The chosen from the rejects, those who’d score
Sky-high on His account from those who tried
But failed, or the massed legions of His corps
Glorieux from those whose agonies supplied,
For some, the opportunity to pore
On torments of the flesh for souls enskied,
Yet left some others yearning to restore
The human consanguinity that died
When they renounced the flesh and so foreswore
All laws of kin. Take Origen as guide
And then most likely you’ll get over your
Desire that God’s great plan should coincide
With yours and have Him act as guarantor
Whenever someone else you can’t abide
Turns up for judgment and God wipes the floor
With their excuses since to see them fried,
As per Tertullian, multiplies the store
Of heavenly joys. So Jekyll turns to Hyde
And souls once trained devoutly to adore
God’s mercy vow strict justice shall preside
And sinners’ pains be ratcheted the more
Excitingly the oftener they’re eyed
From heaven’s vault. And yet, should we deplore
Such want of mere humanity or chide
Their sub-angelic failure to abhor
That hellfire stuff, let’s ask what bona fide
Credentials we might have to claim rapport
With those who suffered, not with those who vied
For front seats at the viewing. If “Encore!”
Strikes us as less than angel-like when cried
After some episode of heretofore
Unequalled cruelty, should we not concede,
Perhaps, on all the evidence to date,
That—looked from the nether side—this need
To stress how fiercely we abominate
The stink of torture in Tertullian’s creed
And trust that Origen will put us straight
On Christian doctrine, might suggest that we’d
Best think some more. Then we might see how hate
Takes many forms, how some of them may breed
Compassion’s likeness, and—to complicate
The reckoning further still—how this can lead
To just such strange contortions as create
Those ecstasies of righteousness that feed
Tertullian’s fire. Should its heat once abate
Then finally we’d see that lack of heed
To how these opposites could alternate
Insensibly was what near-guaranteed
They’d end as two sides of a single trait
And so, once the machine got up to speed,
Serve perfectly to show how church and state
Might profit by its workings and succeed
At last in their long quest to sublimate
The whole shebang. Then nothing could impede
Its course or hinder the conversion-rate
By which the gentle Origen, though he’d
Allowed no vengeful cravings to dictate
His own theodicy, felt pity bleed
Away and thoughts of mercy conjugate
With thoughts of how, should harsh Tertullian plead
His case for mercy at God’s bar, the gate
Of Heaven must close against him and God read
The fatal sentence: change of heart too late!
Perhaps the sad truth is, no Origen
To get us off that hook did not the shade
Of grim Tertullian hang above his pen
And rule that he himself, God’s scourge, be weighed
In a scale that would tip against him when
Set up by his kind nemesis and made
To yield such unkind data as would then
Ensure that any verdict thus displayed
Was one to which kind hearts would say amen.
Always some bastard fails to make the grade,
Some cursed Malvolio slouches off again,
And they get ready for the next crusade
By which to satisfy their burning yen
For love while he reviles the masquerade
That shows why “cretin” stems from “chretien”
And why Tertullian leads God’s love-brigade.
NEOBULE AND ARCHILOCHUS: AN EXCHANGE
Archilochus,…the earliest Greek writer of iambic, elegiac, and personal lyric poetry whose works have survived to any considerable extent. The surviving fragments show him to have been a metrical innovator of the highest ability.
Archilochus was famous in antiquity for his sharp satire and ferocious invective. It was said that Lycambes betrothed his daughter Neobule to the poet and later withdrew the plan. In a papyrus fragment…a man, apparently the poet himself, tells in alternately explicit and hinting language how he seduced the sister of Neobule after having crudely rejected Neobule herself. According to the ancient accounts, Lycambes and his daughters committed suicide, shamed by the poet’s fierce mocking.
