skid marks on an otherwise unpolluted highway

[blp]

Beginning our research on the sustainability positioning paper, F and I

We drove east on a European highway
of light grey concrete
edged with neat strips
of coloured plastic
so clean
it might have been built that day

might have been built
been being built
ahead of us as we drove

towards a vision of Umweltschutz

Later we ate good sausages and beans
at an equally clean roadside canteen
wondering

How does
Social Entrepreneurship
marry up to the European
Social Democratic Model
Or what?

the toxic emissions of tombs
the traumae of history
the shocks of battle imprinted
in a Lamarckian generational degeneration

expressed in the angst and dread
of a silver SUV
patrolling peaceful suburbs
as if they were at war.

humanity is sick
and will not take a cure

some violence, but not gratuitous
the violence helps move the story forward

2

curlicue
cuticle
cute girl
curtsy

beautiful, brainy
delicate, fair

unfair

for now
for ever
the wide world o’er

strands
defenses
death

oh lips
oh head
oh hands

kisses
tresses
deathless
frail

and money
bloodlines
clouds
and
sand

bugs
legs
heads


rhythm of bed
religion of lust

3

Nay, Flora,
he declares
I cannot love thee
for my heart is with the workers

(not that she asked)
beauty is a crushing fist
that kills

he sucks his pen
a thought takes him
and he writes a note
in which she emerges garlanded from the underworld

then reddening
But I cannot seem to stop having these erections
and the pain is…

Tapestries fall in clouds of dust
Jesus and his followers
the passion, the cross
crumple comically in heaps
and leave the cavernous black room empty

She is an aristocrat
descendent of the first spring
myths are true for her

she emerges from the underworld
and populates the world with cartoon flowers
from her MP3 player

a clawing
raging spume
a foam of blood
the grass

In the circle
in a play of knives
last agonies of the spring sacrifice

on the green field dewy wet
release, merciful
from beauty’s crushing hand

But she suffers as you do
a little from lack of understanding
mostly from a yeast infection
because suffering is information
or inflammation

maybe the other way around
inflammation of the prepuce
reddening

grit
girt loins
this flinging yourself at someone else
is life
and you feel you are denied it

ah, yers, she was the one whose
raddled lips
but in a few years her sweet features, ravaged by drink etc.
then what rubbing of palms?

None of this is true. Local suffering
taken as a synechdoche
an excuse for war
robbing peter to pay paul
killing Iphigenia to save Helen
or just prevent her coupling

we have problems now
as always
that will not be solved by
disapproval
but will not stop it either

Just

Just think
an old woman reflects
Darwinningly
Just think if they hadn’t sacrificed all those beautiful virgins
how gorgeous people might be now!

and beyond the meridian
where recycling began
new models
of spite and bitterness
shake hands

[Pendragon]

Blp, you amaze me. Part one is good abstract. Part two is good minimalism. Part three is unclassifiable. I like parts 1 & 2. The third goes a little to far for my own tastes, but the writing is good, that is undeniable. If I cannot applaud the subject matter the writing itself is virtually flawless. You have always understood my position on religion, and allowed me my belief, and I shall not chastise you for yours.

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l108/AbsalomKane/Smilies/ThumbsUp.gif

[blp]

Thanks, Pen. I can see why you might have problems with the third bit - well, it's pretty obvious really - and, yes, you know my views, but I almost feel it's something a religious person could have written. The part about Jesus and the cross is not simple ridicule, it's about a moment when the force of ones more primitive urges is so great that it overrides the Christian messages of love, forgiveness, meakness etc., but leaves one with nothing but a horrifying, dark emptiness and the more primitive religious practices of human sacrifice - oh, and advertising. What you might describe as a crisis of faith.

[the silent x]

absolutley amazing blp, sorry i haven't been on litjunction for a while, i was busy here

[blp]

Thanks silent x. Good to see you.

That's OK - I'm not a mod there or anything.

[Pendragon]

Thanks, Pen. I can see why you might have problems with the third bit - well, it's pretty obvious really - and, yes, you know my views, but I almost feel it's something a religious person could have written. The part about Jesus and the cross is not simple ridicule, it's about a moment when the force of ones more primitive urges is so great that it overrides the Christian messages of love, forgiveness, meakness etc., but leaves one with nothing but a horrifying, dark emptiness and the more primitive religious practices of human sacrifice - oh, and advertising. What you might describe as a crisis of faith.Ah, Crisis of Faith... Yes, from that viewpoint there can be nothing to trouble me. If there is any person out there who has never come to a point of Crisis of Faith, where them had to ask themselves the hard, cold questions, then I doubt they have any convictions about anything. For every mountain peak there is a valley. Now I can enjoy the whole poem. We always seem to click and talk things over without argument. And yet neither of us would budge from our stand on our beliefs. I just wish others could do the same. Good luck, mon ami! http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l108/AbsalomKane/Smilies/Friends.gif

[blp]

Cheers, Pen. Glad it works for you now!

[SleepyWitch]

i like it blp, although I don't have the faintest idea what it's all about and how it all fits together... :) will have to re-read it a couple of times..
are F and Flora and the aristocrat woman the same person?
so this guy is going in his car with an aristocrat woman called Flora and he get's erections because of her but he doesn't want to love her because she's an aristocrat and he's a communist or something? and the aristocrat woman is named after the goddess of flowers and fertility and she believes in myths but all she has to offer are cartoon flowers and MP3 tunes --> the guy is disappointed because she's not goddess after all and the age of goddesses and myths is dead?


oh lips
oh head
oh hands

kisses
tresses
deathless
frail

and money
bloodlines
clouds
and
sand

bugs
legs
heads


rhythm of bed
religion of lust

hehe, these lines are funny... "oh lips, oh head, oh hands".. the guy seems to be making fun of archaic poetic language while at the same time he doesn't like today's world.

:confused:

[blp]

Your reading's not too far off, actually, SW. Yes, F, Flora, the same and though Flora's the goddess of Spring, she's being somewhat elided with Persephone here. Still considering changing the name. The idea is that we begin with an environmentalist project - Umweltschutz - already slightly contradictory since we're driving - but the violently contradictory sexual feelings conjure a world of primitive belief and practice that rips aside both modern socialist pieties and Christian ones. Not that I come down squarely against those - the world of myth is also advertising and the primitive feeling also results in SUVs. So it's not a case of mocking the archaic whiie also disliking today's world. It's about a problem with the violence that runs through both.

[jon1jt]

i've read this one several times and each time all i keep thinking is that it sounds like Karl Marx on acid. :) or fukuyama or hegel---spirit, Geist, you mentioned lamarck, darwin---i see some of that. big world unfolding, beyond the meridian...Idea! new models of thought? i have to think about this one more. :)

[SleepyWitch]

Your reading's not too far off, actually, SW. Yes, F, Flora, the same and though Flora's the goddess of Spring, she's being somewhat elided with Persephone here. Still considering changing the name. The idea is that we begin with an environmentalist project - Umweltschutz - already slightly contradictory since we're driving
it's funny, because the highway is so pristine and untouched, just like nature is usually pictured..

[blp]

Yes, jon, this stuff's much on my mind. But the world I see beyond the meridian now is scaring me ****less. Fukuyama's old 'end of history' thesis looks more and more naive. As for Karl Marx on acid - he often sounds a little like that himself though doesn't he? In a good way: 'All that is solid melts into air'.

SW, spot on.