I am not suffering, me, from post-traumatic stress disorder.
There is a reason for what we do. Their wives have weaponised
Their wombs. Our problem is our democracy.
We call it mowing the lawn, think of it as a cull
To keep their population down. For this is our land explicitly.
Well, that’s how I see it, me, and I’m not one to over-ride
The will of God – nor will I commit the sin of suicide,
Since it would be a crime to reduce the number of those
Fighting for our cause. So you can stuff your PTSD
Up your sanctimonious arse. Back at home, my wife demands
That I get out the mower. For all flesh is grass.
I have shot little girls in the head before, and mothers
In the belly. I remember what was taught in class.
You reap what you sow! the righteous angel
Calls out to each pregnant cow, tightening the trigger-finger.
Imagine a serial killer who’s a magnificent poet.
A genocidal composer. An artist who can paint in blood
Without it turning brown whose work is pretty good.
I know a supporter of causes whose art is actually shit.
And casualties who can’t write for toffee. There is an art
To what we do. Inevitably, since there have always
Been skirmishes and sieges, scorched earth and the need
To see things through. Marley put it best you know: Get up,
Stand up. Stand up for your rights. So don’t you lecture me.
I drop the visor down, for sure, when I prepare for the slaughter.
But when command rotates our squad and I return from the front,
I am no different to any of you. You should see me with my daughter.
x
x
This is so weird. I wrote this poem in October 25 – purely out of my imagination, and now Crispin Flintoff has posted this Zionist drivel on his show, pointing out what drivel it is of course.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YN1CFBUFhcs&t=21s
On my 7th birthday we were in Austria and I wanted to climb a mountain. In the evening my mother and I climbed so high we couldn’t find the way down again and had to be rescued by eight guides and a rope!
What is the connection between Wallace Stevens and the Wallenberg family, I wonder. Esse non videri. That is as far as I’ve got.
Here is a link to a history of the Wallenbergs. Basically, they are the most powerful family in Sweden. Esse non Videri is their family motto. “Existing, but invisible.”
They were instrumental in helping Jews escape the Nazis in WW2. Fair enough, but contemporary events in Gaza cast such sympathy in an uncanny light.
x
Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month’s newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
x
Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
x
Stevens was probably aware that this phrase happens also to be the motto of North Carolina. So far so good. But this is a quantum post; a post aligning dislocated facts simply for the sake of a phrase. So I’m interested in why the Nobel Peace Prize has just been awarded to a rabid Zionist and one intent on interfering in democratically-elected Maduro’s Venezuela. Alfred Nobel was another billionaire Scandinavian, one who invented cordite and dynamite. Like Mrs Winchester, widow of the rifle mogul, he suffered from a guilty conscience.
Sometimes it is Esse quam Videri – but the meaning seems broadly the same – well, up to a point. Esse quam videri is found in Cicero’s essay On Friendship (Laelius de Amicitia, chapter 98). Virtute enim ipsa non tam multi praediti esse quam videri volunt (“Few are those who wish to be endowed with virtue rather than to seem so”).
Just a few years after Cicero, Sallust used the phrase in his Bellum Catilinae (54.6), writing that Cato the Younger esse quam videri bonus malebat (“He preferred to be good rather than to seem so”).
Previous to both Romans, Aeschylus used a similar phrase in Seven Against Thebes at line 592, at which the scout (angelos) says of the seer/priest Amphiaraus: οὐ γὰρ δοκεῖν ἄριστος, ἀλλ᾽ εἶναι θέλει (ou gàr dokeîn áristos, all’ eînai thélei: “he doesn’t want to seem, but to be the bravest”). Plato quoted this line in Republic (361b). Cicero’s essay On Friendship (Laelius de Amicitia, chapter 98). Virtute enim ipsa non tam multi praediti esse quam videri volunt (“Few are those who wish to be endowed with virtue rather than to seem so”).
However, the phrase seems to have acquired some spooky overtones – “to do without being seen” appears to be one of them. It also seems to get reversed in much popular opinion – “to seem, rather than to be,” or, according to the Free People’s Movement in Sweden – “acting without being seen.” So like the moebius strip, it turns itself inside out while remaining a single surface. Reminds me of the motto of Mossad – “By way of deception, we have done war.”
There is a great video on Odysee.com by ImplodeX called Esse non Videri, but I can’t seem to upload it here.
Anyway, I got a poem out of this, which perhaps demonstrates the slipperiness of language. However, I keep altering it – and perhaps it’s the sort of poem that can never be resolved. The phrase epitomises the enigma of language; that meaning is all too often an assumption.
