registered our marriage in Israel, we changed our family name to Dekel. Dekel means (date) palm. I (am) a palm tree. I cannot explain.
——————
In the 16th C., Moses Cordevero “discovered” or “wrote down” ancient (oral) texts, or simply wrote them as new texts. These are prominent among the received texts, part of the basis of Kabbalah (which means Reception, Received, but idiomatically, Revelation). One book is The Palm Tree of Devorah. At once it seems a text about how to be a good judge, like Devorah, and how to transcend our lives of judgment to obtain a Oneness with Keter, the Crown of Creation. Some excerpts, from Daniel Matt’s book, The Essential Kabbalah: The Heart of Jewish Mysticism (including his notes / commentary after the boldface text):
Your face should always be shining. Welcome each person with a friendly countenance. For with regard to Keter Elyon, the supernal crown, it is said: “In the light of the king’s face is life.” No redness or harsh judgment gains entrance there. So, too, the light of your face should never change; whoever looks at you will find only joy and a friendly expression. Nothing should disturb you. (85 from Moses Cordevero Tomer Devorah original 16th C., Warsaw: Joel Levensohn 1873)
“In the light of the king’s face is life.” Proverbs 16:15. CF Mishnah, Avot 1:15: “Welcome each person with a friendly countenance.”
redness The color of harsh judgment. (192)
Your mouth should produce nothing but good. The words you speak should be Torah and an expression of goodwill. Never generate angry or ugly words, curses, or nonsense. Let our mouth resemble the upper mouth, which is never closed, never silent, never withholding the good. Speak positively, always, with benevolent words.
All of these good qualities gather under the banner of humility, each one constituting a limb in Keter above…
It is impossible, of course, to conduct yourself according to these qualities constantly. Accustom yourself to them little by little. The essential quality to attain, the key to them all, is humility, for this is the very first aspect of Keter, under which all of the rest are subsumed. (85–86 from Moses Cordevero Tomer Devorah original 16th C., Warsaw: Joel Levensohn 1873)
So should your wisdom be accessible to all. Teach people what will be useful to them, according to each one’s capacity, pouring out to each as much wisdom as you can. Don’t let anything deter you.…Be careful not to give more than the mind of the recipient can hold, to prevent any mishap…
As Binah, Understanding, sweetens all powers of judgment, neutralizing their bitterness, so should you return to God and correct each flaw. If you meditate on returning every day, you stimulate Binah to illuminate each day.… (87 from Moses Cordevero Tomer Devorah original 16th C., Warsaw: Joel Levensohn 1873)
power of judgment Hebrew, dinim (דינים), powers of the sefirah of Din, harsh judgment. (192)
Do not say that returning is good only for the holy portion within you; the evil portion, too, is sweetened, in the manner of this quality. Do not think that because you incline toward evil there is no remedy. This is false. If you do well, rooting yourself in Returning, you can ascend there through the goodness rooted there. For the root of every supernal bitterness is sweet; you can enter through this root and make yourself good; your intentional sins turn into merits. The misdeeds you committed have been accusing you from the Left Side. Once you return completely, you raise those deeds and root them above. Those accusers are not annihilated but ameliorated, rooted in holiness. (88 from Moses Cordevero Tomer Devorah original 16th C., Warsaw: Joel Levensohn 1873)
the Left Side The demonic dimension, which branches out from the sefirah of Din, harsh judgment, located on the left side of the sefirotic tree. (192)
How should you train yourself in the quality of Hesed, Love? The basic way you enter the mystery of Hesed is by loving God to the extreme, not abandoning devotion for any reason at all, since nothing attracts you in the least, compared to loving God. (88 from Moses Cordevero Tomer Devorah original 16th C., Warsaw: Joel Levensohn 1873)
——————
The Ten Sefirot
The sefirot (plural, singular sefirah), according to Jewish Mysticism, could be thought of as a series of vessels through which the energy of Creation / Creator (Keter) flow
from Ayin, אין, Nothingness, through Keter, the Crown (Head) of (Divine) Will
through the Point-Beginning of Wisdom (Hokhmah) and the Palace or Womb of Understanding (Binah)
into the Right Arm of (Hesed) Love (loving kindness, Grace) and the Left Arm of Power-Judgment (Din, Gevurah)
converging into (Tiferet) Beauty-Compassion-Mercy (Heaven, Sun, Harmony, Blessed Holy One)
into the right leg of Eternity-Prophecy (Nezah) and the Left Leg of Splendor-Prophecy (Hod)
converging once again into (Yesod) Foundation-Righteous One-Covenant (Phallus symbolic) and
flowing into the Presence as the Divine Feminine Aspect of God, the Shekhinah, from where it flows into the world / people.
The sefirot of convergences make up a central column, also.
These all make up a (symbolic) body, Adam (mankind, human) that is gender fluid (womb, phallus, Shekhinah all together). They comprise The Tree of Life. “The tree grows upside down,” its roots in the top, “an image familiar to us from many myths” (Scholem 42). “…Its trunk embraces the central and thereby conciliating forces; while the branches or limbs which grow out of it as various points encompass the contradictory forces of divine activity in Hesed and Din” (Scholem 42). The sefira of Hesed is love. The sefira of Din is judgment.
The sefirot could be a galaxy of stars, if you wish. The flow of this energy is two way. Jacob, when he dreamed of the ladder, saw messengers / angels going up and down the ladder (Gen. 28:12). (Not down and up.) The sefirot can also reveal themselves to our awareness as a ladder. The energy of Creation Returns in emanations toward Creator, Ayin,אין, Nothingness, and flows back down. Messengers going up and down, and up again. Hesed and Din must be in a dynamic balance to reach the convergence that is beauty-compassion-mercy in one direction or the duality (in triadic-balance with Keter) of understanding and wisdom in another.
Perhaps the emanations resemble particles falling into a Black Hole. As they hit the event horizon, they double, one continuing, one reflecting out, but as entangled entities. As below, so above; as above, so below. Perhaps the emanations resemble a Big Bang where time flows in both directions—beginning to end, end to beginning. Probably I don’t understand anything and do not have the wisdom to convey ( nothing(ness) ) אין.
