[Originally posted on March 4, 2009, at Political Pundoetry.]
A little girl
Barely old enough to dress herself
Or to know evil
Is stolen from her bed
And then raped through the night and
The next day, and then is freed
To the grave, her bogeyman burying
Her alive to smother in muffled
Hope the monster has gone
The family panics, despairs, reels
Lists
Her name and face posted
Waved, distributed to Justice
Everywhere alert
But nothing from the President
The Supreme Court
The compassionate Congress
Someone posts a website
Find The Little Girl Dot Com
All Proceeds Go To The Tireless
Search, We Promise
And Justice finds out it is a fraud
The love of stolen charity
Beneath the posters
The have-you-seen-my-child pleas
Tacked to the board at Wal-Mart
Where no one stops
To look for anything
That doesn’t resemble a bargain
Beneath the Amber signs
Stapled to curbside poles
Holding phone lines full of
Chatter about anything else
From room to room
We hear that there are more
Important things that call us
To attention
Than the trivialities of
Gay marriage
Abortion
Government Spending
Bailouts of imbalanced
Budgets and Graspers
Taking credit for what
They do not deserve
But never, NEVER
Is the abduction of
Children, the rape and
Murder and Live-interment
Of little girls
The MOST IMPORTANT THING
Tell a gay marriage activist
That gay marriage is NOT important
Go ahead, I dare you
And you’ll see that Amber is not
A color anyone cares to see
But they’ll see red over your
Alleged homophobia
And they’ll see green if you bring up
Tax cuts
They’ll see red, white, blue if
You mention the expansion of
War in Afghanistan
They’ll see hate if you aver
Child abuse and abortion
Are interbred “If I could kill
You then why can’t I smack you now?”
The despised offspring of moral incest
They’ll see blue states if
You cede them control of the
Census
And if you don’t see black
The right way then
You’re the wrong color white
Ignoring The Highest Virtue
In All The Land
They’ll trump YOUR BIG ISSUE --
Whatever it is --
With Poverty, with The Increasing Gap
Between Rich and Poor– the be all and end all
Of Social Vices – rebuking your provincial
Greed, your millionaire capitalist indifference
To Ghettos and Slums
Forgetting the savior said
“The poor you’ll always
Have with you.”
But little girls and women
Are not always with us
Shackled, stolen, sent off
To sex camps and consigned
To the Holocaust of the porn
Industry, slaves in some tropical
Paradise for men swollen, turgid
With Cash
Or buried alive with a Teddy
Or Pooh Bear
Or given a necklace of blood or
Gripped by fingers smudging life
With casual forensic evidence
This is never important enough
To fill the President’s teleprompter
He’ll talk about $$$ and $$$
And more $$$
And never EVER mention that
ANOTHER little girl (or boy)
Has met the monster under the bed that
We dismiss with a kiss
It’s only a dream
I have a dream, Mommy
Mommy’s right here
The nightlight never
Bright enough
©Contratimes/2009. All rights reserved.
4 comments:
Bill. What the hell.
"But never, NEVER
Is the abduction of
Children, the rape and
Murder and Live-interment
Of little girls
The MOST IMPORTANT THING
Tell a gay marriage activist
That gay marriage is NOT important
Go ahead, I dare you
And you’ll see that Amber is not
A color anyone cares to see
But they’ll see red over your
Alleged homophobia"
Bill, I'm sorry, but this is fucking disgusting, and I'm terribly disappointed in you. You know, I had just been enjoying your witty puncturing of Principal Obama when I scrolled down to this, and I feel like I just got hit with a wheelbarrow's worth of feces. No kidding.
Who is "they", in this case? I happen to know a few gay marriage activists (I am now one of them, actually), and some of them are every bit as involved (as am I) in protecting children, and adults, from rape and abuse and murder as they are in fighting for "their" cause. But I really shouldn't have to tell you that. Nobody should. Please, please, get your head out of your ass; you're not getting to know yourself any better with it lodged up there, so far as I can tell.
