Tribes
The past is romantically rotted,
regularly rewritten
the vampire sucking at the future;
we know we can’t go back
and forth from the grave
yet still we cling to his blood clotted cloak
for that deathsmell high he sells,
the lie we can't live without.
the lie we can't live without.
We bathe in the black essence of a thousand
million compressed reptiles' tarred blood
fatten on the pretense a pigmentation
a language, a way of walking,
a perfume, a feather,
a red dress, a neighborhood,
incubates an alien immune to
thought or grief.
We eat the spiders of our tribes and
call them good beef, though it’s closer
to soylent green, suck out the phantom
succulence from the compliant citrus
of our senses, and always always
we worship a golden coined god
whose paper horns
nod and approve.
January 2012
Posted for Poetics at dVerse Poets Pub
Victoria is hosting at the pub today, and has given us the art of Columbian painter and sculptor Fernando Botero to work with. Come join us. Link in is live till midnight Sunday.
Images: El Conquistador, and Man Drinking Orange Juice, by Fernando Botero, have been removed due to possible copyright problems. They can be found through a google title search if you want to look at them.
dang...hot...first, nice pantaloons...lol....love that last stanza...we eat spiders of our tribe...a coined gold god with paper horns...hoot...vivid, wicked imagery...this is dope hedge...peace....smiles.
ReplyDeleteThanks, bri--still rewriting it--it has given me seven fits. I'll have it posted in a bit.
Delete...We eat the spiders of our tribes and
ReplyDeletecall them good beef.. and we stamp them on the face and think we have every right...and wondering if we ever learn.. love your take on the prompt hedge
" we worship a golden coined god
ReplyDeletewhose paper horns
nod and approve. "
Wow, is this relevant for today's world, or what?? You took this write in a serious direction. And I wonder who the vampire sucking the future is...I guess we all can draw our own conclusions.
On another note, I understand your comment to Brian about still rewriting. I changed my piece three times already since posting it. (And I'll probably change more as time goes on.)
Ya gotta tell 'em! Soylent green is people!!!
ReplyDeleteThanks for remedying that glaring omission, dear.
Deleteyour closing lines are wicked and chilling...this is the world of lies we can't live without ~
ReplyDeleteAh, yes... that last stanza really sticks. This is fantastic!
ReplyDeleteat first glance I thought Laurie said the last stanza really sucks! I thought, wow, harsh! :-P
DeleteSo did I. Laurie--don't freak us like that.
Deletecool and relevant loved these words thank you x
ReplyDeleteGluttony -- eating off the beefy limb we sit upon -- was a deity from early on (I think of the Venus of Hohen Fels here and other Paleolithic mamas), the emptiness in the gut become consumption in the soul. And with technologies that have mastered the hunt past all sensibility, the table piles high and higher with largesse. Only we eat ourselves out of house and earthly home, drinking all that oil, worshipping inside a piggy bank. You did a magnificent job here, Hedge -- sharp and shredding. - B
ReplyDeleteThanks B--it's gluttony on a cellular level, the urge to have *everything* all the time, to take what someone else has for ourselves,(usually excusing it on the grounds that we are somehow superior to them) like the Conquistadors raped the entire Mezo-American world of every precious metal and substance, killed as much of the populace as possible, and then started on the project of claiming souls for the Holy Church, so they wouldn't miss anything. Or like the 1% today. It's endemic in our species and I wish you could get a shot for it. Thanks for reading.
DeleteYou have some pointed commentary here which surely must be mplicit in Botero's somewhat droll painting of a conquistador. I like how you draw out the implications of the conqeror's ethos, and ypu have some great lines here.
ReplyDeleteYou had me at sucking the succulence
ReplyDeletefor sustenance; powerful history lesson
here, and statement RE our natural
instincts for gluttony and self preservation.
A stirring piece, but it made me hungry
for peanut butter.
excess = progress ??
ReplyDeleteVery deep meaning in all of this. Man and his gluttony and greed will bring about his own ending, pantaloons or not, LOL
ReplyDeleteWell, you did it, hedge, and took this art and made it your own. One of the things I love about your poetry is your choice of words. A professor I had said not to read poetry without a dictionary and you consistently challenge me to expand my vocabulary with delicious words.
ReplyDeleteHi Hedge, This is very interesting--a little hard for me--I'm thinking all that tarred reptile blood is oil? I love the compliant citrus, and the horned god and especially liked these lines:
ReplyDeletefatten on the pretense a pigmentation
a language, a way of walking,
a perfume, a feather,
a red dress, a neighborhood,
incubates an alien immune to
thought or grief.
This is so true--my mother's always paraphrasing JFK, talking about the enemy also having children that they love, mothers and fathers, etc. A concept it seems that people have a harder and harder time with. K.
Yes, Karin, it's oil--which is the force that is moving 99%of all wars on the planet in our lifetime, including the ones we're still engaged in, and the one with Iran I think is likely to come, as well as destroying the planet and fattening a wealth structure aimed at exalting greed beyond all sense--so it's sort of a symbol of all that, if that makes sense. The rest, you are spot on.
DeleteSo fascinating. I love, "The past is romantically rotted, regularly rewritten the vampire sucking at the future" We do so cling to the past as we remember it or wish it had been.
ReplyDeleteThis is great..I too heard that movie quote about soylent green playing in my head. I agree the last line packs a hard punch...always always we worship a golden coined god whose paper horns nod and approve.
ReplyDeleteLast stanza oozes with succulence as does the whole write as it bathes in the heady words of your pen
ReplyDeletePowerful stuff - especially the first verse. That is amazing.
ReplyDeletelots of great lines in this, and the tone has an aggresive feel, the poem speaks of over indulgence, a mystifying ignorance of mankind. very well written, enjoyed this very much
ReplyDeleteThe last stanza ... Brilliant !
ReplyDeleteYou had me at "The past is romantically rotted." That vampire of our notion of what the past is vs. what it actually was...and the last stanza--whoa! Thank you.
ReplyDeleteLove this: "We bathe in the black essence"
ReplyDeleteAnd the entire final stanza blew me away, particularly "We eat the spiders of our tribes."