However we might choose or be able to imagine them, the sefirot must be in balance. They are fractal—at all levels of the universe from quantum bits to macrocosmic, identical at all magnifications. They are Chaos. Ordered. Theory. The Shape. Everything.
And the opposite of love is not hate. It is harsh judgment. From harsh judgment flows, from us flows, the demonic dimension. For we are nothing but sefirot, energy, emanations of the Big Bang. For all I know.
A glimpse behind the curtain.
Pay no attention to the man behind the keyboard.
——————
It doesn’t matter which you heard,
the holy or the broken Hallelujah…
——————
It is taught in the Mystery of Mysteries: The king’s head is arranged according to Hesed and Gevurah [another term for the sefiraDin]. Hairs are suspended from his head, waves upon waves, which are all an extension, and which serve to support the upper and lower worlds: princes of princes, masters of truth, masters of balance, masters of howling, masters of screaming, secrets of Torah, cleannesses and uncleannesses—all of them are called “hairs of the king,” that is to say, the extension that proceeds from the holy king, and it all descends from Atika Kadisha [Ancient Holiness].
The forehead of the kin is the visitation of the wicked. When they are called to account because of their deeds, and when their sins are revealed, then is it called “the forehead of the king,” that is to say, Gevurah [Din]. It strengthens itself with its judgments, and extends itself to its extremities.… (Zohar, II, 122b–123a, cited in Scholem 53)
In the next three Sefiroth, we find Hesed (grace or love), Din or Gevurah (severity or judgment), and Rahamim or Tif’ereth (mercy, also known as splendor or beauty), in which the extremes are united and conciliated.Again, it is no coincidence that this sphere is defined by moral forces. (Scholem 42–43)
——————
Hate is not the opposite of love.
Harsh judgment is the opposite of love. Out of the imbalance of harsh judgment (as opposed to judgment per se) and love comes hate. From hate comes the demonic dimension. The demons come from within. This is true for one. It is true for society. It is true of our human world right now, many nationalities, many Nationalisms.
They sit in judgment of us. We sit in judgment of them.
Out of the raised left arm of harsh judgment comes the demonic dimension.
Do not confuse this notion of left or right as anything to do with political camps or spatial dimensions as we know them. They are convenient and familiar shorthand for this side and another side that pull against each other. The image of Adam in the sefirot is a mirror image of the viewer. We see ourselves in everything. The tree is more complex, three dimensional, a series of branchings and series of branchings from those branchings.
The tree is an inadequately simple image because we know it. We see trees. We think we understand.
I don’t understand.
The purpose of all of the rhetoric. The flow of all of the hate. The riling noisy din of social media. Servers flickering. Serving up harsh judgments. All of us. Count me in…I’ll share that meme.
This carries. Comments. Brings. Back. Returns to. A beginning of sorts of bringing. Together or apart, I don’t know.
A furrowed red forehead with notable hair flying loose. “Hairs are suspended from his head, waves upon waves, which are all an extension.” In a weave over skin, the redness spouted its harsh judgments, a forehead extended to the extremities of the. Beast.
We called it hate, but he used harsh judgment of immigrants, of minorities, of liberals, of Hillary Clinton. He called up the judgmental. Yes. KKK. Yes. NAZIs. Yes. Bigots.
But. Also. And. Yes. Us.
Those who cried out against him and his followers. With harsh judgment. In harsh judgment. Becoming harsh. Judgment.
And the social media full of Din, the din, the noise, The Judgment. Without looking with love at the followers and asking, “how can I love them?”
Did you think Judgment Day meant someone else’s judgment? Something else’s Judgment? Perhaps it means the day that harsh judgment won. The election. No matter which person won, harsh. Judgment. Reigned.
I don’t love them. I judge them.
Don’t mistake me for saying we need to accept these harsh judgments of others that cast them as enemies—not immigrants, not those who are not “mainstream,” not those who are not “white,” an empty and meaningless category without inscription, a blank page signifying emptiness.
Please understand that the power (Gevurah) he wielded was not only over his followers. He triggered us. He caused us to judge. We answered. Off balance. We fell. Into hate. Fed by (our own) harsh judgment (of ourselves? our darker reflections? our shadows?). Which fed harsh judgment. The demonic dimension. Our demons.
We became part of the fire storm. Redness. Smoke. Mirrors reflecting our fears of who we really are back at us. And we became what we feared.
As did his supporters. They fell off balance into harsh judgment.
Trump fueled and fanned those flames. But so did all of the detractors on all other sides. A raging firestorm of harsh judgment—of Clinton. Of Obama. Of the Right. Of the Left. Of the alt-Right. Of Progressives. Of Boomers. Of Millennials. Clinton of Trump. (Some) progressives of Clinton. Of media. Media of anyone who sold viewers to their advertisers. Of those who voted for third party candidates. Those who voted for third parties of we who voted in the lie of the two-party system. Of those who didn’t judge. Of those who didn’t vote. Of others who judged.
——————
There is room for judgment, to be sure. But it must be balanced by Hesed—grace and love.
I did not have that balance. I did not see that balance.
If we want to counter the redness of the demon with wild strands of hair, we must not join with “masters of howling, masters of screaming.”
I must find in myself Hesed, (love, loving kindness, grace).
We must find. Hesed. We must spread it outward. Emanate it up. And down. And up. We must remember that the opposite of love is not hate, that hate begets hate but arises from harsh judgments (being judgmental).
We must be less harsh in our judgments and more loving in our responses.
I must be less harsh in my judgments. Of you. Of me.
This is not to go to the other extreme. Hesed out of balance lacks boundaries, leaves us open and vulnerable, without defenses of any kind. Ready to be eaten.
We must judge, but justly, with love. And find solutions for people, not attack people as though they are problems.
We must call out the demonic dimensions with Hesed and send them back into Din. We must call out in love, to balance the mess we are in.
But we must also hold ourselves and others accountable for our (mis)judgments out of feelings of superiority.
