Tag Archives: poetry

Those To Whom Evil Is Done

1 Reply

Much of my writing is based on the premise that evil begets evil or, as Auden so eloquently puts it, in his poem, “September 1, 1939”:

I and the public know

What all schoolchildren learn,

Those to whom evil is done

Do evil in return”. (See http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/september-1-1939).

I do not contend that free will is an illusion, that we are prisoners of genetics or society. Many individuals who have experienced horrific abuse do not go on to become abusers. However the fact that significant numbers of the abused become perpetrators demonstrates that a vicious cycle can, often be set in train with parents abusing children who then go on to become abusers.

To take an example from my own writing. In my short story, Samantha, Sam is drugged and forced into prostitution by her brutal pimp, Barry. Barry possesses not a single redeeming feature. He is, quite simply a monster. Barry has, however been abused by his mother as a child (she locks him, as a 6-year-old little boy in a dark cupboard). From this ill treatment flows Barry’s view that,

“All women are bitches”.

He has experienced no love in his life and the brutality of Barry’s upbringing has destroyed the feelings of compassion which most of us, to a greater or lesser degree possess.

To take another example, in my story, The Hitch Hiker, a deeply troubled young woman exacts a terrible vengeance on men who stop to offer her a lift.

Both Barry and the Hitch Hiker demonstrate the validity of Auden’s view that, “Those to whom evil is done do evil in return”. Anyone reading much of my work might reach the conclusion that I deny the possibility of redemption, I do not. Deeply damaged individuals who have done terrible things can (and do) reform and go on to lead good and productive lives. However it does appear that a small number of people are, for whatever reason beyond help. I am speaking here of psychopaths. In contrast to most killers who can (and frequently do) show remorse for their actions the psychopath is incapable of genuine remorse (he may feign it to gain advantage but that is a wholly different issue). Barry would appear to fall into the category of psychopath, his psychopathic tendencies being derived from the abuse suffered as a child. He is, almost certainly beyond redemption.

Is Barry responsible for his actions? As a believer in free will my answer has to be yes on the basis that other equally damaged persons do not act in the manner he does.

Perhaps in the coming decades lawyers will argue that their clients should not be punished for their actions as they possess a genetic predisposition for psychopathy or, due to the lack of a particular chemical in the brain they can not be held responsible for their actions. Maybe this will happen, however (assuming such a thing exists), if certain individuals with a genetic predisposition to psychopathy commit horrendous crimes while others do not (as I suspect will be the case) then society will need to relinquish simplistic explanations for criminal behaviour and accept that “evil” stems from many and varied causes.

I am no scientist. I am, however suspicious of determinist theories whether they be Marxist or Eugenic in origin. “Evil” will, I suspect be forever with us and, in decades to come we will still be discussing why people do horrendous acts.

Tonight I can Write The Saddest Lines, By Pablo Nerud

Leave a reply

Until yesterday I was unfamiliar with the work of Pablo Nerud. His poem, Tonight I can Write The Saddest Lines is beautiful and poignant. My only criticism (of the reading, not the poem) is the music which accompanies it, which, to my mind acts as a distraction to the reader.

For the reading please go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2zR7brOA3E

I Am

5 Replies

I am the shadow which follows hard on your heels late at night, hood covered face, feral eyes gleaming under the street lamps.

I am the teenager aimlessly hanging around decrepit shops, their windows plastered with ads for “massage”.

I am the 14-year-old child who asks you to buy cigarettes or alcohol on my behalf. You pretend not to hear as you hurry on by.

I am the single mother, yelling at my kids,my once pretty face lined with care.

I am the drug addled thief, householder’s beware.

I am the one the press like to blame, “Those feckless people, have they no shame?”

You fear or placate me. I am your shame. Stubborn, immovable the underclass is my name.

“As a god self slain on his own strange altar death lies dead”

2 Replies

As I stood at the Customer Services counter, in the supermarket, the strains of that beautiful hymn, Abide With Me, played by the Salvation Army came wafting through the open door,

“Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;

The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide;

When other helpers fail and comforts flee,

Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me. Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day;

Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away;

Change and decay in all around I see—

O Thou who changest not, abide with me”.

One does not need to be religious (I am an agnostic) to appreciate the power of this wonderful music. As I listened the fragility of life was brought home to me. How, in the blink of an eye that life which is so precious to most of us can be snuffed out.

The message of Abide With Me is that death is inevitable and that Christians call on God in times of trouble “in life, in death” to abide with them. Yet there has, since the birth of story telling been tales of people wishing to avoid death. In Chaucer’s The Pardoners Tale, for example a group of revellers in Flanders incensed at the death of their friend swear vengeance against death. In their quest to destroy him the drunken revellers come across an old man and question him regarding where death can be found. The elderly man tells the men they will find death under a tree. On reaching the spot they discover a pile of treasure and forget all about death. The youngest of the group goes off to procure wine while his 2 friends remain behind to guard the treasure. While the youngest of the group is absent his friends determine to murder him on his return so as to secure the treasure for themselves. On his return they murder him and fall to drinking the wine he has procured. However their friend, wishing to retain the whole treasure has poisoned the wine and the 2 men die in agony.

