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vircapio gale Jul 2012
she is my nihilistic god;

i am a stag leap.
the fainter wind-caress
felt deep in trunks and boulder bed.
i am delight for loosened thorns
that piercing underfoot will spur to run
my naked body's open-air embrace
atop the callus of my seasoned fun,
skirring flora shadow-dancing bright
descending mountainside of noon
in blurrs refracting sightful bones.
i am the sense of
transtemporal glacial moans,

the heartbeat of the soil breath
to puff from feasted log a mycophile's awe
or want for all placental webs in view
for naming earth a seeping sorrows tithe:
my consciousness of things alive.

the stinging lungs atop the path
are emblems of a winging truth
to overcome her nearing death.
i am the lingham of creations' race.
i am the sensate reeling blow by empty blow.
the gravity of light and dark;
gray theopolis of fists and falls.
envelopment of massive meanings filled
in nether-branchings' net
and mediatrix scorn: the wider world absorbs my self as ~ all~
~. .all. . ~
prating some nepenthean law
to sour our poetic hate
and deeply bury seismic seeds she wants to sow, like
ancient clues of metagender fact:
hermaphroditic **** to 'normal' eyes.
icecaps to resize and singing moralize;
a dolphin midwife toning yoni love
for labor certain nuns call "gift"
as crown of pleasure heights
on par with mysteries;
regrowing infant fingertips,
to pi recited over days,
to vaster mindscapes drawn in ways
'beyond the genius of the sea'

why wait for ease of shame?
thin veils of culture lift
and family bonds anew to tow
the peace from out irratic weight of nation rifts;
instantiations burst beyond the tunnel course~
rhythmic doomsday yearnings line the halls of humantime:
prophetic visions of a sea to come,
Utnapishtim keeps himself alive
to garden with his wife a thriving mortal line.
Quetzalcohuatl finds himself *****
to bloodlet savior sexuality,
his heart a morning star, a Mayan Venus shine.

i see the standing trees
entwine slow-love to sky
so i can swing and heave
my universe above the words,
to carry thorns as well as petals, doves.
the vision ends. the new begins
to filter dyad lies through
inter-
corporeal lens.
embodied ivy climbs the tree of death
to rewind love and deepen love,
to bound the loss with goddess wisdom ends and other ends
of ouroboros shedding clear
of limits insight thrives to near.
sunglance peeking is the hovering of me,
steady comfort crosses floating lotus feet.
the softest rock has melded under thee
to join a forest pausing here.
a berry soaks itself of all i am
while nutty chipmunks chirp in whirls;
the clouds are girls you've been,
Nephelae to tease in quenching gowns
the verdant book of men we've known, who leaf
the air to taste another form of fairness lent.
silver is the sun in times of stillness overached.
sifted tensions drift to lie awake, but
drowning in a stream of glowing calm,
i am the woody balm.
the scent of bark unnestled dry
and leaves remembrance when
the breathing stops, the final
fleshing in of nowhere, never then.
you are transcendent of transcending
pure. end, endure and lucid ending live again
in empty worship ringing plenum om.
Brooks Popwell Sep 2011
OBSERVATIONS

First, I note a few surface details.

Outline
- Rising action – Keawe buys the imp and later sells it
- Crisis – Keawe again buys the imp although he doubts he can sell it
- Resolution – a sailor buys the imp from Keawe

The story centers on possession of the imp (primarily by Keawe, as noted above).  The full progression of ownership follows:

Ownership
- Old man
- Keawe
- Keawe's friend
- Unspecified others
- Keawe
- Kokua
- Sailor
- Keawe (attempted; sailor refused)

The motivations of the owners varies:

Motivation**
- Old man, Keawe (first), Keawe’s friend, others – reward
- Keawe (second) – reward
- Kokua –love
- Sailor – reward
- Keawe (attempted) – love

Note the relationship between these motives and the story arc.  Reward drives Keawe’s first two purchases (rising action, crisis), but love drives the third (before resolution).  Observe also the twin kinds of reward compelling the early purchases.  The first reward: obtaining prosperity; the second reward: preserving prosperity (including Kokua).

