While accepting the Nobel Prize in 1960, the poet St John Perse said :"it is enough for the poet to be the guilty conscience of his time." I believe his words to be true and that there are times when the poet must write from the darkest recesses of his/her mind even if the expression is unsettling to both the poet and those who read his/her words. The curtain spoken about in this piece is an age old theme that can be found in the work of the catholic mystics, the Buddhist monks and the prophetic poets throughout history . . . some call it the veil of illusion, others this floating dream, but it has seemingly always been present in the mind of mankind. Many believe that this veil that we live behind will eventually be the downfall of humanity and that it is imperative that we go beyond it and come to realize our full potential as a species. I guess I must admit that this premise is of paramount importance in most of the pieces that I write, however there are times when it seems to become almost overbearing in it's demeanor . . . for this I do not apologize . . . let the syllables fall where they may.
I understand that some of you will find these words oppressive and perhaps even the ravings of an unhealthy mind . . . but it is simply my response to all the pain and suffering I see taking place in the world.
THE WRONG SIDE OF THE CURTAIN
We’re standing like forlorn ghosts,
watching a dead parade pass by with it’s legacy
of dark secrets,
While one million harmonicas wail on the wrong side
of the curtain.
Oh the wrong side of the curtain,
the veil of truth inverted, turned inside out,
Where druids chant beside the burning ash can
of an international ghetto
Where we dress our eyes in a fable of brutality
Where the genetic mystery keeps slamming the door shut
because it’s imprint was corrupted from
the very beginning of time
Where industrial clowns cavort with siliconed sirens,
Make derelict love in the basements of the towers
on Wall Street
While a few blocks away an Afro-American saint puts
his mouth to a tenor saxophone
and weeps.
Oh the wrong side of the curtain
where a deranged monk stands in an empty courtyard
And embraces texts of separation with his bleeding
hands
Where a poet whispers from a flaming pyre of bones
Where an old man sits on a forgotten ledge
and contemplates an ancient prophecy gone bad
Where a singular eye gazes down to penetrate
the inner heart of humanity,
And finds it vacant, even after all these years,
all these simple clues,
All these aches and trembling reverberations
that have made little or no difference
Because difference is frowned upon by the diviners
of economic thrust.
Oh the wrong side of the curtain
where we become the creases in the rotting garment
of a dead mystic
Where we fall down in the crow black night
and try to cleanse ourselves with a bar of soap
in a muddy river
Where we pray in pews like broken clarinets
Where locusts keep hungrily dancing across
the prairies,
Even though the band laid down it’s instruments
a couple of Centuries ago
When Europe disabled the buffalo and the dove
flapped her white wings and flew to a cave
of silence
That was once the echo chamber of the initial utterance
from the mouth of Creation.
Oh the wrong side of the curtain
where we resurrect a manifesto of inconceivable
graffiti
Where we witness naked fear and become rag dolls
in the rain
Where a hobo weeps without a boxcar
Where the Madonna tucks her white unkissed breast
into a rough hewn garment,
Feels her face wrinkle and crack beneath the paint
of a surreal canvas
And goes stumbling down through the annuls of time
in search of an immaculate stable.
Oh the wrong side of the curtain
where the engine travels on a crooked track
Where we finally arrive at the station and discover
that the train left 10 minutes ago
Where Edison’s ghost laughs all the way
to Hollywood
Where the dead man climbs out of his catacomb,
dusts the cobwebs from his eyes,
Puts on his historically moth eaten robe
and reenters the coliseum
Which is still a nightmare of hopeless aggression
even after a couple of millenniums of sleep.
Oh the wrong side of the curtain
where the forest is seduced by the sickness
of a chemical firefly
Where we all bear the same maggot infested burden
Where the angels left without telling us why
Where the old jeweler closes his blinds,
turns off the light
And staggers home to his wife and children who play
video games
Until it’s time to collapse into a bed devoid of dreams
or possibilities of imagination.
Oh the wrong side of the curtain
where the literary waterfall of Japan evaporates
beneath a polluted moon
Where the beer soaked bar stool of separation is never
empty
Where the void contains one billion spirits
who stagger across the ever moving sand
Where Robert Johnson trades his guitar for a shovel,
sits down at the crossroads of Main
and Armageddon
And discusses the burial grounds still to come
with St. John of the Cross.
