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Fascist Conclusions

At the beginning of the war
there were waves that dipped
below the surface of my body
and trapped panic in scores
of gilt fish. The illuminated

     manuscript of my body
     was rapt to those watching
     in delayed fascination, hoping
     for more of this sensational
     distraction. We were, all of

          us, distracted from seeing how
          money could transpose desire
          into reality. My desire is not
          worth more than the seaweed
          that obscures the dubious

               features of something without
               a face. It watches me from
               eyes without a face. This
               might have been a 1960’s
               French horror film, though

                    I am not sure if the end will
                    grip us silent in our desire
                    for the hopeful dovetail to
                    ascend. A dove is the total
                    of all its features and this

                         face does little more than
                         impress its glint onto bodies,
                         looking for more bodies,
                         sanctioning bodies who desire
                         delivery. At the beginning of

                              the war I doubted whether
                              there were still such fatal
                              creatures determined to rise,
                              waiting to devise the future,
                              the surface already concluded.

Censored Conclusions

The censorship you speak
to my body divides me
with doubt. You devise
living renditions of human
forms from incarceration.

     You quiet my humming
     mantras of coded respect
     for those who are quieted.
     You say you know what
     is best for me, body, soul

          and mind all divided. I am
          thinking of you now, how you
          are wrapped up with fear
          for the harmonics of kinship,
          its multi-vocal drawl. Fearless.

               Before the war there was
               solace hiding a tumult of
               discontent and malintent.
               Now that my enemy speaks
               loudly without restraint

                    I know they have made
                    their closed conclusions
                    about me, are already so
                    sickly to the idea of my
                    existence. I will it louder.

Politic Stimuli

Its system is to remain intact
and consistent within itself.
Then there must be our rule
& order, our order. It makes
itself and continues itself. It

     wills itself into another system.
     It wades you in modes, chains,
     logic, and coherency that bind
     in money, reasonable enterprise.
     But the cogs and wheels are full

          of rust and soon found patinated
          from lack of treaty with rueful sky
          whose eventual abrasion leaks.
          Your progression of human use,
          man-made lust of keeping things

               the same, unchanged, and sessile
               inspires my admonition, chaotic lick.
               You say paradise for all is in our toil,
               is for the good of the system’s stride.
               The system runs on human energy.

                    In all honesty, and beyond doubt,
                    the stimuli for this system are
                    wholly and utterly motivated by
                    the dictums of the system itself.
                    The body being just metaphor.

Threnody

This is a threnody for
myself. I am not to be
reborn and have yet
to be buried, though
am, still alive. It is

     not an original thought
     nor is it one I wish
     for you to feel sympathy.
     This is my only address
     to the reader, and as

          such let us make it
          a short one. There are
          visitations and proofs
          of a beyond in the adret
          minds of those wrapped

              in the insulating dogma
               of power displayed.
               Let us think. If the
               world is indeed perfect,
               as the Lord created it,

                   with all the creatures
                    made from holy plans,
                    then why not live as
                    though this life is worth
                    living? Nietzschean

                        formalism aside, let us
                         revel in the good work
                         of religion as a system
                         for peace, though with
                         reserve. The threnody

                             states that I will be
                              remembered. Let this
                              be no threnody then.
                              It is the system’s weak
                              attempt at my destruction.

Fear

It tussles in coils of vines around
throats in wild vertigo. It warns
of vivisections, making waning bits
of human soul now left. The system
bites through itself, ouroboric

    and ready to repeal good faith
     into paranoia as a last resort.
     The fear has gripped me now
     in growth like dueled aeonium
     whose devilish tendrils rise

         in infernal orations of the sun
          -chirping carnal black canaries
          with cherried chest outspread-
          Maybe not ouroboric, no, not
          held so close to the infinite yet

              is it me to undress these weighty
               systems, all taxidermy of living
               technology? It must be, I do
               my work out of fear that nothing
               will arrive from lament of history.

                   And you do your work in fear
                    of the unknown, plastered in it,
                    the fear of your own subtropical
                    climate, that it might one day
                    draw the histrionics of the jungle.

Presidential Conclusions

No death for you yet. You cannot
have you, and I will not let you.
I will take from you the dawning
bloom, call it my blood, a lasting
dying, yet, yet never alive. You,

    your red bloom, I put it inside me.
     You, deep in my sauce, maudlin,
     total bill of madness made to rile
     into the violence that is brick, red,
     bricked. You secretly put the rusty

         bloom of inevitable death in me,
          permanent, brick, unnatural and
          red, blood red. My eyes bleed
          your blood. The bloom is perfect
          and blends, bled, blooming like

              Dr. Jekyll’s crepuscular sore, raw.
               I steal from him and from you,
               Mr. Hyde, unable to escape self
               or beauty of self, if only, if only.
               If only bravery of self could carve

                   the ribald color from you. But
                    that is not bravery. You exalt
                    in a register fit to carry history
                    but the jungle in me is riling,
                    is no Tropics. I will burn you

                        until remains are only the burnt
                         nothing, if only. Me to burn more.

Ray Osborn [a Creative Writing MFA at Syracuse University] is sick of writing these autobiographies of the soul stuck in hell, for lack of a better word. In general, Ray is interested in not talking about one’s self and, if you must know, Ray’s work focuses on ekphrasis, elegy, and visibility.

