I don't want to end up like the Star Wars kid, but I don't mind laughing at him. I don't like racist humor, but I love humor that seems to be racist. Yes, I like to break some taboos, but I think other taboos are essential. Pedophiles fill me with some serious homicidal rage. You can offer me all the evolutionary psych and boo-hoo bullshit about fuxed up minds/childhoods; I still want to destroy them. In fact, that fury I feel for pedophiles is so intense, I just try to put it out of my mind most of the time. I think this is healthy, as we have a tendency to become our enemies. If you think enough about pedophiles, you start to see them everywhere. So sometimes, it's better not to think about them—this is the wisdom of taboo. Some things are filled with such infectious horror, they should be forbidden.
Of course, who does the forbidding? Well we do. We forbid ourselves and we forbid others; and as attitudes change, so do taboos. This is why I'm skeptical of taboos, even though I also see their value. You can't reason with some people and you just have to forbid them. Not all good judgments can be explained or rationalized and taboo is a recognition of this truth. Then again, lots of taboos are stupid
Combat Expiration: Midnight PST, 10/3/2010
Critique Expiration: Midnight PST, 10/4/2010
Bonuses/Penalties: +3 if posted by 6pm PST, 10/1/2010; +2 if posted by 9pm PST, 10/1/2010; and +1 if posted by Midnight PST, 10/2/2010
The Rules: http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2010/07/official-rules-for-combatwords-updated.html
ps (10/2/2010; 10:57am PST): Forgot to post penalties: -1 if posted by 10/3/2010 by 3am PST; -2 if posted by 10/3/2010 by 6am.
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Love Might Sustain Us [CombatWords Poem, October 1, 2010]
ReplyDeleteBlaze, we envy how you're fed
Everything we thought we loved
Sacrificed to you for heat.
Paintings, tools and even books
Warmed, though never slaking thirst.
Bottled water drained to bathe
(Vanity, the last to go),
Cans of tuna spilled for dead
Memories, perhaps a dream.
Cat for sake of fur. The hope
That he feels for me; the way
First he offers rats we won't
Eat, but still he begs for milk,
Egg, a bit of herring meat;
Even though the stores have closed.
Earth's retired, too tired to sprout.
Innocence must die with love:
Feast on cat before we starve.
TABOO!!
ReplyDelete(In the style of The Last Poets)
TAB-BOO!!
(shouted in unison)
(over improvisded hand drums)
TAB-BOO!!
(shouted in unison)
(over improvisded hand drums)
TAB-BOO!!
(shouted in unison, ending in silence)
(heavy hand drumming improvised)
Taboo forbid, usually for good reason,
Taboo gets the paedo's raped in jail
Taboo makes the power slightly less
powerful, but does nothing for the
victims on a bed flames
(heavy hand drumming)
Shouldn't it be
TABOO!!
To run a company into the ground
And walk away with a giant parachute
Heavy metals leeching into the ground water
TABOO!!
when your work is to keep workers from
working (at too high a price)
TABOO!!
you are barracading yourself in your panic room
as the "people", your "people"
burn down the doors
TABOO IS WATCHWORD, TABOO IS THE HEEL OF THE HAND
ON THE DRUM,
(shouted in unison, ending in silence)
TABOO!!
(continue drumming)
(spoken over sparse drumming)
We hope for a reclamation, a truce, a harvest of good will,
yet it never seems to come.
We hope for a peace, or even a piece,
yet it never seems to come
We hope that first become last and vice versa
yet it never seems to come
TABOO!!
(continue drumming)
Now you fail me as I'm starving in suburbs
Now you fail me as I beg with cap in hand
Now you fail me super giant capital beetle
Now you fail me, us, to a man
TABOO!!
(continue drumming)
Taboo is not something far off
It is something that your sister in law dies of
Taboo may have symbolic consequences but
not for any of us
Taboo makes us puke by verisimilitude
Taboo sorts us out, wheat from the chaff
Taboo is not what you think it might be
Taboo is what is killing my ass
TABOO!!!!
(shouted in unison, ending in silence)
Love might sustain us:
ReplyDeleteWow, fucking great, didn't really see where it was going till half way through
dig it +1
the whole second stanza, rats we won't eat, begging +1
post apocalypse setting +1
tugs my emotions, though I'm a dog person, same applies
really excellent
Who will be
ReplyDeletethe voice of a generation
of spoiled mamas boys
who had
everything
all
the
time?
Who will
speak
for
the
sensuous
and
well fed
and
the sexualised
and
the content
and
body sculpted
and
the ones
without even
the
temerity
to be perverted?
WHO WILL SPEAK?
I refuse.
Its easier to persecute the fat and the smokers and the pedophiles and the brother and sister who love together and the man who cheats on his spouse
Bring them all on Ricki Lake; they are the sinners of today.
@Khakjaan Wessington
ReplyDelete+1 for the flow
-1 for "never slaking thirst" (although I do get it that it maintains the rhythm)
+1 for clean narrative through the poem
Funnily, I'm reading an anthology called "wastelands - stories of the apocalypse right now". This would have fitted right in.
@Piotr
My apologies, but I just wasn't feeling the form of this, so no + or - points.
The Role of Rule Over Time [CombatWords Poem, October 2, 2010]
ReplyDeleteThere are rules to musical meter,
bold lines between
distortion and melody;
dissonance/cacophony.
Rehearse your rudiments.
Simple elements are
black lines scribed upon
white page. Timeless
because sound defines
the experience of life.