What you have done here is a hateful thing, an abomination. Seriously. And it makes me think that you have a borderline psychotic hatred of homosexuality, not merely of insensitive and monomaniacal gay marriage activists. Who has wounded you, that you must display something like this? I actually felt afraid for you, reading it, and I hope you can see that this is not the least bit condescending on my part. I feel wounded, after reading it.
Yuck.
sadly,
Luke.
PS--
Just in case you think I'm merely going after you with a flamethrower...I have given this some serious thought, and I think that part of what we're dealing with here is a cultural divide; some people are obviously so woefully alienated from each other that they are incapable of sensing that they do share many of the same concerns. I experience this on a personal level; for example, when someone who identifies themselves as a conservative Christian is startled that I agree with them on some pretty serious things regarding personal liberty and economics. But I have become annoyed with HOW startled some people become, as if I am some kind of alien and they are shocked to find that I have some of the same organs that they do. People need to get out of their tiny boxes and meet each other face-to-face more often, obviously; but the rift that we're dealing with in our culture does NOT excuse the cruelty, or idiocy, of what you've done with your ugly little poem.
--Luke.
Mr. Buckham,
Yes, you are right: “this” is thoroughly disgusting. Of course the deictic “this” points directly to your own words. For you’ve proven yourself an automaton, reacting not from anything of your own – other than your conceit – but from the software that rules your reactions: The Provincial Governor is looking for you. Please report to Command. (I had no idea you joined the populace of the bland.)
One can only assume from your own website and commentaries that you perceive yourself something of a poet and literary critic. After reading your critique of the poem presented here, one wonders what sort of poet/critic you might actually be. G. K. Chesterton once described George Bernard Shaw as the only man on earth who had never written any poetry. You might be described as a poet who never understood a poem.
Perhaps I can describe for you the simple phrases presented here that you’ve misunderstood, but I have my doubts.
Let’s read the words you’ve so deftly written:
“Bill, I'm sorry, but this is fucking disgusting, and I'm terribly disappointed in you. You know, I had just been enjoying your witty puncturing of Principal Obama when I scrolled down to this, and I feel like I just got hit with a wheelbarrow's worth of feces. No kidding.
“Who is ‘they’, in this case? I happen to know a few gay marriage activists (I am now one of them, actually), and some of them are every bit as involved (as am I) in protecting children, and adults, from rape and abuse and murder as they are in fighting for "their" cause. But I really shouldn't have to tell you that. Nobody should. Please, please, get your head out of your ass; you're not getting to know yourself any better with it lodged up there, so far as I can tell.”
Mr. Buckham, you may be right about my head being up my arse, but at least I have a head. Your abusive remarks – all bullying and bludgeoning – fail to note that I did not even remotely suggest that gays and lesbians don’t care about “protecting children.” That you failed to note the absence of this sin indicates you’ve a hate-filled pen and are given to infantile tantrums – a grotesque combination. Perhaps if you could apprehend the fullness of the poem I’ve written; perhaps if like a real critic you had a broad and not a narrow view of the cultural milieu in which and to which I write, you might rectify your beheaded condition.
Do you have any idea what an Amber Alert is, Mr. Buckham? Apparently not. But if you had known what an Amber Alert was, then you would’ve understood the published verses that have exceeded your abilities:
“But never, NEVER
Is the abduction of
Children, the rape and
Murder and Live-interment
Of little girls
The MOST IMPORTANT THING
Tell a gay marriage activist
That gay marriage is NOT important
Go ahead, I dare you
And you’ll see that Amber is not
A color anyone cares to see
But they’ll see red over your
Alleged homophobia." [emphasis added]
Note, sir, what I’ve written: “Amber is not/A color anyone cares to see.”
For the novice such a locution is probably rather difficult. Perhaps I should have dumbed down the entire poem for you. If you had eyes to see, you would spot right before your headless body that I’ve averred that NO ONE wants to see the Amber Alert activated. Such an exclusive set – that set of sane, caring and thinking folk who wish there never was a need for an Amber Alert – would also include gays and lesbians. Get it?