Oh the wrong side of the curtain
where the ashes and stench of spiritual decay blacken the nostrils
of beauty
Where even holy ground can sometimes blister the feet
Where our bones yellow beneath the moist Earth
and its’ centipedes and blossoms
Where Walt Whitman gazes across the fields
of what used to be America,
Shakes a defiant fist and realizing that
the leviathan that crawls before him is numb
to his once listened to words,
Drifts back to the poets’ round table and sips
from a mystical grail with William Blake.
Oh the wrong side of the curtain
where across the street the last folk singer
hangs himself with a guitar string
Where a New Age philosopher picks up the remains
of a distant prayer and casts it aside like an empty
cigarette case
Where the laughter of a cicada is captured in
the 3rd movement of a dead symphony
Where the implementation of the plans for the next
millennium is laid out upon a desk
Where the reality of starvation and poverty is ignored
and the Third World is a gnat that creates
an itch somewhere in the wrinkled brow
of the United Nations
Even though the Third World has spoken forcefully
in an explosion of absolute fury and desperation,
Towers collapsing like dominoes upon the carpet
of democracy.
Oh the wrong side of the curtain
where sparrows pray that the sun won’t fall
from the sky
Where bardic fathers moan on the banks of swollen
rivers
Where we are sodomized by a shadowy hallucination
of relentless lust
Where a sunflower wilts outside a rusting iron gate,
collects the dust and deathly matter of diesel fueled
machinery
And tries to reflect an image of abundance,
all the while coughing and sputtering like
a displaced salmon.
Oh the wrong side of the curtain
where skyscrapers stand like sentinels
And watch over cities that only perpetuate a continuum
of death, death, death
Where tired raindrops pound upon broken window panes
and snowflakes are scarred by battery acid
Where the hunchback strains every muscle
in an attempt to keep the planet’s orbit on course
Where we enter the ballroom wearing boots
of debauchery
Where we tear at a parasite that will never leave
the flesh
Where havoc is created beneath a tree of candles
Where white crosses weather like rotten teeth
in the mouth of humanity
Where the generals are busy conspiring a new nightmare
Where the song being heard on the airwaves
is the age old apocalyptic blues
Where we can no longer walk out into the light
of breathing ivy
Where green expanses fail to overgrow archaic
battlefields
Where the laurels of the past are nothing but
a lonely tomb
And where I sit here in some dark compartment
of my mind
Scribbling a black litany out into the Universe
in the hopes that some alien scientist,
some until now unseen messiah
or some radiant cosmic child
Will reach beyond this unacceptable malaise
and with a translucent hand
RIP THIS
ILLUSIONARY CURTAIN
ASUNDER.
A contest entry
- LUCKY # 7 by poetryality.
1000 points, ended March 24, 2007, 21 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest - Anticonformity by Sock.
475 points, ended May 2, 2007, 22 entries
Honorable mention
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest - My first year on AP by forever dreaming.
450 points, ended June 17, 2007, 45 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest - Une saison en enfer by Aesthete.
1500 points, ended August 24, 2007, 62 entries
Gold trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Please tell me what you think
Comments
1 - 10 of 10
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wowowowowowowow
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This is amazing. Every line is perfectly penned and absolutely beautiful, and each simile is thought provoking. It really forced me to think... and yes, I have thought many times about how we are blinded by this "veil of illusion."
"Where the reality of starvation and poverty is ignored
and the Third World is a gnat that creates
an itch somewhere in the wrinkled brow
of the United Nations
Even though the Third World has spoken forcefully
in an explosion of absolute fury and desperation,
Towers collapsing like dominoes upon the carpet
of democracy. "
How true... we need to reach past all of the lies we've built up between us and reality.
I liked the repetition of "Oh the wrong side of the curtain." It was a very nice touch.
Wonderfully written...I am truly in awe.
~QoA
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In my mind, I see this as an important poem. Certainly one the most important poems I have seen on allpottery, and perhaps, the most important poem regarding the human condition since Patterson. At least in its intent. It could use of course a Pound to cut it to essentials, there is a good deal of fluff and fulminating, it's readability could be improved by sectioning, yet the fact remains it cuts to the core of our existence and points out the dialectic inherent in society. Our denial of our true nature, our refusal to accept the failure endemic to the creation of our civilisation regardless of our origin.
The poems that I have encountered in the course of my reading, address the personal, the political, the nature of the Eternal, but this like the Great Poems goes beyond that and addresses us, ourselves, our condition, our failure, and aspirations. It is a heavy responsibility for a poem to bear, and I wish it well, it certainly bursts the bounds of this bit of entropy in which we find ourselves and it needs an exegesis of profound proportions, and of course, a rigid and unmerciful edit.
