School Of Dust

[Mark A. Murphy]

Let’s not talk of monstrous gods, or real and imagined
saviours, and what they may or may not allow.
We who would call all men equal before the law (except
on board the Titanic) would bribe the devil and steal
all that could be sold to buy our rightful place
in the last lonely life-boat, Collapsible C, Engelhardt type.
We who would trample and kill to save our own skins
in the mad panic to live when the Zeebrugge ferry capsized.

We who would watch the pale girl begging outside of Tescos
would fill our own sad bellies first, before reaching
for the small change inside our own trouser pockets.
We who would allow our own soldiers to maim and kill
men, women and children in the wastelands
of Iraq and Afghanistan in the name of ‘justice’,
‘integrity’, and plain old fashioned ‘fair-play’ –
would not take up arms in case our own cards be marked.

We humans, ‘delicate man’, as Levertov would have it,
‘whose eyes are flowers that perceive the moon’ –
who would condemn our own flesh and blood
to the torture chamber and the sword, the bullet and the gallows.
We humans who would swell the ranks of the Waffen-SS,
would kill, for no other reasons, than pride or revenge.
We humans who would haul the dead from the gas chambers
lest it should be us swallowing the dreaded Zyclon B.

And so we return to the pathetic spectacle of a horse kneeling
in the street, half-starved, we who have lost so many gods
would watch this creature being beaten to death,
we who have everything and nothing to live for
would stand idly by as the crowd jeered and whipped the animal
until its eyes were so bloody it could no longer see.
This is what we are, and there will be no forgiveness
at the end of time, only an eternity of star dust.

[Manna]

Hi Mark. I get this one. Not a subtle point you're making here. Unless, of course, I really don't get it. Thanks for letting me get being a jerk out of my system for a while.

[mickey_one]

HI Mark, a few thoughts on this. First, I am not at all keen on the title and I have a hunch that titles don't come easy to you. I'm crap at titles for my own writing btw.

The main trouble with your poem (for me) is that I think it did come easy to you. Because you are a writer your language is fine, your presentation is fine, but the thoughts and images here are all unstartling. This is not a romantic piece like others you have written but it is a poem of sadness, maybe despair, maybe horror yet there is nothing that pulls me up, makes me exhale, or otherwise stimulates me. It's a decent poem but that's it. It reads to me like the declamatory style of certain preachers or rabbis I have heard give sermons. It's a bit listy or narrative and not enough art in the style.

I am very curious whether you are regularly now posting your backlog or whether you are writing these fresh. If you really are composing one a week, I think it's too fast. Your theme here is massive and deserves time to compose, consider, reconsider and reflect.

Actually, the least good part for me is the ending. I don't like the introductory style of "so we return". It is very similar to your line "all at once" which I called "poetic cheating" in an earlier poem you posted.

More importantly. "This is what we are, and there will be no forgiveness at the end of time, only an eternity of star dust" just doesn't work. I don't think you have earned the portentous quality of these lines but in any event star dust is like fairy dust, it's rather sweet, and the idea that this is our due reward runs contrary to the whole piece. If you could have worked something original about ashes (maybe scattered for other horses to tread) I would respect the consistency of the theme at least.

thanks for posting and if you did a re-write I would certainly look forward to reading it

michael

[Mark A. Murphy]

Michael, thanks for your thoughtful comments. I think I agree with most of what you are saying, except I do feel very keenly the issues I have raised here. I remember discussing aspects of the holocaust with my father when I was a boy. He said to me, rather cynically perhaps, that we humans would do anything to survive, just like the Jews who pulled their own brothers and sisters from the gas chambers and then incinerated them. I remember saying to my father that I would resist. They would have to kill me. I'm not certain what my position is now. I would like to think that I still have it in me to resist. But who can be sure, unless we tested in those situations?

[Jimmy O'Connell]

I find poems like this too declamatory, too preachy. I don't disagree with, nor am I critical of, the sentiments. But to translate these sentiments and feelings into art is very very difficult.
It would work for me as a prose piece, or meditation/reflection, rather than as a poem.

My own effort at political preaching posted a while ago "Eleventh of September Two Thousand and One", is borderline, so I realise the difficulty.

W.H Auden is about the only poet I know who can pull it off...

[mickey_one]

Michael, thanks for your thoughtful comments. I think I agree with most of what you are saying, except I do feel very keenly the issues I have raised here. I remember discussing aspects of the holocaust with my father when I was a boy. He said to me, rather cynically perhaps, that we humans would do anything to survive, just like the Jews who pulled their own brothers and sisters from the gas chambers and then incinerated them. I remember saying to my father that I would resist. They would have to kill me. I'm not certain what my position is now. I would like to think that I still have it in me to resist. But who can be sure, unless we tested in those situations?

Hi Mark, over the years I have read so much Holocaust literature as if there will come a time when the undisputed answer will emerge whether I would resist. So, you're not the only one!

Can you explain what you mean by Jews who pulled out their siblings from the gas chambers but then incinerated them?

regards

michael

[Mark A. Murphy]

The Sonderkommandos.

[Alan Alda]

This is not a poem. It is a speech with random line-breaks imposed upon it to give it the visual sillhouette of a poem.

The agenda of the speech is disturbing and the imagery is tired and lazy. Sure, go ahead and make a list of human atrocities. Big deal. Next, make a list of humans rising to heroic measures; you'll find them all in the same bucket.

Jimmy is right, if your first name isn't Wystan, then it ain't working.

Laurie

[Mark A. Murphy]

Laurie,

"If you call a tail a leg, how many tails does a dog have? Five? No, calling a tale a leg don't make it a leg." Abraham Lincoln

Calling a poem, not a poem doesn't worry me. It has no meaning beyond your own prejudice of what a poem should be. And as the Czech poet, Miroslav Holub said, 'who are you?'

[mickey_one]

Jimmy is right, if your first name isn't Wystan, then it ain't working.

Laurie

Oh, Laurie you are so wrong. Wystan Churchill was a good orator but not a great poet.

[Alan Alda]

Let’s not talk of monstrous gods, or real and imagined saviours, and what they may or may not allow. We who would call all men equal before the law (except on board the Titanic) would bribe the devil and steal all that could be sold to buy our rightful place in the last lonely life-boat, Collapsible C, Engelhardt type. We who would trample and kill to save our own skins in the mad panic to live when the Zeebrugge ferry capsized.

I stick by: speech.
You only seem to value feedback that is positive. It is the worse thing someone who is trying to learn and grow could do.

L

[Alan Alda]

mikee wrote:
Oh, Laurie you are so wrong. Wystan Churchill was a good orator but not a great poet.

Auden't know about that....

L

[Kush]

I stick by: speech.
You only seem to value feedback that is positive. It is the worse thing someone who is trying to learn and grow could do.

Hi L,

You have the freedom to offer criticism, solicited or otherwise. The writer has the freedom to reject it, in part or all of it.

cheers

[Alan Alda]

Kush~ You missed the point. There is a difference between rejecting a considered opinion as invalid, and rejecting all non-ego-stroking opinions just because.

[Mark A. Murphy]

L, you are the one (like so many others on this site) that insists on absolute truths. It's your way or the high way. If you wish to offer criticism, try to be constructive. Telling someone that their idea of a poem isn't poetry, but 'speech with random line breaks' amounts to nothing more than prejudice as i have already stated.

"you are so puffed up with pride"

See The Energy Of Slaves, poem 44.