We are all human. We all live in the world. We have divine potential, each and every one, even the orange redness with the wild hair.
And we all have demonic potential, each and every one, even the orange redness with the wild hair.
We must judge which is prevalent. With Hesed, love and grace.
And love is not the opposite of hate. But it brings a balance of judgment that leads from hate to beauty-compassion-mercy in one direction and to understanding and wisdom in the other.
Love must balance our judgment and guide our actions. Good must be on our tongues.
I don’t know how. I am angry. I am hurting. I am full of harsh judgments. I want to find a balance, though. And I want to remember that
…love is not a victory march
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah…
I pick up my guitar and fall as much as sit down. My right knee screams in pain. My left knee sags. My right arm tingles, as fingers pluck the six strings. My left fingers press the notes, jarring my left arm to life as I make the chords: C – Am – C – Am -F – G – C – G – C – F – G -Am – F – G – Em – Am
I’ve heard there was a secret chord
That David played and it pleased the Lord
But you don’t really care for music, do you?
Well it goes like this:
The fourth, the fifth, the minor fall and the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
I’ve read this past week that Leonard Cohen wanted Hallelujah to convey all of the possible moments, good and bad, when praise might come to our lips—the cold, the broken, the holy…
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
“Rabbi Tarphon taught us that while it is not our responsibility to finish the work of perfecting the world, we are not free to desist from it either.” —Rabbi Marcia A. Zimmerman, Alvin & June Perlman Senior Rabbinic Chair, Temple Israel, Minneapolis, MN in a letter to her congregation after the election.
——————
Matt, Daniel C. The Essential Kabbalah: The Heart of Jewish Mysticism. San Francisco: Harper Collins. 1995. Citations from the 1997 Castle Books edition.
Wrestling, names, and shipwrecks). Jacob / Yaakov wrestled all night with a messenger (of God, or angel) while crossing the Jabbok / Yabok river. In Hebrew and English, the two names are variations of each other, transposing consonants. The messenger gives him a new name, Israel / Yisrael as the sun rises (Genesis 32:22-31). I’m not sure that I can fully explain what that means. That’s why I have poetry. Here are two poems I have written about Jacob at the crossing of the Jabbok ford.
Michael Dickel
Jacob Wrestling
They’ve all gone ahead, those I loved,
those I cared for but did not love—
arrayed and ranked, walking toward doom
or reunion. This bank, this river I have crossed before—
this creek, this life, this wreck on this shore—
all too familiar, all too fresh, all too unknown, all too new.
Now a shadow over the moon, or
perhaps my own doubt
forms as I ford the stream.
Now I wrestle with myself,
with this messenger,
this something of nothingness.
Now the moon fades—
darkness less dark—
what is my name?
Now I limp away
from this tangled life
of deception and counter-deception—
to losses, deaths, uncertainty,
a favorite son sold to the gypsies—
Who will redeem us?
Soon my brother and I will embrace
but keep our defended distance.
Soon nothing will be the same.
Now, I wrestle with God.
Originally published in Voices Israel 2009: Poetry from Israel and Abroad.
Jacob wrestling with the angel
I didn’t notice you come up. It’s so dark.
Look at the river, though, a darker strain beneath
this evening’s melody, flowing against the harmony.
Perhaps you won’t believe me, but God has spoken to me.
He sent me here, on the journey, to this river. I must cross.
But I don’t want to. On the other side, reckoning. Maybe death.
Odd, how we will tell strangers things we wouldn’t tell
our closest friends. Not that I have had that many friends.
As you stare at me, I feel that you understand, though.
See over there, across the river? That direction is the direction
I must travel. I’ve already sent the others ahead. Made offerings,
sent gifts. A man grows lonely in a foreign land. That direction,
that direction I must travel, that direction is home.
How far are you from home? Your silence doesn’t surprise me.
I’ve kept to myself, too, not told the whole story.
I had to keep silent when I wore goat skin to fool the old man.
He took me for another, gave my brother’s blessing.
I don’t suppose you know what that feels like, to betray a brother?
Why do you remain silent? Well, you also remain here, listening.
I will continue. My brother liked to play rough when we were young.
As we grew up, he would hunt, ride, spend his time out of doors.
I studied, read. I was pale, he ruddy. I wasn’t really a sissy,
well, now you can see, I have grown strong, worked hard,
made something of myself. Back then, I guess you wouldn’t know
that I would do so well. That must be why I went along with my mother,
when she suggested the plan to cheat my brother. Well, I can’t blame
her, can I? I mean, she might have told me what to do,
but I did it. Besides, I was the one who made the stew, red with spices.
Anyway, after our father gave me the inheritance
instead of my brother, well then I figured there would be hell to pay.
So I left.
What’s that you say? Yes, it is growing light. You must go?
Work to do, you say? Oh. Well, now that you’ve heard my story,
even if you are a stranger, won’t you give me your blessing?
Are you sure you won’t tell me your name? What’s that? Oh,
I’m Jacob, the Usurper. What’s that you say?
You have another name for me?
Does prophecy help? What does exegesis reveal? What texts do we provide exegesis for? Isn’t all of Creation and sacred text awaiting exegesis? If we remember the sacredness of everything and nothing, would be stop hating? Do we miss the rhythm of harmony when we fall into judgment?
Michael Dickel
I. Prophecies of the poet
Dark shadows slip under waves
to catch an indecisive moment
and let it surface to lustrous now.
Thus, no decision becomes one.
Star glimmers, the sun on waves
accenting troughs’ deep colors,
remind us that contrast
strives to give shadows light.
Night falls, dawn rises—
or perhaps night rises to
the falling dawn. Invert
a scene and shadows
reveal unseen truths.
II. Poetic entropy
Sleep and dream fly
off together—dish and spoon
beneath a cowed moon’s
reflection. I wonder if daisies
die when the wine turns to dust.
Surfaces turn to dust,
flutter across the screen,
another abstract movie—
flashes of light and shadow—
celluloid crumbling.