ANALYSIS

The story’s specifics (ownership and motivation) stage these events:

- Desire can reward (Keawe seeks prosperity and love and is satisfied.)
- Desire can curse (In his quest, Keawe uses the imp.)
- Reward brings uncertainty (Banishment threatens all Keawe’s gains.)
- Love absorbs curse (Kokua buys imp from Keawe.)
- Curse will destroy (Someone must bear imp’s damnation.)


These dichotomies follow:
- Reward is tarnished without the curse (by uncertainty) or with the curse (by destruction).
- One can avoid the curse but not uncertainty.+
- Love can deliver from the curse but cannot escape from the curse.

(+Note: This is because Stevenson portrays Keawe’s desire as a constant from the story’s beginning.  His unavoidable desire leads him to navigate the other events of the story.)


Two final questions:
- Does Stevenson present an ideal choice to resolve the story’s dichotomies?
- Does the imp simply represent the curse or something more?

First, would Stevenson moralize?  I presume the possibility, considering his dramatic shift from a Victorian upbringing to a life of travel and ensuing love of the islander lifestyle (the backdrop for the short story). First, recall the two motives (reward or love) and the consistent negative conseqeunces (uncertainty, curse, destruction).  All of these occurred both with or without a connection to the imp.  Keawe pursued the good life before meeting the imp’s owner and in the period of freedom from its grasp. Likewise, his love for Kokua began without connection to the imp and continued long after.  I summarize all these possible combinations in the following chart:

Choices

REWARD
1. Without imp: uncertainty
2. With imp: curse

LOVE
3. Toward the cursed: destruction
4. Toward the uncursed: no destruction

The story progresses from a focus on reward (first half) to a focus on love (second half).  The last option (love without destruction) is ideal; every other option entails some loss.  Even Kokua’s and Keawe’s choices to love each other by taking back the curse is bittersweet.  Each one’s sacrifice removes the other’s greatest source of happiness, an end that could have been avoided if Keawe had never bought the imp.  The implied lesson?  Avoid choices now that will sabotage love’s good intentions later.

The surprise ending may add an additional message.  If the story warns against complicating love, why does it provide an escape hatch, the drunken sailor who accepts damnation and buys the bottle?  Stevenson could simply be softening the blow of his cautionary tale.  If so, why did he include the elaborate curse that necessitated such an ending? I think the injection of a supernatural temptation portrays real life: wild possibilities coupled with high consequences.  The ending modifies the imaginary scenario to convey another reality: though love cannot erase a damning past, somehow, escape is possible.

If the supernatural elements comment on life, the imp itself may also have a specific meaning.  The unusual law of the imp (sell for less or receive damnation) makes it a constantly growing threat.  Its sinister descriptions (“dark,” “fiery,” etc) and concealed evil (glancing in the bottle stuns the owner with horror) also portray the imp as a potent living force.  Perhaps Stevenson portrays imperfection and evil in humanity as this palpable reality, present in the world and available as a means of man’s advancement and destruction.  As an advocate of Semoan rights who lived in the islands during multiple colonial power-struggles, he vividly observed evil’s corrupting power.  He knew that the world often suffers when people allow the end to justify the means.  And when those people are us—the otherwise kind-hearted Keawes—Stevenson knew that the fiend within us doesn’t have to win in the end.
Mateuš Conrad Sep 2018
.only last year i learned that my grandmother had an abortion... shocked? maybe, my great-grandmother was a very religious woman... unfortunately... my grandfather's dementia implies that he's paranoid about admitting that he was a communist party member, and that, like all the school-children... cried... when the olive-skinned Georgian, the grand-master of subverting the Russians, died; oops?