—Encyclopaedia Britannica
Neobule:
Archilochus, remember how your praise
Of me not only spread the word of my
Rare beauty far abroad but helped to raise
Your lyric gift until it touched the sky
And, Homer’s equal, filled it with the blaze
Of god-like genius. Just recall how I,
Your dearest, quietly waited out the days
Before our nuptials till, persuaded by
The urging of my father Lycambes,
At length I lost the courage to deny
Your rival’s suit. Why then these brute displays
Of savagery by which you daily try
To blacken our good family name, amaze
The scandal-hungry populace, defy
All laws of common decency, and craze
Your ardent soul by stooping from its high-
Bred martial strain to satire that betrays
A baser spirit. If, then, I decry
Your fickle muse that deems no caustic phrase
Too harsh for me, nor stratagem too sly
For public use so long as it conveys
Your hatred and contempt, do not ask why
This cry of pain since I’m the one one who pays
With my lost reputation while you vie,
You and those scandal-mongers, to erase
All trace of it. Please know, as you let fly
With some new barb, that it may chance to graze
Your own good name since I’m resolved to die,
Along with kith and kin, beneath that gaze
That now afflicts me with its evil eye,
Yet once—or so futurity portrays
Your fabled gifts—could endlessly supply
New-minted lyric forms and diverse ways
To conjure what your love let you espy
In me, like Galatea, through the haze
Of shapes awaiting life. Convert to lie
That long heart-cherished truth and nothing stays
The same—no power of memory to tie
That time to this as your invective frays
Its few remaining threads and sends awry
My every thought of you. But this delays
Three deaths that now must serve as our reply
Since nothing halts the genre-blight that strays
From form to form till naught can satisfy
Your fiery soul unless it so dismays
Its victims that the strongest of them shy
From public life as your communiqués
Insist: let honor go or bid good-bye
To life itself. If new-style satire plays
The joker’s role in all that hue and cry
Around our infamy then it obeys
Some god of hybrid forms that multiply
Our sufferings as their chief device to raise
More laughter while t
he satyrs occupy
Old lyric’s haunts and secretly liaise
With our ancestral enemies to pry
Where its voice fails. Once we might euthanase
The hurt with lyric’s salve, but should we try
That now, reflected in the perfect glaze
Of your spite-polished art, then we’ll supply
Some further jest that splendidly repays
Your unrelenting wit. Spare me that sigh
You’ll one day breathe as memory decays
Along with all the joys afforded by
This crowning triumph of your comic phase
While still the momentary thought of my
Once lyric-feted loveliness essays
Your satire-hardened heart. Yet know that I
And my poor kin no longer shall dispraise
Your name nor call down vengeance from the sky
For our dishonor though you set ablaze
The pyre of calumny on which we die.
Archilochus:
It wasn’t you, Neobule, but your
Kid-sister I was screwing, so just quit
This endless litany of woe. What’s more,
Your father all along connived at it,
Said you were old enough to know the score
And wouldn’t take much urging to remit
Your nuptial rights. But, girl, should you ignore
The call of duty and give us some shit
About lost reputation or implore
The gods to punish me as you see fit
Then just be clear, I’ll wipe the fucking floor
With you lot so you’ll never know what hit
Your dwindling clan. Tell Dad and tell that whore,
Your sister, they’re just nincompoops who bit
Off more than they could chew that day they swore
They’d drag me through the dirt and dare to pit
Their tale against mine in this phony war
For hearts and minds. The trouble with close-knit
Families and sibling bonds is how they store
Up grievances that may start out legit
(Like yours, let’s face it) but become a bore
When it’s required that everyone submit
To having the complainants daily pour
Their sorrows out till listeners either split
Or split their sides. That old esprit de corps
May once have been a handy piece of kit
When family names were still worth fighting for,
But what’s the point when a mere touch of wit
Can puncture noble pedigrees galore
And one lewd epigram from some new skit
Of mine on wings of satire can outsoar
The highest dignities? A moonlight flit
Will save my skin if your lot should deplore,
And prosecute my stuff, but if you slit
Your throat right now then all their talk of law
Won’t heal the wound.
Let me write your obit:
“Here lies Neobule, a maid who wore
Pretend-virginity like a fake tit,
Whose sister banged me like a shit-house door,
And whose insatiable, man-eating clit
Now rots with her false heart.”
Yet our rapport,
Neobule, is still what spurs my wit,
Not just my taste for mockery and hard-core
Pornography or readiness to sit
In judgment upon those with wounds still raw
From my unsparing jibes. It’s sacred writ
To me, this satire stuff, and helps restore
The strange amalgam that all those lit-crit-
Trained genre-analysts may now abhor
Yet one day will find reason to admit
As having helped Archilochus explore
Such wild extremes that his satiric grit
And lyric pearls were of a piece before
Good taste decreed their parting. Floruit
Archilochus, they’ll say, when poets saw
No ethical or formal deficit
In verse that just declined flat-out to draw
Such tasteful boundaries or retrofit
The veering passions born of love’s furor
To genres born of love’s surcease. Dixit
Archilochus: if you’d locate the flaw
In lives and loves then see how it’s backlit
By every lyric vision that forbore
To steel itself for satire’s incipit.