Eyelids crumble, flutter,
resist an impulse of wake-
fullness. A wake behind
the boat loses momentum,
returns to a lake’s surface.
Flies surface on a window—
dark specks against winter sunlight—
driving speculation that our world
will fall back to dust, chaos.
III. Poetry books
Bargain books of poems,
English poems, that poetry
for kids, those books online,
some in a bookshop still; a
book stores gleaming nostalgia—
but even history books age,
textbooks go out of date:
bookstore compounds—
brick-and-mortar, resistant,
walled strongholds—
book-free used books,
if you want to buy books,
poetry books, poetic coruscations—
slick bargain books of poems—
unrealized, found search-term hints.
IV. Poem lover
A glistening thought
slips into the night
and away at dawn.
A sleeper calls out
across the river
that drought dried.
A lover sought to
understand these
and other glimmers.
V. The end of poetry
Darkness cool and short
relieves the solstice heat
while the earth stealthily
slips around toward winter.
Dogs darken barks at sight
of shadows & eclipses but
dance high, wild with glee,
when they see glinting waves.
Tree bark peels away
only to display colors
beyond black, brown,
or gray imagining.
Peeling my eyes open
from sticky, closed lids
gives a methodology to see
this world unravel from dreams.
Deconstruction – a poem of revolutionary welcoming
I’ll take your hyper-inflated
phallus, ego-distended balloon,
id-fueled hot-air engine
that fills super-ego daydreams
to dizzying-heights of power—
and throw your craven, carved
wind on the fire of this year’s
revolution. Such a useless
log, poorly fit for fuel, and
barely at that, must burn
to ash before this dawn
comes, must rise in smoke
signals to call poets and
painters from themselves.
Then you can raise your
indistinguishable flags,
try to wave the smoke
from your eyes. We
will not be deceived—
we know who feeds
this all-consuming blaze.
And we will have
already come for you.
As you crawl out of your
wrecked ship of state,
we come for you.
As your cracked currency
drops from you, we come
for you. As you fall,
we come for you.
We come, not as you
imagine. With arms open,
we welcome you back to humanity.
The probability of our existence, of this green planet, of my lover—the odds against these are astronomical, cosmic. And there is so much to fear, so many possible and probable destructions, erasures, injuries, pains, slights. Yet, somehow, we speak to each other against all odds. And sometimes we understand. And, sometimes, we don’t need to understand, just to hear.
Michael Dickel
Not the odds, probability or possibility,
walking along a stream, waterfalls ahead;
nor sitting in mountain wind as the airport
slips away under the noise of clocks
forgetting the ticks that flock memory;
not geese in Oneonta’s skies—beneath duck’s
distressed, convening cackles; nor a wood
stove dancing passion as gasses
stream carbonaceous oblivion along
meridians calculated to deceive
a sense of order, a few imaginary
boundaries of time. So simpler to
receive the deception of hours while
sensing movement toward a finality
that constantly slips into tomorrow
until tonight comes—in the deep
slumbering giant silhouette-shaped
mountain range: a pass, a saddle,
a horse racing toward immortality,
limitless dreams fleeing past oaks
blown down in the windshear
storm of oblivion, dust, smoke.
Flying bound—aluminum, magnesium,
sodium chlorides, ferrous sulphates,
collide tidally among waves below—
the sea we cross from continent to
embattled continental plate, cracked
and distorted, a rift in sensibility—
sensuous signal of hot sulphur—springs
to life, dehydrates into burning
logos that desires mountains.
Trees, cracked and crackling, cry
out with screams, delight sparks
through the flue, invisible against
night skies. Jet aircraft roars over
soft piano jazz tango of the tangled
words: expressionless, blank, white
fonts floating in milk, reflected clouds
giving the illusion of a full moon,
the circle at the well’s top, the dark
clear water blued into green, self-portrait
shadow leaning over the stone-lined hole.
Reading Mexican poetry translated,
hearing untranslated Hebrew voices,
piano chords surrealistic eros, evolution
swims from the portals of splashing
planes in the curved sea ragged with waves:
Not the possibility or probability,
not the odds walking past
(the lottery ticket window)—
just bumpy air and rough decks
predicting nothing as the Tarot
reader considers by chance
a favor she once held in the palm
of her hand. The sun rose from
the middle of the body’s night,
drawing a margin of dawn
slated for sleep. A dripping distant
pendulum swings over a trussed
buxom heroine who laughs that yet
again the siren-wail saxophone-
imagined piano pauses, punctuating
sentences judged too heavy or light
among falling currencies, unslung
from tired shoulders. Still, we trudge
along hoping for the rising night
to rescue our exhausted ardor—
breathless, fatigued, silent.
Silence at the very center of
rushing-engine screams
lays hands on us and prays
for listeners, discovering the
lack of oxygen in the air of
history, the thin cold atmosphere
compressed beneath wings.
Theory holds us up,
a thin blanket over our legs,
a neck pillow resisting stiffly
any hint of rest. Like geese,
I migrate, metallically tapping
a tin-drum heart in a blank man’s
chest, smaller than the eye
of the sparrow flitting beneath
our table at the cafe that last
day at the beach when the
pigeons stole the French fries
and threw away the foam box.
The wind came up.
The sand blew away.
Yet, against
all odds, we speak,
and, sometimes,
we understand—
or almost.
Even odder,
sometimes
we don’t need to.
@2013 Michael Dickel
Originally published in The Art of Being Human, Vol. I (2013).
Can we recall our ideal state, our grace, the love we felt at the moment All was Created? Can we know anymore what we knew before we were born, before the angel touched our upper lip, leaving a slight indent under our nose as we forgot…
Michael Dickel
Once we dreamt, I don’t know what,
just conjure that. Like sun-warmed
rain in a dilatory rill, it refreshed our
feet. A blue feather wafts down as we
perch there—a bit of sky, flight, truth.
Vacant nights besiege us, nothing
more than a dried orange peel found
in a kitchen corner or white garlic skin
discovered sliding in the air along
the floor. The pips did not grow.
