Today i would like to give thanks to canadain literature and fine authors it has produced like Laytnor, Atwood and Purdy. The scene is vibrant and open. Though the eye is now on the prize the poetic experience is less objectifying than facebook or other forms of social media..poetry is better than facebook ha ha ha...especially canadian.
Three Poems by Irving Layton
The Slaughterhouse
In the absurd slaughterhouse that is history where there are no heroes but only butchers and the slain, no matter what fables silly poets tell and theologians believe, make certain the cleaver is yours and the bared throat someone else’s. But best if, from a safe niche away from the roar of those whom power maddens you can observed the flashing blades and the beautiful rosettes their spilled blood makes on page and floor.
Xianity
Brother and fellow poet is this what you wanted?
The muttering of bead counting hysterics? The snufflings of joyless misfits and cripples fearful of death, more fearful of life? The misereres of the doomed dregs in every large metropolis of the world? The hosannahs of the conformist hordes stinking of money and respectability?
Is this what you wanted: the grey suburban church and the greyer people shambling into it each Sunday you who openly consorted with whores and drunkards and so loved laughter and joy that you were willing to be crucified for them?
After Auschwitz
My son, don’t be a waffling poet; let each word you write be direct and honest like the crack of a gun
believe an aging poet of the twentieth century: neither the Old Testament nor the New or the saying of the Koran or the Three Baskets of Wisdom or of the Dhammapada will ever modify or restrain, the beastliness of men
Lampshades were made from the skins of a people preaching the gospel of love; the ovens of Auschwitz and Belsen are open testimony to their folly
Despite memorial plaques of horror and contrition repentance my son, is short lived
an automatic rifle endures a life time
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