why did i go to an Irish Catholic School?
in Seven Kings?
we had this, "debate", about abortions
aged 15 / 16... taking out religious
studies GCSEs...
                 and the point of that, was?
sorry... no...
       maybe that's why i prefer to frequent
brothels...
   no concerns over STDs (since the prostitutes
confide in me that they get
regular medical checks, and, can you,
believe it! i believe them)
and no concerns for imposing marriage
proposals via stealth impregnation...
  what i should have said was:
can we extend this ****** thing with
you wearing a full-bodied latex suit?
  i'm feeling kinda *****...
  but NO! oh NO!
        ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
i'm feeling, kinda *****...
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
maybe i was, once upon a time,
the sort of suitcase material for women,
compliant, ordinate, whatever the ****
that means...
        certain a household busy body...
guess what?!
   what?
         NOT, ANY, MORE!
          half starved alcoholic and a heavy
smoker, orientated around filling
a pixel fail-safe space of a blank...
       about as much a father-figure in me,
as in a ******* donkey....
but the donkey is not being the carrot,
it knows the the stick...
             and a stick is a better analogy
to a double edged sword:
it goes, along, the lines, of:
a stick has two ends,
you can hold a stick,
  and hit someone with it,
or the stick can be yanked out of your hands,
and you can be hit with it...
ah... isn't that so much more...
clarifying?
       a debate about abortion...
with a child aged 15 / 16?
   only an Irish Catholic school...
sorry... NO!
                  that isn't a baby,
that is a *****...
           it's a baby outside of a woman...
so what? when i ******* into
a tissue and flush it down the toilet,
i'm supposedly committing, genocide?
i must be, self-evidently by
your counter argument...
         what idiot is supposed to expect
a child, out of uni, aged 21,
with a bride aged 19...
and the best thing, coming to him,
is to work with his father,
  doing industrial scaled roofing?
with a bride... too proud to move in with
her in-laws for a while?!
what, sort, of, schmuck, does that?!
oh no... i've done my mea culpa bull-****!
i'm done!
       just because it's inside a woman's
body, doesn't make it anything
more than what it is, in my body!
savvy?!
         i'll play my loser card
simultaneously with my joker card...
the Catholic Church can eat ****...
moralizing while it gravitates
  to a castrato soprano faggoting some
choir boy!
   *******!
              moralize my ***
telling me that taking a **** is a sin!
so where am i supposed to put it?!
corpus christi! eat that!
   thus?
let's begin...
  it is immoral for teenagers, aged 15 through to 16,
to be exposed to the ethical discussion
surrounding abortion... PERIOD...
have your religious education...
  after all... i was the only idiot
who did four A-levels, most people only did 3...
17 / 18...
      extra-curriculum activity...
ethics... oddly enough:
the schooling establishment a bit dry...
when it comes to the euthanasia
"debate"...
   can't exactly argue with someone who's
more than willing,
to exact the penal code...
    euthanasia is a non-win argument
for the Catholics...
        
but abortion? sway-prone...
   if you tell me,
that,
  just because my ***** is now
the ownership of a woman,
and i can't *******...
   if you tell me:
that, whatever "that" is... is "life"?

let's put a cherry on the top of this
mode of thinking,
seriously, ethical debate concerning
abortion, using teenagers?
the ones easily cloned?
(told you, religion predates
the concept of cloning,
prior to the scientific discovery
of d.n.a.) -
  
  let's put a cherry on top,
of this... "cheesecake"...
   what was it...
              hmm...
              you know... when rage
implodes, and you don't punch
anything...
an angry young man's anger...
well... that's different...
  but allocating a basin for
the collection of Berserk, rage?
you know when you,
write semi-blind, semi-conscious?
in a dream-like "reality"?
when a bull sees red?

hmm...
why did i attend an Irish Catholic school?
pedophiles about to dictate
the rules of, ethics on my ***?!

entertain me...
   i understand the ethics of:
when the pregnancy is too late,
when the ***** has morphed into
looking akin to what a baby looks
like outside of a woman:
i.e. a ******* man...