BUDGET DAY, JULY 8TH, 2015
Bankers want to see an easing of regulation after an increase in red tape following the financial crisis. Osborne is aiming to sound a conciliatory tone.…According to the Financial Times, allies of Osborne have said that the chancellor believes some tax and regulation may have been excessive, but that it was a politically necessary measure. Now with the election won and a majority obtained, there is more freedom for change.
—City A.M., July 13, 2015
Elsewhere the lingering life-hopes fade and die.
It’s all there in your red attaché-case.
But now’s your glory-day, so hold it high.
Just please the fat cats and the CBI
And you’ll have no more conscience-calls to face.
Elsewhere the lingering life-hopes fade and die.
That lot, who once just managed to get by
Won’t now, but that’s their own, not your disgrace
For now’s your glory-day, so hold it high.
Just get the Mail to stop them asking why
They always lose, or if you’ve fixed the race.
Elsewhere the lingering life-hopes fade and die.
What dies in them is all that goes awry
When they’re routinely caught out at first base.
But now’s your glory-day so hold it high.
Just get the Sun to say they’re all work-shy
And then get all the loan-sharks on their case.
Elsewhere the lingering life-hopes fade and die.
If that lot cut up rough, you can rely
On Channel Four to keep them in their place
After your glory-day, so hold it high.
And if some others say you’re a bad guy,
Trust Murdoch to ensure they get no space.
Elsewhere the lingering life-hopes fade and die.
So long as there’s no lie-machine to vie
With his, your lies are those that set the pace,
And now’s your glory-day so hold it high.
Wave that attaché-case lest any try
To question plans your banker-friends embrace.
Elsewhere the lingering life-hopes fade and die.
Should there be some life-hopers who decry
Those policies, just sink them without trace
For now’s your glory-day, so hold it high.
Maybe a few on your own side will shy
From deeper cuts, but still you hold the ace.
Elsewhere the lingering life-hopes fade and die.
If they protest, then do it on the sly:
You’re Oxford-bred, just soft-soap them by grace
Of this your glory-day, and hold it high.
No matter if you don’t see eye-to-eye
With some old-Labour wielder of the mace:
Elsewhere the lingering life-hopes fade and die.
Truth is, your current budget’s just a dry-
Run raid on nine-tenths of the populace
For this your glory-day, so hold it high.
Neat trick, the one that lets you re-apply
“Austerity” to have the term erase
Those lingering life-hopes that now fade and die.
Just tell the plebs they’re welcome to defy
Your new poor-laws but they’re the ones you’ll chase
On this your glory-day, so hold it high.
Elsewhere the lingering life-hopes fade and die.
STRICT-FORM
SESTINA FOR THE MARQUIS DE SADE
In this dream—even at the age of thirty-eight—Sade yearned for the embrace of a mother. “Oh my Mother!” he cried out to [Petrarch’s] Laure, prostrate at her feet, as if he were one of the tortured victims of his own fictional erotic fantasies. But when, in his dream, he reached to grasp her, she disappeared and abandoned him to his lonely suffering.
—Neil Schaeffer, The Marquis de Sade: A Life
He knew (or should have known) they’d get him wrong,
The moralists and those who took it straight,
His endless improvising on the one
Big thing that mattered. Not that he was just
Inventing stuff for kicks, or getting off
On kinky fantasies where thought of pain
Endured was bliss enjoyed. Let’s face it, pain
Was that big thing and so they weren’t flat wrong,
Those literal-minded types, or too far off
The moral point, those sticklers for the straight-
Forward message. Still what made them less than just
In so concluding was neglect of one
Odd fact that should give pause—at least if one
Doesn’t page-hop to the next scene of pain
Inflicted or procured—for then it’s just
Conceivable that all our thinking’s wrong
On this touchiest of topics. Read him straight
By all means but recall those noises-off
He suffered daily—since a short way off
From his barred gaol-cell window—one-by-one,
As Madame Guillotine dropped clean and straight
To outstretched necks. Strict justice said the pain
For the Tempus-Fugitives Page 10
