RUDIMENTS, pt. 917
(lucre, moloch, money, greed)
One time I read James Joyce's
Poems Penyeach. I was
pretty unimpressed. And then
later I read, very carefully and
studiously, and with two or three
reading-guides too, (Harry
Levin), 'Ulysses.' I was very
impressed. I had read that
Ezra Pound had rejected these
poems for publication. In
light of all else that went on
with Pound, Joyce, Eliot, and
that entire group, it all worked
out well enough. For myself,
they remained, and still too,
a bit too obtuse for my taste,
offering little either real or
tangible to grab onto, or take
from, as the reader. That could
very well just be me, my own
secured taste - to this day
anything that adheres so closely
to the obvious idea of being
'poetry,' doesn't actually hold
my attention.
-
If I were writing poetry about
the Great Lakes, let's say, I'd
not even mention the lakes
themselves. There are a hundred
other ways of getting around that
trap, but I think what the ordinary
'self-conscious' poet does ('the
obvious idea of being poetry') is
to to nothing but dwell on the
lakes, their facts and figures,
their apparent meanings, etc.,
in order to write about them -
and whether in a poetic or nicely
lyrical way not mattering. There
are numerous ways of getting
to 'The Great Lakes' without
telling a reader about the great
lakes. I think that's mostly what's
lost with most of this 'teaching'
and workshopping stuff that runs
it nose along as poetry now. To
be frank, it's mostly vacuous and
emotions; love stuff. The diatonic
broken heart stuff of an endless
childhood; like those 70 yer old
rock guys still singing three chord
crap about this or that babe and
leftover hurt. That's nothing, and
neither is it anything to be believed
in nor anything by which to waste
your time. It's certainly not writing.
It's a literal elephant-herding into
a blinding maelstrom of nothing. So,
if you're going to write about those
Great Lakes, don't mention the
Great Lakes, and find some other
means of getting to them.
-
Like that Hungarian girl at Twin
Donuts speaking just in an instant,
there was a lot to be taken from that,
and nothing importunely direct
was discussed. She got across tons
of material to me in about 40 words.
Stuff I couldn't even relay back to
her, it all passed so quickly. As a
kid, in Boy Scouts, we used to camp
and stay at Camp Kilmer - various
Scout functions, Jamborees, and
even as I recall, once or twice, week
long stayovers in the old barracks.
I always enjoyed it - not for anything
but the old aspects - I could not
have cared less for all that crazy
Scout crap. I can't even remember
what we were doing there, and the
more I try the more it fades off; but,
it had a military feel, was fairly
regimented, and we used all the
old, previously active, things that
were now inactive, as was the entire
camp. BUT, in 1956, it had been
in active, steady use, for just the
situation she'd mentioned : housing
the hordes of Hungarian refugees
who had fled the breakdown of
their country. It was little noticed
to us, in fact never mentioned. As
it stands now, in the intervening
years since, first they had put up
and now it's again long gone, a
little history-note and notification,
on a column and signpost, about
that era. No one any longer cares
about anything like that, and the
current uses of the place have no
reason to present such information.
It now houses job-training sites,
work-camps and such, for the
local lower classes. To wit, it acts
as a Governmental re-education
and indoctrination camp for the
New Brunswick and environs
loss-leaders and troublemakers.
Why should the Government wish
to proclaim that old, hoary story of
Freedom and the flight to Liberty?
It all - sadly - makes way too
much sense. Netter left unsaid.
-
I could have told her, 'Yeah, yeah!
I know the pace, it's right near where
live; we used to camp there, march
and bivouac. Boy, I bet she'd have
had a lot to say about that. I'd also
have liked to tell her to be more
careful and not fall for everything
she's told, that America betrays its
own premises, and that we probably
see it, as 'natives here' much differently
that does (did) she.
-
Capitalism itself can only degenerate.
It runs downhill until, as now, one
is left with the most faulty dregs
tipping the scales badly in favor
of the exploitative class. Can't be
helped. Maybe for the first 2 or 3
generations are the ideals held.
After that, the degeneration sets
in, as the population, in turn,
exponentially expands, gobbling
up lands and resources which
otherwise should be being
preserved. No one cares, from
that angle. Here's what happens:
Since the operative premise is
'Profit' and material gain, at the
expense of others, the first few
generations work in earnest.
Their mills and factories and
tanneries and shops run fine.
Then, profit being the motif,
as expansion sets in, someone
decides there's more to be made,
gained, better profit, if this or
that ingredient of item is replaced
or skipped - cheaper material,
faster manufacture, a skipped
step, a different and more callous
approach - making more product,
quality be damned. Tanneries
flood the rivers with their gunk and
acids, dyes and pollutants. Metal
shops pile and dump their scraps
at the fringe-woods around them.
All in the name of profit. Shoddy
material and workmanship, then,
slowly degenerate into junk, crap,
and disorder, all while the premise
of the start - continued growth
and profit - must be continued.
In Capitalism there never can be
any turning back. It destroys itself.
It eventually destroys others. But
only after its own greed and corruption
has covered itself, as well - with
political shenanigans and pay-offs.
liquid and shady laws and lobbyists;
shortcuts of process and procedures,
environment skips, fake bookkeeping,
no-show paper jobs, money-laundering,
etc. By the time it's all done, the
entire show is death; a dance of death,
in fact. Distant countries of low-level
indigents pick through your piles
of cast-off electronics, toys, gimmicks,
clothes, sneakers and shoes, etc., to
salvage what they can, before they
too dump it all into the waters.
Choking the oceans with the same
filth that decimates the fish they try
to eat, and once had in abundance.
-
Lucre. Moloch. Money. Call it what
you will. Here's Allen Ginsberg:
"What sphinx of cement and
aluminum bashed open their
skulls and ate up their brains
and imagination? Moloch!
Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans
and unobtainable dollars! Children
screaming under the stairways!
Boys sobbing in armies! Old men
weeping in the parks! Moloch!
Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch!
Moloch the loveless! Mental
Moloch! Moloch the heavy
judger of men! Moloch the
incomprehensible prison!
Moloch the crossbone soulless
jailhouse and Congress of
sorrows! Moloch whose
buildings are judgment!
Moloch the vast stone of
war! Moloch the stunned
governments! Moloch whose
mind is pure machinery!
Moloch whose blood is
running money! Moloch
whose fingers are ten armies!
Moloch whose breast is a
cannibal dynamo! Moloch
whose ear is a smoking tomb!
Moloch whose eyes are a
thousand blind windows!
Moloch whose skyscrapers
stand in the long streets like
endless Jehovahs! Moloch
whose factories dream and
croak in the fog! Moloch
whose smoke-stacks and
antennae crown the cities!
Moloch whose love is endless
oil and stone! Moloch whose
soul is electricity and banks!
Moloch whose poverty is the
specter of genius! Moloch whose
fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen!
Moloch whose name is the Mind!
Moloch in whom I sit lonely!
Moloch in whom I dream Angels!
Crazy in Moloch! Cocksucker in
Moloch! Lacklove and manless
in Moloch! Moloch who entered
soul early! Moloch in whom I
am a consciousness without a
body! Moloch who frightened
me out of my natural ecstasy!
Moloch whom I abandon!
Wake up in Moloch! Light
streaming out of the sky!
Moloch! Moloch! Robot
apartments! invisible suburbs!
skeleton treasuries! blind capitals!
demonic industries! spectral
nations! invincible madhouses!
granite cocks! monstrous bombs!
They broke their backs lifting
Moloch to Heaven! Pavements,
trees, radios, tons! lifting the
city to Heaven which exists
and is everywhere about us!"
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