   but while it's inside a woman...
it's attache...
             and if n early abortion
is deemed, infanticide....
**** me...
   i commit genocide almost every
day, and flush it down, the,
******* toilet!
Anders Thompson Mar 2017
Send some rain, please God send some rain
For the earth is dry and needs to drink again --
And I know not how to speak to You anymore
I’ve run and run and run from You
I have feared, disgraced, shunned, and longed for You
All in single breaths, all in one gasp
There is too much, Lord
This wall is too thick
Too high, too strong
The gate is shut and I know not, remember not, the key
Did I hold the palette knife, Lord?
Was it I that mixed the concrete and placed the bricks?
Who drew those plans?
There is not a day I remember
Where I decided to shut down and shut off and shut away
The people on the outside
Things are safer on the inside, this I know
That this mind is a trap and this body is a bomb
But at least it isn’t as frightening as the ones outside --
But no, that isn’t true
I’ve seen how this mind will break and this body will fail
How the counter keeps ticking down down down
How I will run out of tape and glue to piece
These cracked halves and splinters back again
I’ve watched myself snap, teeth bared and nails out
Primitive and carnal, ready to destroy and ****;
Sluggish, depleted, apathetic, incapable, laying on the floor
Wheezing breath in and out, body crumpled to the ground
He says he loves me
God, isn’t that hysterical?
I have fallen too far for people to love me, o God
I have not quality
Nor quantity to make up for it
I don’t know how to feel safe with others
How to trust and how to love
Perpetually planning, there is a degree of calculation
In every move I make, every word I speak, every breath I take
The alarm bells will not stop -- stop! -- ringing
Everyone is faulty, everyone is dangerous
I cannot make them safe to me
Or this odious warning system
I write to feel
I speak to find help
But I am not better
I am not alright
God?
God, are You out there?
They spoke of You in church this morning.
Every Sunday is another battlecry of you.
The mere mortals moralize and maneuver
They built their society on You,
But lost You in their rules --
Hell is empty, all the devils are here --
The Sadducees live again in this century, o Lord
I know His was only a single ticket
But perhaps there is another plane He could take, God
I was told this wall needed to descend for You, God
“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”
But I have never reached for You
You know this, I know this
I am looping round and round
This reads more like a child’s diary entry than a poem
A confused convoluted confession
Not a profession, a solution, a heartfelt love
My God, You have got to save me
Medication might save or destroy my brain
But it will touch not my soul
I don’t know how to love
You love me
Could You teach me what it means?
God I would serenade You for Your love
David’s desperation and my muted, confused despair are one:
Save me, O God!
For the waters have come up to my neck.
I sink in deep mire,
Where there is no standing;
I have come into deep waters,
Where the floods overflow me.
I am weary with my crying;
My throat is dry;
My eyes fail while I wait for my God.
dk
Demonize the morally upright
patronize the silent worker
Victimize the celibate lady
Moralize the perverted ogor
Chastise till the world is numb
Finger her till she comes
stay away from me
Madeysin Jul 2015
I wonder if you ever ******* knew what was in that hole, that hole. That great divide in time & space. The ghostly masterpiece of your disappearance. If you've fallen in, did you die? Everybody knows your name, it was our secret place. A forged identity, a solitude of symphony's. All you ever knew though, was ozones. I'm starting to wonder if you became one. I sit outside the looking glass.
This is beautiful, great or pretty. It's just honesty. Which alone makes it magnificent. I watch all my friends leave. Some I cut out of my life.
wordvango Feb 2015
Good or Evil?
Thousands of Americans saved.
Sacrificed in one second
were Japanese children,
Is killing ever just?
Proportional
may not be sufficient.
Is it better
in the end to  ****
or be killed.
How do we answer?
Conceive loving
the words of the Bible,
many times contrary,
An eye for an eye
or Thou Shalt not ****.
How to moralize or defend
so many deaths.


To dispute our LOVE is not my desire
No art or knowledge will suffice
The sufferings of our TRUE LOVE

Because I (YOU/WE) know you LOVE me too
We've friends abound, & foes are not desired
What I seek is a LOVERz who LOVES me
O seeker BELOVEDz, please do not leave me....!

Oh... Poor LOVERz,
Oh... Poor BELOVEDz.
No friends can give one a lip to kiss
That a LOVERz-BELOVEDz desires

No pearl of wealth empowers me
Nor a spiritual guru heals me
Those days are gone when
Anyone other than my BELOVED LOVERz
Can help me sail through this sorrow

Every helping hands tells me
The advises I do not desire in LOVE

If you want to break FREE from life
Do not moralize- ethics and integrity
Just plunder on to LOVE till your desires

Humans are masters of yearnings
Receiving is a human trait of desire

LOVERz-BELOVEDz are slaves of insights
Giving a blessing for the one who LOVES

Oh.. my giver of LOVE
You rose my grief's flame
At least ask  LOVERz-BELOVEDz
What does LOVE-CONNECT desires

Do not ****** out God/dess of LOVE
Stop for a moment, ask what SOUL seeks

Do not desert journeys of LOVE
Do not silence the heart's speak
The ups and downs nurtures our TRUST
That forms the bond of TRUE LOVE
The sufferings of our TRUE LOVE