The post Conclusions #2: #MeToo Poetry appeared first on Broadly Textual Pub.

The following poems concern themselves with themes and topics of sexual assault, sexual harassment, abuse, and sexism. Please continue reading with this in mind.

Editor’s Introduction:

For the past two weeks, survivors of sexual assault have been under siege by coverage and discussions surrounding the Supreme Court appointment hearings for Brett Kavanaugh. These events, broadcasted loudly and relentlessly across media outlets and social networks, act as a daily reminder of the violence that these survivors endured. Processing this trauma proves difficult even at the best of times and under the most helpful circumstances. In the face of the vitriolic, dehumanizing hate directed at survivors in the wake of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s accusations against Kavanaugh, the process becomes nearly impossible. This week, Ray Osborn asks us to consider the thoughts and practices that allow for this sort of abuse to exist. Although only one of the poems, “Nacreous Conclusions”, is about rape, the other three poems are about the kinds of attitudes that allow for the continued acceptance of sexual assault as an excusable norm by our government and society. These poems explore perspectives on being a survivor, the experience of objectification, and what it’s like to be thought of as “less than” or “not even” human. Osborn has written both a testimony and an indictment.

To survivors, from our October contributor, Ray Osborn, and the Broadly Textual Editing Staff, We Believe You!

St. Augustine’s Conclusions

This is the lie that he told:
the soul is the haven of
memory, home for thought.
In the beginning, she liked
to talk about world politics.
 
     Now she will only speak
     when her lover desires her
     to speak. She once spoke
     about the problems of racism,
     environmentalism, fascism,
 
          orientalism, religion, and
          poverty. They were all the
          result of human needs not
          being met. The simplicity
          of it made her forget about
 
               her own situation, how
               sexism takes the soul and
               finds it a home, foster child.
               He brought her opal and
               pearl but she did not quickly
 
                    forget who she had been.
                    Her body foraged a land,
                    subterranean and hidden,
                    in the past anecdotes of
                    what she once was, lithe
 
                         building made from sand
                         where her soma waited
                         to run dry into the water
                         and disperse secretly
                         beyond where he was able
 
                              to touch her. He lied to her,
                              tells her he owns her body,
                              demands her making. He told
                              her she was like a fine system
                              made from gracious thought.  

Uncertain Conclusions

The mysteries that hold
her are tacit, are bridal
exasperations. Any
conclusion made must
be an uncertain one.
 
     It is eerie feminine
     unfulfillment driven
     by the light of this
     thin, careful buzz. I am
     uncertain. If you were
 
          to hold me close so
          that I forgot who you
          are, she would whisper
          frail warnings against
          the noise that comes
 
               from love. She might
               be right to ignore you.
               I cannot bear to leave
               the tangent of your sighs.
               Of her refusal to show
 
                    anything on a clear grid,
                    you are lit to wonder at her
                    certain mechanical ukase
                    to leave. It is how I could
                    be wrong about myself,
 
                         you say, as though my
                         inner disposition to make
                         truth regarding myself
                         is merely patination,
                         accumulation of particles
 
                              shed from mechanics of
                              my softer parts’ action.
                              These are reactions to
                              inner inconsistencies,
                              you say, as if with soul.

Nacreous Conclusions

You don’t cull your words
carefully, and touch my hip
with the ease of someone
unable to scrutinize space.
It would be permissible,
 
     the way you touch me with
     the impunity of your male
     body, if I had time to think.
     I am a shell, an oceanic rind,
     examined and used by senses,
 
          a hint to your animalian eyes.
          This is a warning sign to your
          handsy phallic knowledge,
          careful certainty, thoughtful
          considerations of the fact
 
               of me. You lower yourself
               into my orifices without
               knowing that I refuse to let
               you out, no exit for the gaze
               that breaks under my words.
 
                    I explain myself to myself,
                    transpose woman through you.
                    It is my nacreous shell-shock
                    in the making of beauty which
                    you do not understand, try to
 
                         gather me. I slip from your
                         eyes in iridescence, deny you
                         entrance to my play in mirth.
                         I am pushing you away, you,
                         in midst of being found out.

Hope

When I fracture myself
into bits of wreckage
I call out the sun. I must
say to myself a thing
slung low and pious in
 
     the sky. I must always
     fight against tessellating it
     with my bits as something
     to behold. The sun is a
     meagre lover and can’t
 
          hold my body as I can.
          Once I thought my body
          was beautiful and could
          jar the sun. Only now I
          look and I see sunlight
 
               collecting me, putting me
               neatly away. I wonder
               who I fractured myself
               for. These glimmers, they
               were me once. I call out
 
                    an aubade but there is
                    no arrival until the
                    plains latch dry with
                    self-doubt. Am I just a
                    system? Tell me I am alive.

Ray Osborn [a Creative Writing MFA at Syracuse University] is sick of writing these autobiographies of the soul stuck in hell, for lack of a better word. In general, Ray is interested in not talking about one’s self and, if you must know, Ray’s work focuses on ekphrasis, elegy, and visibility.

The post Conclusions — #MeToo Poetry appeared first on Broadly Textual Pub.