No, you don’t. (And, since I am writing poetry, there is intentional ambiguity in my diction in order to create tension and to kindle illumination.)
Moreover, if you were not prone to thoughtlessness you’d note that I have in this poem simply set out to show that the abduction, abuse, exploitation and murder of children (and women) NEVER become the MOST important issue this country -- particularly this country’s government as embodied by ANY president -- attempts to remedy. If you had gone beyond your prejudices you would have seen in my poem that I rebuked all kinds of people; and I rebuked myself (“the monster … we dismiss with a kiss”).
And if you had an expansive rather than a constricted view of the society in which we find ourselves, you would also know that it is a fairly common debate device to say something like this:
“Why does X bother you when there are so many more important things…?”
Clearly you have never heard such a device before. But I have, and it is particularly common in the arguments offered by gay-rights activists: “Why does Who loves Whom bother you so much when there are so many MORE important things to worry about?” Such a debate device is endemic to the state of rhetoric in this country; a Christian blogger I adore recently argued this way about a number of issues, and Barack Obama says this sort of thing all the time about nearly everything (“That’s a distraction”).
But if this debate device – a paltry version of the reductio ad absurdum – is meant at all seriously, then this follows: If gay marriage (or ANY issue) is “not the most important thing,” then why don’t gay-marriage activists set aside gay-marriage rights for now and address those MORE IMPORTANT things? By all means, I’ll set aside my “alleged homophobia” and join them with open arms to tackle any one of the “more important” things they are worried about.
Are you beginning to understand? Of course not. But wait! There’s more for you to misunderstand! (How fun!)
The fact is that gay-marriage activists DON’T MEAN WHAT THEY ARE SAYING. They are either lying or stupid. They don’t really believe we should worry about something else (or if they do, they believe that only those who oppose their views should worry about something else). It was at their blindness to their own stupidity and deception that I directed the words, “Go ahead, I dare you.”
Pretty heady stuff, for sure, especially for those who enjoy self-decollation.
In a rather recent conversation you had at your own website, I discovered this now ironic exchange. Your interlocutor wrote:
“Intellectualism, life, morality: all that stuff is fluid. It never ends. I keep myself open. That's why I do read and keep up with abortion and gay rights, but for now it's all I need to do. Because you know why, Luke? Humanity has bigger fish to fry.” (Aha! So you have heard this type of debate device before!)
And what was your reply to your interlocutor? Just look:
“’Humanity has bigger fish to fry?’ I totally disagree.”
Where does this all leave you? It leaves you in a trap of your own making. I could not have wished for a better comment than what you’ve left here; I could not have laid a better trap if – like in some risible Road Runner cartoon – I had placed a sign over this poem: WATCH LUKE BUCKHAM PROVE MY POINT!
You should be ashamed of yourself, but you won’t be. You should apologize unconditionally, but you won’t. What good would your apologetic actions and words do anyway? Your conceit and self-righteousness have frozen you in a bitter ignorance. Without presenting ANY argument here, you have described me (!) as “hateful,” “psychotic,” “wounded,” “disappoint[ing],” “fucking disgusting.” All this hate, which is exactly what you’ve expressed towards me, comes from your failure to understand a fairly simple poem. Or does it?
________________
Mr. Buckham, my rebuttal to you has included a fair share of insults, but they are nothing like the meanness inherent in your comments. You’ve responded as a typical activist, abusing your interlocutor without any formal demonstration. Hurling invective is the activist way. It’s all petulance; it’s all nullity. I’ve proven my case. All you did was indict and damn. You are a hell of a judge.
By the way, so glad to know you were not “the least bit condescending.” (That’s actually rather obvious.)
Verdict: I don’t write for you or to your impoverished standards.
Very sincerely,
Bill Gnade
PS. You missed the metaphor. The preceding poem was not about “Principal Obama,” as you wrote. Oops! (Again.)
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