In The Pardoners Tale all 3 men find death in the form of treasure which leads to their destruction. The revellers perhaps also meet death personified in the shape of the elderly man who directs them to the treasure. However as the elderly man is, himself seeking death some have argued that he is not, in fact death but simply an elderly man who is (as he himself says) in search of death.

The Pardoners Tale derides the notion that one can escape death. Any attempt to avoid “that fel sergeant death” is futile and may actually hasten his approach.

A school of thought known as Transhumanism has grown up which postulates that all human suffering and even death itself can be vanquished by the onward march of technological progress. If we can slow down and (eventually) switch off the gene which causes ageing it will be possible to extend life indefinitely they argue. Other Transhumanists place their faith in artificial intelligence. At some point in the future they contend it will be possible to download (or upload) one’s consciousness into artificial brains which, in time can be placed into new artificial bodies thereby enabling the individual to live on long after there biological brain has ceased to function. Some Transhumanists, for example the inventor Ray Kurzweil believe that people will be able to choose whether to continue their existence (after uploading) in either the real world or virtual reality (I.E. on the internet). Consequently the future invisioned by Transhumanists is one in which death ceases to exist or becomes an option which may be embraced (optionally) by a few Transhumanists in the new utopia.

Will The Pardoner or the Transhumanists have the last laugh I wonder?

Ode On Melancholy By John Keats

Leave a reply

No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolf’s-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss’d
By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;
Make not your rosary of yew-berries,
Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be
Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl
A partner in your sorrow’s mysteries;
For shade to shade will come too drowsily,
And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.
But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
Or on the wealth of globed peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.
She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil’d Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy’s grape against his palate fine;
His soul shalt taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung.

REM Night Swimming

Leave a reply

Some 20 years ago my friend John gave me a tape of the REM album containing Losing My Religion. I still have the cassette somewhere although it ceased to play many moons since. Other than Losing My Religion, Night Swimming is probably my favourite REM track. The song talks of freedom, of lost youth and so much more, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGbZFBcO9Dk

Matilda By Hilaire Beloc

Leave a reply

I first came across Beloc’s poem while browsing through a book of poetry in the school library. I think that I first read “Matilda” in the Oxford Book Of English Verse, although it may have been another anthology. The endings of Beloc’s characters are often grizly as in the below poem and in Henry King who, it will be remembered expired as a consequence of eating string. Grizly though they undoubtedly are, we smile none the less at Beloc’s verses.

 

—

 

Matilda told such Dreadful Lies,

It made one Gasp and Stretch one’s Eyes;

Her Aunt, who, from her Earliest Youth,

Had kept a Strict Regard for Truth,

Attempted to believe Matilda:

The effort very nearly killed her,

And would have done so, had not she

Discovered this Infirmity.

For once, towards the Close of Day,

Matilda, growing tired of play,

And finding she was left to alone,

Went tiptoe to the telephone

And summoned the Immediate Aid

Of London’s Nobel Fire-Brigade.

Within an hour the Gallant Band

Were pouring in on every hand,

From Putney, Hackney Downs and Bow,

With Courage high and Hearts a-glow

They galloped, roaring though the Town,

“Matilda’s House is Burning Down”

Inspired by British Cheers and Loud

Proceeding from the Frenzied Crowd,

They ran their ladders through a score

Of windows on the Ball Room Floor;

And took Peculiar Pains to Souse

The Pictures up and down the House,

Until Matilda’s Aunt succeeded

In showing them they were not needed

And even then she had to pay

To get the Men to go away! . . . . .

It happened that a few Weeks later

Here aunt was off to the Theatre

To see that Interesting Play

The Second Mrs. Tanqueray.

She had refused to take her Niece

To hear this Entertaining Piece:

A Deprivation Just and Wise

To Punish her for Telling Lies.

That Night a Fire did break out-

You should have heard Matilda Shout!

You should have heard her Scream and Bawl,

And throw the window up and call

To People passing in the Street-

(The rapidly increasing Heat

Encouraging her to obtain

Their confidence)-but it was all in vain!

For every time She shouted “Fire!”

They only answered “Little Liar!”

And therefore when her Aunt returned,

Matilda, and the House, were burned.

 

Adultery By Carol Ann Duffy

2 Replies

I came across Carol Ann Duffy’s poem, Adultery while leafing through “The New Poetry”, edited by Michael Hulse, David Kennedy and David Morley (Bloodaxe Books), yesterday evening. It is a powerful poem which speaks of the guilt and excitement of adultery, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cjLftgJuuM

Freedom

Leave a reply

What is it to be free?

Freedom is walking barefoot as dawn lights up the sky, damp grass underfoot, wild birds flying unconstrained above.

Freedom is speaking without fear of consequences, no glancing with trepidation over one’s shoulder.

Freedom is letting go,, being who you want to be, not the personification of the desires of others.

Freedom is the passionate kiss, love unbound.

Freedom is life, the opposite of death.