Morgan Percy Nov 2010
Victimize, yourself

                Tantalize, everyone else

                                                  Agonize, her
                                                              
                                                                Moralize, you try
                                                                                  
                                                                                 Critisize, they do
                                                                                                        
                                                                                                       Apologize, can't you?
© Morgan Percy 2010
Coyote Jan 2012
It’s just so **** frustrating
all this ignorance and war
It gets my mind to thinking
what the Hell is it all for

Half a million dying
for some worthless desert sand
No matter how they moralize
I just don’t understand

It seems to me that freedom
can’t be purchased with a gun
But hey the folks in Washington
they’ve got to have their fun

They’ll tell you Christ is coming
so you’d better pick a side
Cuz’ if you ain’t a Christian
There will be no place to hide
untrue Jun 2015
[possibly offensive?] [possibly a rant?]

a classmate i barely knew
can't even recall her name
she asked, the simplest thing:
was i okay?

others said, well,
don't give him the attention
he'll only cut more

well, i' m over that, but,
from time to time
i see the same idiocy
emerging

what a rotten world
self-righteous world
were harm is all but mended
were weakness is offending

cannibals deny the right
to self-destruction
they moralize
and legalize
their own desensitization

just do not mark the skin that shows
just smile and wave and cry alone
just rot inside but do not die
we don't have time

i wish i could say:
if i was suicidal, i' d  like to make sure
society got what it deserved

i' d cut my wrists and paint my school
i' d scream "you ****ts did wrong me greatly!"
i' d let them know inhumanity has a cost
i' d let them know, let their kids know,
let the news show what selfishness is

I think that would be educative!

if it could be arranged
i' d have my body torn post-mortem
cut in little pieces, thrown all around
with little notes of hate
i' d even mail some!
(well, not me personally)

and it should cost time and money
and scar some kids
and make mothers cry
and be a gift of bitter empathy
as slap to the face
a kick to the nuts
since happiness and life
don't weigh that much these days
not more than bibles or grades and such

and that is selfish,
not the emo kids, not the shy ones,
not the harmless ones you bully
I would be selfish
I think that would be righteous

and that's because
i cannot stand these words:
"suicide is selfish!"
"real problems!"
"simply stupid!"
"attention ******!"
A Plea  
Those who persecuted have no home
And starving children, let them come to us
Let us help them to stand up
Accept their plight do not preach or moralize
Always think it could have been you
In dire situation running away from war
And strife, lack of food and basic freedom
If you are a European  your grandparents
Likely where refugees external or internal
Help the poor as you  wished others would
Help you when needed
Arrogance and pride have no place in your
Heart they are cuckoos in the nest of love
A reserve you will need some day.
Johnsdavidburg Apr 2018
I dislike I despise
The stuffy minds
And the philistines
Wearing virtue signs
Like dressed figurines
In pop social themes
Or faux thoughts and prayers
Displayed on twitter feeds
For their attention needs
All superficial cares
And sophomoric ideologies
Demanding apologies
Like commodities
And all that that implies
I dislike I despise
Those who dramatize
Moralize and jeopardize
Like a line of merchandize
The free human mind
And all that that implies
Kiernan Norman Jul 2020
Punctuation becomes a commandment
to memorize,
to moralize,
to misuse.

A comma means a breath,
it means looking up at the sky and feeling very small,
no comma means you run through the cornfield like you’re being chased like your fingers are full of cramps like you forgot your shoes like the tornado siren is wailing and your not welcome anywhere with a door
Qualyxian Quest Jan 2020
???
too much despair in air
to truly moralize

but the truth of her brown hair
in this world of lies

sent me letter sending
much to her surprise

maybe never ending
because I did not disguise

         but was it wise?
Yenson Nov 2020
Do not breed them bright
for we need 'the useful idiots'
to do the ***** work
how can you manipulate and control them
if you allow reasoning and ability to moralize
or allow free-will and intelligence which will open eyes
offer them titbits as reward and instruct them we all think alike
our greatest strength is intimidation for none of them have cajones
and they can't understand anything's much less Spanish
pulverise their senses and ridicule them by instilling that
pureness of self ( where originality, wisdom and positive creativity
resides in sublime harmony) is nothing but a desert where emptiness and vacuous expanse **** each other up
The asinine useful idiots will swallow that up like honey
its the perfect fit for the narratives of empty minds
makes perfect sense to idiots
just as 94 seconds *** makes
sense to them
know little
have little
do little
the tree of dumbfound land

— The End —