The bulb might have sprung up
green shoots, but these shriveled
as we slept. Who breathes like this,
loud and rasping, as though reaching
for a finish line that recedes from
my grasp? Hungers outnumber
dreams now. Peckish imagination
arises out of habit and unfulfilled
desire. Unrepentant love once
lived under a roof of dreams.
It took a broom and a mop
to clean up after the squall. So
we thatched our lives together
and slept under rising planets
and a cyclic moon. We hiked.
Where we could, we found springs.
From time to time, an acacia
provided scant shade when we
chose to sit. Sketches recollect
contrast and contradiction, rush-
hour delays on the way to work,
reality emerging from the sand.
Now, we decant wine from broken
promises and pronounce decrees
in the desert with dusty cant. Yes.
Once we dreamt. That, I remember.
I mean, then, I remembered. Now, I can’t.
One wonders if a group of people who have a fetish-obsession with alpha males overpowering beta males are really werewolves (werwolf, in German, a fort, a plan, an insurgency, ever a human?) rather than human beings. Perhaps they are devolved to pack animals easily confused by a gilded chair and spotlight glare. They seem to have failed to realize that the beta males fight over hierarchy, the lone alpha in each pack standing aloof and indifferent to their struggle.
The followers packed in the hall raise their hands in a familiar, evil salute.
The one in front mentions alpha males, before saluting his leader’s election.
In their poorly learned algebra: Power equals everything; morality, ethics, community equal nothing. They worship the square root of negative 3. No one, not even I, know what that means.
Some reject all leaders other than themselves. Even the one elected remains insufficiently aggrieved and enraged to take the reins. Wild horses run through them, disordering their imaginations with fantasies of powerful stallions. The stallions laugh at their inadequacies.
Werewolf Nazis-2 Digital art Werewolf image src NAZI salute src
It begins with words—the werewolf singing the song of cancer cells—unlimited growth, spreading out, destroying all else, leaving nothing but toxic waste behind. When he howls “greatness,” he sings to spread deadly cancer in our midst. Unchecked growth. We must resist the cancer, gather our antibodies, strengthen our collective body of love and wisdom.
Whiteflies invade the green leaves and suck the plant dry. They excrete a honeydew of hate. They believe that they grew the plant. They want to be in charge of the plant, even as they kill it.
Afraid and weak, these werewolves bark, bite, howl, yip. If they didn’t run in packs, they would be nothing. That is why the alpha obsession raised to the power of fetish. They use terms from pornography. They are pornography.
What is pornography? Is it human? Am I / pornography / human?
The hounds of hate have been unleashed to the sound of trumpets. They turn against learning and research. The rich and powerful control them by remote signal. The rich and the powerful laugh and laugh. The hounds fight over the scraps. They get trumped.
Then the hounds turn on the rest of us, licking their sagging, blood-spattered jowls.
If you haven’t already, place your mouse cursor over the links and wait. You will see an excerpt pop up from that linked page. The excerpt inter-plays with this text. I’m not sure how / if this works in mobile platforms.
I grew up through the 1960s, when resistance was to the draft, the war in Vietnam, and capitalism. While the fronts may have changed, the war of resistance against greed-driven government and the military-industrial complex (now the military-industrial-technological-communication complex?) continues on. Here are a few old protest songs from those times and others, for your resistance sound-track of today.
While Leonard Cohen’s work is hardly “protest music” of the sort we might associate with the 1960s, his powerful poetry in song at times evokes a sense of resistance for me. Here, perhaps an obvious example—Democracy.
Another song that for me foreshadows our current state of affairs is First We Take Manhattan…
These will be some of the background music for me in the coming years, much as they have been since they came out. However, now, with a renewed sense of urgency.
By now, those who pay attention to poetry and in particular the poetries of witness and activist poetries, know well that it follows from a long tradition. Yet others, especially cultural and political conservatives, argue “protest” poetry or “political” poetry both do not constitute “Literature,” and that such poetry cannot help but be time-bound little more than contemporaneous commentary. I have been told that some of my poetry is “journalistic,” and that I am caught in a “fashionable” trend from the mid-1950s that has no literary roots beyond, possibly, the Beats. Such arguments simply are nonsense.
Carolyn Forché’s volumes Poetry of Witness: The Tradition in English 1500–2001 and Against Forgetting: Twentieth-Century Poetry of Witness demonstrate, with excellent examples, a long history of social and political engagement in English poetry. In fact, one might claim just the opposite of the (usually disguised political) claims that the tradition began in the middle of the 20th C. could be made, that solipsistic confessional poetry that is more autobiography than engaged in the world emerges from that time, in counter-balance to a history of poetry engaged in the outside world.
For this post, I provide two examples of poets from the first half of the 20th Century who engaged in the world.
*****
The first, two poems come from the well-known poet William Butler Yeats: Easter, 1916, written in response to a political protest forcefully broken up by the British, who executed 16 of the protesters. The poem, written in September 1916 and published in 1928, ends with a powerful commentary on the protest, the execution-martyrdom that resulted, and, prophetically, the continuation of the Irish struggle: “A terrible beauty is born.”
Easter, 1916
I have met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
That woman’s days were spent
In ignorant good-will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill.
What voice more sweet than hers
When, young and beautiful,
She rode to harriers?
This man had kept a school
And rode our wingèd horse;
This other his helper and friend
Was coming into his force;
He might have won fame in the end,
So sensitive his nature seemed,
So daring and sweet his thought.
This other man I had dreamed
A drunken, vainglorious lout.
He had done most bitter wrong
To some who are near my heart,
Yet I number him in the song;
He, too, has resigned his part
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.
The horse that comes from the road,
The rider, the birds that range
From cloud to tumbling cloud,
Minute by minute they change;
A shadow of cloud on the stream
Changes minute by minute;
A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
And a horse plashes within it;
The long-legged moor-hens dive,
And hens to moor-cocks call;
Minute by minute they live:
The stone’s in the midst of all.
Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is Heaven’s part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse—
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
– William Butler Yeats
Yeats’ poem, Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen, comments powerfully and bitterly on violence, war, oppression, and the loss of our own humanity in modern times. The poem, in six parts, has a history of difficult critical reception—critics had a hard time reconciling it with others of Yeats’ works. However, since the later part of the 20th Century, his poem has had a more thoughtful reading by the critics, possibly giving weight to saying he was “ahead of his time.”
Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen
I.
Many ingenious lovely things are gone
That seemed sheer miracle to the multitude,
protected from the circle of the moon
That pitches common things about. There stood
Amid the ornamental bronze and stone
An ancient image made of olive wood —
And gone are Phidias’ famous ivories
And all the golden grasshoppers and bees.
We too had many pretty toys when young:
A law indifferent to blame or praise,
To bribe or threat; habits that made old wrong
Melt down, as it were wax in the sun’s rays;
Public opinion ripening for so long
We thought it would outlive all future days.
O what fine thought we had because we thought
That the worst rogues and rascals had died out.
All teeth were drawn, all ancient tricks unlearned,
And a great army but a showy thing;
What matter that no cannon had been turned
Into a ploughshare? Parliament and king
Thought that unless a little powder burned
The trumpeters might burst with trumpeting
And yet it lack all glory; and perchance
The guardsmen’s drowsy chargers would not prance.
Now days are dragon-ridden, the nightmare
Rides upon sleep: a drunken soldiery
Can leave the mother, murdered at her door,
To crawl in her own blood, and go scot-free;
The night can sweat with terror as before
We pieced our thoughts into philosophy,
And planned to bring the world under a rule,
Who are but weasels fighting in a hole.
He who can read the signs nor sink unmanned
Into the half-deceit of some intoxicant
From shallow wits; who knows no work can stand,
Whether health, wealth or peace of mind were spent
On master-work of intellect or hand,
No honour leave its mighty monument,
Has but one comfort left: all triumph would
But break upon his ghostly solitude.
But is there any comfort to be found?
Man is in love and loves what vanishes,
What more is there to say? That country round
None dared admit, if Such a thought were his,
Incendiary or bigot could be found
To burn that stump on the Acropolis,
Or break in bits the famous ivories
Or traffic in the grasshoppers or bees.
II.
When Loie Fuller’s Chinese dancers enwound
A shining web, a floating ribbon of cloth,
It seemed that a dragon of air
Had fallen among dancers, had whirled them round
Or hurried them off on its own furious path;
So the platonic Year
Whirls out new right and wrong,
Whirls in the old instead;
All men are dancers and their tread
Goes to the barbarous clangour of a gong.
III
Some moralist or mythological poet
Compares the solitary soul to a swan;
I am satisfied with that,
Satisfied if a troubled mirror show it,
Before that brief gleam of its life be gone,
An image of its state;
The wings half spread for flight,
The breast thrust out in pride
Whether to play, or to ride
Those winds that clamour of approaching night.
A man in his own secret meditation
Is lost amid the labyrinth that he has made
In art or politics;
Some Platonist affirms that in the station
Where we should cast off body and trade
The ancient habit sticks,
And that if our works could
But vanish with our breath
That were a lucky death,
For triumph can but mar our solitude.
The swan has leaped into the desolate heaven:
That image can bring wildness, bring a rage
To end all things, to end
What my laborious life imagined, even
The half-imagined, the half-written page;
O but we dreamed to mend
Whatever mischief seemed
To afflict mankind, but now
That winds of winter blow
Learn that we were crack-pated when we dreamed.
IV.
We, who seven years ago
Talked of honour and of truth,
Shriek with pleasure if we show
The weasel’s twist, the weasel’s tooth.
V.
Come let us mock at the great
That had such burdens on the mind
And toiled so hard and late
To leave some monument behind,
Nor thought of the levelling wind.
Come let us mock at the wise;
With all those calendars whereon
They fixed old aching eyes,
They never saw how seasons run,
And now but gape at the sun.
Come let us mock at the good
That fancied goodness might be gay,
And sick of solitude
Might proclaim a holiday:
Wind shrieked — and where are they?
Mock mockers after that
That would not lift a hand maybe
To help good, wise or great
To bar that foul storm out, for we
Traffic in mockery.
VI.
Violence upon the roads: violence of horses;
Some few have handsome riders, are garlanded
On delicate sensitive ear or tossing mane,
But wearied running round and round in their courses
All break and vanish, and evil gathers head:
Herodias’ daughters have returned again,
A sudden blast of dusty wind and after
Thunder of feet, tumult of images,
Their purpose in the labyrinth of the wind;
And should some crazy hand dare touch a daughter
All turn with amorous cries, or angry cries,
According to the wind, for all are blind.
But now wind drops, dust settles; thereupon
There lurches past, his great eyes without thought
Under the shadow of stupid straw-pale locks,
That insolent fiend Robert Artisson
To whom the love-lorn Lady Kyteler brought
Bronzed peacock feathers, red combs of her cocks.
– William Butler Yeats
If you are viewing this from an email subscription, you’ll likely have to link through to this site to view the video here of Yeats reading Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen.
*****
For the second example, I move to a lesser-known writer. John Cornford, the great-grandson of Charles Darwin, died during the Spanish Civil War under “uncertain circumstances at Lopera, near Córdoba in 1936.” We have no idea how much he might have contributed to poetry, had he survived. However, his poems written during the Spanish Civil War did survive, and were published posthumously. Born in 1915 in Cambridge, England, he was a committed communist. “Though his life was tragically brief, he documented his experiences of the conflict through poetry, letters to family and his lover, and political and critical prose which spoke out against the fascist regime and its ideologies.”
Sandra Mendez, a niece of John Cornford who also holds the copyright to his work, created a song from his poem “To Margot Heinemann.” The YouTube below is her performing that song.
If you are viewing this from an email subscription, you’ll likely have to link through to this site to view the video here of Yeats reading Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen.
These are just two of many examples that could be drawn from the long history of English letters. Engaged poetry, poetry of witness, activist poetry, political poetry—all comprise an important aspect, perhaps the most important aspect, of what we call “Poetry.”
