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Second, First. The title gives this moment’s game away but only the poetic mind knows this at once, while the non-poetic mind becomes poetic the moment it grasps this title’s simple fact.† (Poets know they need read no further, for all that follows is, like the bulk of the Talmud apropos of the perennial exhortation to love your neighbour, merely commentary.) [begins] In much the same way, it does not take a Schindler to know where the sympathies of a Nazi Jew must lie, But it does take a poet. In fact, the perfect Nazi Jew is, by that post-modern-concentration-camp word “definition”, a poet. Like it or not, Herr Schillerberg. (Irony, here, makes the digestion a little easier.) This is where godlikeness comes into it. He was/is smart, that God guy, knowing that the best place to hide His mysteries is inside a man’s heart: the access is easier! And I know you don’t understand. But, you see, understanding is your department. Oops, echoes of the concentration camp, again. But if you didn’t love the sense of community here in this “Why me?” literary ghetto then why, I ask you, Frau Schwartzmann, why are you so pleased to see your name come up in that awful blue-purple light that, permanently etched like the gene sequence for death, stains all your children? Point? Point? Point? Every prick with a pen wants to know what the point is. But pricks with pens aren’t poets. They’re tattooists, and the words ‘prick with a pen’ also define a fascist. Did you know fascists are invisible, but only to themselves? Or that every morning, a fascist will look in their mirror and comfort themselves with the fantasy that they gaze upon the face of democracy, yet be haunted by the ineluctable sense that the mirror is, actually, empty? Then off they go to Arbeit. To encapsulate: the mistake Schindler didn’t make, and nor do I (and the fact that you can’t see that means that, unfortunately, I'll need, for a second, to refer you back to schtanza number EH00002), was that he accepted the excruciating existential necessity to align himself with the way of a very ugly world. Why? Because he knew that in order to put the chosen people first, he had to seem to collaborate, for a second. [ends] †Really, you’re still here? / Imagine for a second That to my purpose I harness the German Word for heaven, and follow it with an Exclamation mark. / Now what does that tell you? It should tell you something about fascism. Yes, oh yes, meine Leiberkinder, it’s true: If I can read and understand John Forbes’s ‘Four Heads & how to do them,’ then so, goddamn it, can you. |
This Poem was Critiqued By: Jordan Brendez Bandojo On Date: 2006-01-04 11:27:34
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.75000
Hi Mark,
I am not sure if this is my first time to comment on your poetry...This ranks high so I was driven to pick this for a read,,,hehehe,,,Your artistry has its own identity, I mean, the originality is high seen because you have your own way of putting your ideas together...I would love to read more of your incredible pieces.
Jordan