Michael Kruger's Benediction by William Joyce

 

                                  Publisher Michael Krüger's Benediction, June, 2013

      "I have no explanation for the fact that modern societies have invested tons of money into schools and universities only to find that horrible books are much more loved than the good ones."

       This was probably not the first time that Krüger mentioned the decay of the book world.  Why didn't some magazine, some reporter pick up on this? Why didn't the better writers of Europe rally to Krüger's defense?  Why didn't some TV station make a two-hour program  around a panel of European intellectuals?  Krüger tried to make a fuss about something that needs answering.  TV programming is 98% shit, why not have something nutricious?

       Because. if Krüger is right, those with the least sensitivity to language  are dominating language.  That means the best writers, the best publishers, best reviewers are being trashed.  It raises, in turn, another question:  should people be offered language at all??

       It remains, then, for good writers, sensitive readers to ask what shoiuld be done?  Should someone start a bomb school for discontented writers and publishers?

A reply to Fintan O'Toole by a 75 year old American Poet living in Guatemala

  

There was much controversy in the election of Donald Trump as future president of America. I thought I'd seen it all until I witnessed the rage and protest of the mob not getting their own way.

The educated masses are in bewilderment, the liberal elite aghast and the racists and the xenophobes are out in gleeful mood. Ireland's own Fintan O'Toole wrote an excellent piece on his view and our own William Joyce replied.  

Letter to Fintan O'Toole of the Irish Times

                   Guillermo O'Joyce

                   Antigua, Guatemala

                                            Dear Fintan O'Toole,

                                                                              Thank you for your fluid and far-reaching perspective on King Donald the XIV.  But His Majesty would never have gotten into a position of running for Power if he hadn't been worshiped because he had Money.  And money is nothing, a dreary medium of exchange inflated to Godhead. And the people who have it are Zeroes, dull personalities turned to vultures, who can't sing a song nor tell a story.  Worse, they have no ability to listen to a story nor sit still for a song.

                                                                              What is called an Upset in Politics is nothing more than a Mirror Reflection of a lot of people outside the power centers crying  out for revenge against the college-educated power brokers.  And whether they are from the Rural Areas, the college towns, or the derelict cities, they all share the same phenomena: they eat bad food, drink bad liquids, and gulp each day an astounding array of pharmaceutical pills.  The U.S. is a nation of junkies, a desert whose soul jumped into a gear box in 1998.  

                                                                             Had Donald Duck or Chauncy the Gardener been elected President of the U.S. it wouldn't have mattered.  None of the 100 million voters got up this morning and praised the amazing miracle of the hydraulics of their intestines that ushered mounds of shit into the toilet bowl thus granting them Resurrection.  No!   One group is celebrating a defunct Casino Manager while the other group is now on the streets protesting his ascendancy.  It is only a pretense this protest on the streets.  What this mob is really upset about is their mother's advice: "It's not What you know but Who you know."  

                                                                             The college professors enforced Mother's advice by preparing their wee charges for exams, not Life.  Now the suck-asses from the colleges and the cities are flailing in all directions, blaming their lack of direction on  a pathetic ex-groper who's in shock now that he's running the show, in shock that he may have to redeposit all his caustic remarks into the vault of the always-neutral Money Machine to be laundered like the real estate funds that vaulted him to power.  

                                                                             If language can't spare the children of Aleppo, Laos, India, and South Chicago, it is Nothing more than a front for the Bullies to lubricate their Killing Machines.  Get rid of it.  Let's have silence while we wait for the bombs to fall.  Let the bodies pile up.  Give the birds and the stray cats and the streams a chance to breath.  

                                                                            Finally, none of this is new.  It is only a reminder of what an Irish poet said in 1916:  "The worst are full of passionate intensity while the best lack all conviction."

                                                                              

Donald Trump

I woke up today to find Donald Trump the President Elect of America and if  I only looked at the Media I would think that the world had ended. I read the intelligent comments of some, the complete paranoia of others and the self serving hypocrisy of others.