– Michael Dickel
It was September in 1998 when I last visited this text, but I began writing it in 1988—an unlikely time for warm humid air in Minneapolis where I lived. Still, brought up by storm, bereft of beaches, warm ocean-born air covered me in that north-central city, the nearest seacoast thousands of miles away; I could smell that salt breeze left over from and carried here by hurricane Gilbert and his aftermath.And this is what I wrote in 1988 and revised (somewhat) 1998. Now, in 2016, I pulled it out, dusted it off, made some additional revisions and edits (including cutting about 15 pages out at the end) for the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. I read the version of the following at Verses Against Violence 3, organized by Rachel Stomel in Jerusalem, on 24 November, 2016. I have made some edits to the version I read and added a bit more, to more clearly state my position at the end. Both the edits and what I added arose from the discussion after the reading in November.
When you read this, the bombs may be falling still, or falling again; or a temporary lull may have been ordered, or a ceasefire may be in effect. This peace-around the corner, while children, invalids, and old people are blown into mass graves, has been the latest, most visible testimony to the power now handled by a few men—which begins to seem like the power of nature, to bring famine, plague, or cyclone and take it away again at will.
“The bombings, for example, if they have anything to teach us, must be understood in the light of something closer to home, both more private and painful, and more general and endemic, than institutions, class, racial oppression, the hubris of the Pentagon, or the ruthlessness of a right-wing administration: the bombings are so wholly sadistic, gratuitous and demonic that they can finally be seen, if we care to see them, for what they are: acts of concrete sexual violence, an expression of the congruence of violence and sex in the masculine psyche.”
—Adrienne Rich, “Vietnam and Sexual Violence,” a column for APR, first published in 1973
“…it’s time for men to start having programs about rape. It won’t stop until men learn that the victims aren’t responsible.”
—Irene Greene, director of the U of Minnesota Sexual Violence Program
in an interview with Doug Grow.]
The Warm Blanket of Silence
It is a comforting warm atmosphere, and that it should bear with it the responsibility for the death of hundreds and the devastation of fragile third world economies, responsibility for the spawning of floods and tornadoes, dumfounds me at this distance. The air around me is a comfortable blanket, secure and cozy, cuddling me into gentle submission, into ignoring the terrible violence that spawned it, that delivered it to my doorstep along with the bananas and the coffee and the economic well-being that are part of my privileged existence. How do I set my comfort aside and grapple with the need for others’ relief, for a fair-weather change? So easy to retreat, to retreat to the warm blanket, to snuggle against the supposed truth: I am not the perpetrator of those violent deeds. For I am not a violent man, myself.
So it is with the storm, the raging blast of destruction and domination that is U.S. foreign policy, especially in the what we once called the “Third World,” now (in 2016) also the Middle East. That storm accounts for the cozy climate of the privileged in the U.S. (and I own that I was, while living there, and still am, as an ex-pat, one of those privileged). Thousands of deaths, devastation of economies, the spawning of the floods of war and the tornadoes of insurrection and destabilization all account for the stolen ocean breezes. And if I feel as helpless against the hurricane of foreign policy as I do against Gilbert, that same comfortable blanket beckons me: I am not the perpetrator of these violent deeds. For I myself am not a violent man.
If not perpetrator, then collaborator, if not in the destruction wrought by the storm, then in the destructive forces let loose when men beat women, when parents beat children, when men beat other men, when men rape women, when men use violence, oppression and sexual power to coerce those around them into submission. And if it seems that I have leapt hugely into an abyss from foreign policy to domestic, personal, and sexual violence (are these different?), then it is because I am looking for the beginnings of our national imperialism in the place it seems to me things begin: at home. If acts of violence in foreign affairs are not acts of sexual violence, as Adrienne Rich suggests they are, and I by no means believe that they are not, then the same indifference and silence towards the raping, beating, and emotional violence that plagues our own sisters, mothers, lovers, colleagues, brothers, and ourselves allows for our silence and indifference about how our nation conducts its foreign affairs. We may not perpetrate the violence, but we collaborate with it when we remain silent: Even if we are not, ourselves, violent men.
Collaborate? With silence. Silence is collaboration, the great hushed whisper that approves by not calling out, by not naming the violence of person against person, by looking the other way. Too long men have ignored the violence, or viewed it as the victim’s problem, or, when forced to acknowledge the truth, tried to suppress the violence in patriarchal fashion with laws, jails, and punishments (more often than not punishment for other suppressed members of society more than for those in power), rather than treating the roots, looking to the core of the matter.
“Such inhumanity will not cease, I believe, until men, in groups of men, say “no more.” Until the Jaycees, Rotary, American Legion, male sports groups, and the like begin to discuss rape in their meetings and begin to give a loud prohibition to sexual abuse of women rape will not stop.”
—Ted Bowman
quoting himself from a letter to the editor
of the Minneapolis Star and Tribune, December 30, 1983.
Part of the problem is that many men do not see wife and child beating as a men’s issue. Here I generalize, for some activist men indeed do (singer, songwriter, activist Geoff Morgan, for instance, or witness quotes above), and no sweeping statements should be made about men, women, or any group of people. Traditionally, however, men do not seem to have dealt with this issue except as an issue of the victim—a woman’s or child’s issue, or if a men’s issue, a men’s issue based on their own victimization, as in child abuse. Rarely have men confronted the issue as an issue of their own suppression of others, or of their own fears or inability to be whole. An issue of their own rage and explosiveness. We often ignore the fact that we can be violent men.
I know I have viewed this as a “women’s issue,” I know my friends have, I know that some of the concerned men I met with in Minneapolis have all ignored men’s responsibility, to greater and lesser extent, while wanting to acknowledge our “sensitivity.” In failing to acknowledge our potential for violence, we continue the oppression. It is when we deny our own anger, often at ourselves or other men, that we become most likely to blow up with rage at others, also.
But, I am not a violent man. And I do not beat or rape women. Why should I consider this my problem?
