The Delicious Pleasures of Racism: A Poem

I cant judge whether this is worth reading or whether I’m a complete moron, but eventually this article will be replaced by other bloggers, within one month it probably wont be visible on the website, so if you dislike it, be comforted by the fact that all things are transient, my weblog entries most of all. Apologies in advance. This is a poem I wrote this afternoon about how much fun it is to be racist. Enjoy, or not.
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The Delicious Pleasures of Racism

All my life I was told: Don’t look in that cubpoard!
You can eat everything in the house, just don’t look in there!
To the left of the sweet-jar, above where the alcohol was kept,
Whispered voices forbidding: a mysterious secret slept.

Damn you, Curiosity! Adventurous boys fall prey to you
And before their bones are stiff, they’ve uncovered half the world!
How wine tastes, the feel of one’s fists on another’s face,
Petty thievery, the line where mischief becomes crime
The parabolic formulas concealed beneath a skirt:
Ruthless and reckless, with no care for our dignity
The province of our knowledge expands to infinity.

But I did not know pleasure, until first I sprung the fence of our taboos
And tasted that magical, mysterious, much accursed fruit: Racism!
You let me drink from the ale-horn of my ancestors, unashamed!
Put down my judgements, and link hands with them again.
I was a party to their thieving, their massacres, their raids,
Gloried in their glories: the strange feel of ancient days.
But also their tender moments, their religious awe
Mirrored in colored glass, cut in Cathedral block!
Or sung in couplets, or set in scientific Work:
Or colonial adventures spanning the entire Earth.
A chorus of dead people want their forebears’ ghosts to haunt me:
You may weep as long as it brings you gain: I apologize for nothing!

Sweet, secret pleasure of racism, when first your taste was known
Something in me warned the hour of highest flight had come
When I with downcast eyes surveying found,
a jumble of minor pleasures and minor men infest the ground.
None could compare with your delights, to behold
A link between ancient things and what is to come:
Emerging from the mists of history, Hero-princes and Gods,
Through the magistrates and rulers of medieval times
To family ancestors and great men long-dead
To the promise of one’s grandchildren: one long unbroken thread.
What product or idea, rolling off the assembly line today
Replaces this ancient bond between dead, living and unborn?
Nothing, that’s the answer that I’ve read, in the feeble gestures
Of the pale husks who have never known these pleasures:
Fragments of men, grown so inwardly weak,
That the question could boggle a noble mind’s discernment:
Is this a piece of man, your Honor, or just a piece of shit?

For he who has not thought of these things
Can in no way pretend to be complete:
The master’s a dupe, the expert’s a fool
The genius sinks in facts for want of intelligence.
What meaning indeed can life have, if it is not
Encapsulated in this thought? Illuminated by it
That meaning must surely be.
On second thought, those who would withold this fruit from us
Are not like watchful parents, mindful of their brood,
But more like subtle poisoners condemning us
To a slow death, who unbeknownst to us,
Drink nightly the same nectar we dare not.

But I jumped the fence, I broke the lock
I hammered on the cupboard till the door came off.
And then I drank the stuff, down to the dregs
Even now you see it spilled down my shirt-front,
Advertising righteous decision and empowerment.
Like looking into the freckled porcelain face
Of a cheerful Leicester love-interest
Framed with red curls, and knowing its yours:
And knowing you don’t have to share it:
So great, so precious, so many and varied, my friends,
The incomparable pleasures which Racism brings!

Posted by Potential Frolic on Thursday, May 17, 2007 at 02:40 PM in
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