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Althoug I am sure this is an excellent poem I found my mind wandering halfway through which is probably more my fault than yours as I tend to prefer poems that are of a shorter nature and say what they have to in less lines. What I did read though was very well crafted and I thank you for taking the time to enter. It just wasn't my sort of thing which is not saying anything negative about your work, just my taste and attention span.
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This is so....wow...emtoin filled, and though provoking,. I'm not sure what else to say, this is an excellent poem, and excellent picture of american society today, I think.
Great job. -
"Where Robert Johnson trades his guitar for a shovel,
sits down at the crossroads of Main
and Armageddon
And discusses the burial grounds still to come
with St. John of the Cross."
My oh! MY! I do believe I know who you are poet. Don't have to read anyone's comment (which I make it my business not to do to keep the contest blind) to know this skillfully style. My goodness, there is so much here to take the mind on a bend! I love the set-up with the initial paragraph. Each stanza paints a picture of the global society that wears itself thin even on thick skin and I mean that in the best possible way.
This is BRILLIANT!
You my fellow poet are definitely a contender!
Thank you so much for choosing this pre-write to enter in this Comp. I am blown away! Truly!
"Where the reality of starvation and poverty is ignored
and the Third World is a gnat that creates
an itch somewhere in the wrinkled brow
of the United Nations
Even though the Third World has spoken forcefully
in an explosion of absolute fury and desperation,
Towers collapsing like dominoes upon the carpet
of democracy."
I wish I had written the above passage!
BRAVO!
Much Love ♥
Renee
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"an Afro-American saint puts
his mouth to a tenor saxophone
and weeps."
OMG...
"Where an old man sits on a forgotten ledge
and contemplates an ancient prophecy gone bad"
another OMG...
"Where the Madonna tucks her white unkissed breast
into a rough hewn garment,
Feels her face wrinkle and crack beneath the paint
of a surreal canvas"
These truths absolutely carve themselves into the reader's mind....and they are stained with what is so common to my thought, but unavailable to my fingers....my head does not think such grand phrases and images..but I have eaten this like sacrament.
What an incredible write, marc. Never coudl a deranged mind write such truth and horrible truths of us so beautifully....
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IMMACULATE!
"Where Robert Johnson trades his guitar for a shovel,
sits down at the crossroads of Main
and Armageddon
And discusses the burial grounds still to come
with St. John of the Cross."
"Where a New Age philosopher picks up the remains
of a distant prayer and casts it aside like an empty
cigarette case
Where the laughter of a cicada is captured in
the 3rd movement of a dead symphony"
Just a couple examples of why I feel that Blake and Whitman, filtered through the unfettered genius of Jack, Allen, Gregory, and many others infuses American poetry to raise it higher.
This fine example of what I generically label as post-beat demonstrates what I mean. The socially responsible message yanks the readers head from the sand with a lyrical stride that is compelling.
The trend to ignore vital social issues and stick to the smaller picture of personal experience is rife in modern poetry. This has that element of screaming "FIRE" into the crowd that seems dedicated to burning. This demands to be read aloud at the largest gathering available. Shakespear and Colerage were not above social commentary so why should we be?
Poeticly, this has it all, metaphor, phrasing, wordplay, and, oddly, metre. It leads the reader along to the proper cadence, emphasis, etc. that propells one into a spoken word sort of read. I admire the "wordslinger" voice as well as the skillful employment of craft. Excellent! Bravo!
On a personal note, I have been savoring your books and CD when I need a spiritual salve. They ring true to my mind and my spirit. Consider me a fan, as well as a friend.
I would read this, [or the other you read yesterday]
at the local VFW hall, or the republican meeting and wear my lumps and bruises proudly.lol.
Peace
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"Oh the wrong side of the curtain
where a deranged monk stands in an empty courtyard
And embraces texts of separation with his bleeding
hands
Where a poet whispers from a flaming pyre of bones
Where an old man sits on a forgotten ledge
and contemplates an ancient prophecy gone bad"
Whoaaa...Marc, there's absolutely nothing wrong with your mind, my Friend...I would pity the fool who thought such a thing...What a fiery explosion of ideas & utter truths, dear Scribe...Wonderfully stated throughout...Ooohhh, Rob's gotta read this one...
Wanda
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Marc, you sure know how to pen the spirit of Ginsberg, Kerouac and all the others down the dim distant past. I applaud you for saying it at all, so much better than I could ever have done. It's a fine piece my friend.
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