When speakers pulse inconsistently
the old audience visibly cringes
and decries the use of aural force
as expression outside the lines
of well-constructed meter and forethought rhyme.
But musicians are a varied mass
and when given lessons, they easily passed.
They have mastered the rules and understand design
but still they shatter the lines in unconventional time.
The rules, teachers redeclare. Times change.
New sonic mathematicians play and age
and try to teach the new rules to youth
who disobey to reveal historical truth;
What's right to me is always wrong to you
so what's the point in labeling it taboo?
@khakjaan
ReplyDeleteWell this certainly is dark, I did feel a sense of apocalyptic mourning while reading this, like it could've been excerpted from Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" or something similarly bleak. Which is not to say it is bad, but it certainly does toe the line of taboo. It's at once comforting to know that at the end the protagonist still has companionship but then it's heart-rending to know that companionship must be abandoned for survival so +1 for ripping my fucking heart out.
+1 because the visuals pulled me in very well, +1 for flowing well from fire to a cat without a stutter. That's something I couldn't do. Respect!
@forpuck
The questions are valid but I feel I needed more from the person asking them, all I got were harsh judgements. I'd prefer it with the last line cut, take the pop culture reference out or, in revision, force a bunch of pop culture references in. The first thing to alienate people is when they are no longer a part of pop culture, and I think that could fit well in the whole question/answer format of your poem. I'd say revise this whenever you're feeling pissed off at the other generation, something real could come of this. For now it feels like a pretty rough draft so I'm not gonna +/- at all.
@piotr
Beat poetry as defined by the mention of a beat pervading through the form. I am going to empathize with you on this poem, I enjoy beat poetry but (this is my personal opinion) beat poetry MUST be seen and not read. I never ever ever felt right just reading Ginsberg or any of his contemporaries, but I've been VERY moved by some beat performances I've seen. The thing for me about beat is that it seems so frenetic, real and sometimes just explosively improvisational. That form could definitely work as a diatribe against taboo, but on the page here it doesn't do much for me. That's just me personally.
Suggestions for revision would be to toss out all the parenthetical insertion and keep the loose form, keep the energy, keep the emotion and then either record a video of you performing it or try to adapt it to the page a bit more fluidly. I want to say +1 for guts because I'd never try beat poetry but also -1 for the thoughts being just short enough to not really take me anywhere. There's a clear subject, but not enough pull to rally me for or against anything. All just my personal opinion! Keep writing!
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteTootsie Roll
ReplyDeleteMy brother Louis and I
serenaded our parents one evening
by bouncing on their queen-size bed and reciting,
at the tops of our lungs, the rhyme we’d learned
on the playground during recess that day:
Milk, milk, lemonade
‘Round the corner, fudge is made.
Put your finger in the hole,
Now you’ve got a Tootsie Roll.
We did the hand gestures that went along with the song,
pointing first at our little-boy nipples,
then at the crotches of our matching pajamas,
then with great gusto at our wiggling butts.
When we were done we flopped
onto the mattress, giggling hysterically.
Mom and Dad were less amused, and demanded to know
where we’d learned such a sick chant.
Now, years later, I feel sad for our poor parents,
with their vanilla lives, their dull couplings.
I’m certain neither one of them ever experienced
the excitement of feeling warm excrement
spread across their cheeks, their lips,
never felt the thrill of having it washed off
with a steaming trickle of piss.
They never knew the sweet fear of getting caught,
the way they caught Louis and I one night,
two brothers playing a game we never did bother
to come up with a name for.
@PP:
ReplyDeletePro:
I liked how the stage instruction worked into the narrative. +1
Rode that fine line of mocking & paying tribute to the bongo-poet. It was funny and I loled. +1
Con:
Nothing that detracted from my enjoyment. It is what it is.
Misc:
You could try something w/ more ambition. Be more serious and also sillier at the same time. You can do it.
+2 – 0 = +2
@forpuck:
ReplyDeletePro:
Set up was really strong. +1
Con:
Resolution fell flat. -1
Misc:
Promising, but it didn't work imo.
+1 -1 = 0
@Ruterger:
ReplyDeletePro:
I always like me some deftly handled shit-talk. +1
Liked that it was a dialogue between method. +1
Con:
I thought it could go bigger, but I didn't see any real flaws.
Misc:
I liked how it seemed to meander at first, and only made itself clear in the end. Cinched the argument pretty tight. Liked the ambiguity of how it was stated (poetry) with what it was stating.
+2 – 0 = +2
@rToady
ReplyDeletePro:
Lol! +1
The first poem of the bunch to really grab two handfuls of diarrhea and leap into taboo. +1
Direct & superb take on the theme. +1
Con:
Misc:
+3 – 0 = +3
Mimesis. The diluting agent for taboo glycerin. My dog glycerin. A pitmash bullet bounding warhorse cuts skin like cheap tijuana steel.
ReplyDeleteHits you like a fuckin freight train. Jaws suspend 6o pounds from the end of a strip of rope. That glycerin's unlawful to run pure.
You got to break glycerin down. Dilute it. Mimetic storage of glycerin is, however, legal. Cause glycerin on its own, running round your neighborhood...? Glycerin rips fat little jedis from the middle, eats their guts in the middle of the street, while they cry out for grandma and salvation. Glycerin salivates.
That's hard to internalize, hard to think on, that pure glycerin. Running through the gutters along your street. Slap that shiver with a little mimesis, get yourself a camera, grab onto your jedi stick.