Because men are the most common perpetrators of this violence, and men ought to consider solutions that will stop other men from violating other human beings. (I speak hear of male abusers because I wish to arouse men to action to stop sanctioning this abuse with our silence—what I say may apply to women abusers as well.)
We should stop being silent and start taking responsibility, stop saying that this only effects the victims and recognize the effects throughout society and culture, stop subscribing to the patriarchal code of silence that allows the male, even requires the male, to dominate and control those around him, and start working with each other to end family and personal violence. If we want accusations like Rich’s to be untrue, (that violence and sexuality are one for men), we have to speak out and say that it is untrue for us and unacceptable in those around us. We have to act according to these words. We must disentangle them in our own psyches and lives and acts. We must, as men, face our own violence, turn our own sexuality from oppression to eroticism (not to be mistaken for pornography) and spirituality (not to be mistaken for patriarchal indoctrination), from desire for self-gratification to tenderness for the Other.
(skipping about 15 pages to coda at end of original essay)
The first step for any change in attitudes we have and perpetuate about gender, sexuality, and violence begins in the mirror. I must face up to my own capacity for abuse, my own tendency to authoritarianism: my own reluctance to feel, to trust, to be vulnerable, to love (and be loved). I must face myself in my worst aspect to create my best. If this has been, up to now, a social commentary and proposal, it is now a call to all men, and to myself, to begin the act of change within each of us. I ask no one to give up manhood. On the contrary, I ask each man reading this to embrace his own manhood, and to recognise that this manhood is not the violent, competitive, truncated beast that is so often reflected in our culture and our self-images.
I am not a storm, unleashed by nature, not a furious distemper whipping and whirling through the world. I am not corrosion, destruction, death and war. I am not powerless in the face of my actions, hopeless or helpless. Although I could be all of those things. I am not Hurricane Gilbert run amuck, nor Gilbert merely placated, worn down by feminism, politics, my mother, my lover, or my therapist. I am a man choosing to change that which I can. I have missed opportunities in the past, and these missed opportunities are scars that run deep into my psyche: I watched one man die violently where I might have made a difference had I not been silent. I experienced the sudden death of my father with an incomplete relationship because the silence between us—despite all of our words—had grown too big, was broached too late. I have attacked myself, despised myself at times, and lashed out at others.
I may be hunter, and warrior, which means I have the capacity for destructive and abusive violence, and also the capacity for sustaining power and strength. I am also lover and parent, which some may take to mean that I could control and possess a (male or female) vessel in an attempt to fill my needs, but for me means that I can form a tender, erotic, spiritual, and emotional alliance which truly satisfies. I am human, which means I have the power to repress and deny the reality of my emotions, and also that I have the power to experience, survive, and grow in the world by knowing my deepest feelings. I am parent, which means that I can continue the cycle of destruction and violence that I have inherited, and also that I can be open to growth and change. I live in the world, which means that I can strive for dominion, and also that I can strive to form a spiritual community not only with my fellow humans (male and female), but with nature itself. Change begins at home, the choices are mine.
If I do not wish to suffocate under a warm blanket of storm blown silence, I will have to own the destruction that the silence protects. If I own the destruction, I take responsibility for the violence, and then I can change. If I change, I empower myself. I can complete myself. I can choose life, spirit, love, nature. I am not, by inheritance from my father or otherwise, beast; but human being by inheritance of my mother and my father, together. And I will try to be.
“While I have yearned for leadership from persons and groups more influential than I, I also know that the burden of responsibility lies on my shoulders. Consciousness-raising doesn’t cut it! It is time to talk with my sons, brothers, and male friends and yours also. Will you join me in speaking to your male acquaintances? Can we make a difference? I think so! Let’s do it!”
Ted Bowman 1988
(This is as far as the reading went.)
I have brought this essay back for what I imagine are, to the readers of The BeZine, obvious reasons—an unrepentant “pussy-grabber” has just been elected to the office of President of the United States. As a man, I renew my decades-long commitment to stand against such violence and abuse, to resist the “locker-room” excuses and all violence, but most certainly violence against women and children. One thing I take heart in, though, is that what I have witnessed at the Verses against Violence reading this year and in the past—people speaking out, women (mostly) and men resisting the violence embedded in our society and breaking silence. The outcry about the orange-man’s grabbing statement, while it did not stop him being elected, was loud and clear. In 1988, I suspect his comments would not have been a subject in the media. I suspect, but who can know for sure, that the media of that time would have shrugged their shoulders and themselves said, “locker-room talk.” In 1998… possibly not much better. Things are not where they should be, they are not where I want them to be, but at least there was a shout of “NO!”
So, let’s shake the blanket of silence off of our shoulders. Let’s do what we must, do what we can. Let’s not accept in complacency what this presidency likely will bring.
I’ll take your hyper-inflated
phallus, ego-distended balloon,
id-fueled hot-air engine
that fills super-ego daydreams
to dizzying-heights of power—
and throw your craven, carved
wind on the fire of this year’s
revolution. Such a useless
log, poorly fit for fuel, and
barely at that, must burn
to ash before this dawn
comes, must rise in smoke
signals to call poets and
painters from themselves.
Then you can raise your
indistinguishable flags,
try to wave the smoke
from your eyes. We
will not be deceived—
we know who feeds
this all-consuming blaze.
And we will have
already come for you.
As you crawl out of your
wrecked ship of state,
we come for you.
As your cracked currency
drops from you, we come
for you. As you fall,
we come for you.
We come, not as you
imagine. With arms open,
we welcome you back to humanity.
In the 16th C., Moses Cordevero “discovered” or “wrote down” ancient (oral) texts, or simply wrote them as new texts. These are prominent among the received texts, part of the basis of Kabbalah (which means Reception, Received, but idiomatically, Revelation). One book is The Palm Tree of Devorah. At once it seems a text about how to be a good judge, like Devorah, and how to transcend our lives of judgment to obtain a Oneness with Keter, the Crown of Creation. Some excerpts, from Daniel Matt’s book, The Essential Kabbalah: The Heart of Jewish Mysticism (including his notes / commentary after the boldface text):
The BeZine 