As always I looked to what William would think ?

And here is what he had to say.



Trump was a victory for Fat People over Skinny People.  These were the people who were ditched, by even their mothers, and took up Ready Whip on top of their jello, whose pizzas have all the toppings.

It was the Fat People who finally highlighted the blatant hypocrisy and loss of reality of the intellectual crowd-----pollsters, reporters, publishers,professors, researchers.  Fat people sat on the heads of the pundits and Hillary's army of curly-haired ungroped hellions at private girls' schools wept into their manicured palms. How could the world be so cruel?

Trump should reward his ferocious squadrons of Fat People from the Rural Areas by putting one million of them in his inaugural parade.  And give each one a pizza, WITH ALL THE TOPPINGS.  

Knowing Your Audience

                                                         Knowing Your Audience

I got this superb poem just a few hours ago from William in Guatemala and I have to say it shows all the sense of play, and at the same time the incredible steely understanding I associate with his work.
He says it emerged out of " A fiasco at coffee bar "

Enjoy.


                                         
                                                                                              Know Your Audience


                                                                                      That's what everyone
                                                                                       told me
                                                                                       when I confessed
                                                                                       I read a poem
                                                                                       about a dental assistant
                                                                                       mounting me
                                                                                       when I was wigged out
                                                                                       on novocane
                                                                                       to some bouncy girls
                                                                                       who were Born Again Christians.

                                                                                       I don't know
                                                                                       if my poem
                                                                                       made these trumpeters
                                                                                       for Jesus
                                                                                       hot
                                                                                       or they just shucked me
                                                                                       off
                                                                                       as one more sinner
                                                                                       in need
                                                                                       of reform.

                                                                                       What I do know
                                                                                        is that if I ever
                                                                                        took the time
                                                                                        to really know
                                                                                        my audience
                                                                                        I wouldn't write
                                                                                        at all.
                                                                                        I would cut through
                                                                                        all ambiguity
                                                                                        all prejudice
                                                                                        all interpretation
                                                                                        by buying an AK-47.

                                                                                        The history books would
mention
                                                                                         in footnotes
                                                                                         that poetry finally
                                                                                         found a way
                                                                                         to reach
                                                                                         the masses.



With the permission of William Joyce                

                                                          The Truth


Everyone has it:
on the streets laughing
with friends at age 8,
or in the woods,
farm fields.
Life then was the joy
of the moment
and lively companions,
sunlight , inventiveness.

We lose all this:
a hammer comes down--
obey, obey, obey.
The eyes lose their glow,
the shoulders their suppleness,
the hips their swing.
50 years later we wonder
where it all went ?
At age 8 we could have
learned anything,
been anybody,
done anything.

At age 8 we were
so tricky,
so beautiful,
so undaunted,
all of civilization
could have fit
in our right front pocket,
the one with the hole in it.

At age 8 we should have
had a loving affair
every three weeks.
At age 8 we were
pure juice.

Quit talking.
Learn to sing
or play
on a garbage can top.
Or just listen
and learn to love
the silences.
The truth is still there,
somewhere.



With the permission of William Joyce

                                          Richard Godwin Interviews William Joyce



William Has gone to Guatemala where his life can be lead with more peace and of course where his limited financial resources can be used more effectively. The struggle he speaks of in this fantastic interview was not an abstract one, but rather a day to day issue which made it harder to do what he does best, which is of course write. It is great to read him in full flow and I'd like to thank Richard Godwin for giving him the space to speak freely and for taking the time to go out and find a writer that should matter more than the world currently thinks appropriate. Please read the interview and of course I would urge anybody to go out and read Williams work be it his Poetry, Novel, Short stories or indeed his Criticism (Under the name Guillermo O'Joyce)  I'll be putting up some more poetry and prose over the next few days.

http://www.richardgodwin.net/blog


 

At Nikos Kazinstakis' tomb in Crete