Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Wax Icon

"Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you..."

You see in my face the waste of skin
that if I saw like you I'd hate it too.

The words I hold so dear make
your hair itch. The road I walk
you'd spit on with fire, and slash
and burn until earth itself would beg
you to kill me. Each nook and secret
I hide from view you see before I do.
It burns like bile in your throat; your
jaw sets, teeth grind, and the meat
of your tongue tastes as sweet
as my pound of flesh would on your plate.

We live in a mirrored world, where all
these doubles talk and dress like us,
say the same platitudes, think the same
thoughts, make the same rim
shot, sweep the same garbage
from the floor. They live in that blind
spot that hides us from ourselves,
too vain to care. I smell it too; hate floats
in the air where shit does not stink.

Hold me as close as you hold your love.
I know who you hate, for I hate them too.

They say hate lives in a house of salt.
The priests come at night to scratch
from the walls, the jambs, the sills
what they use in the sacrifice to the god
of anger. At noon, hate walks in the park,
takes its children on the merry-go-round.
It has a good job, pays its bills, and goes
to church. It belongs to the Rotary Club.
I know it well, and wave to it always.

We hate what we can and cannot change.
As time works out its purpose in us,
the wax icon we shape looks like ourselves.

So hold me close, dear enemy, as close
as your love and then, then I will love you if I can.

(c) copyright 2012 Charles David Miller. All rights reserved.

27 comments:

  1. Phew... This is all so true Charles. We worship all the wrong things these days. Money being the biggest new thing to idolise. We are breeding a world with youth (it seems) so fueled and filled with hatred these days. We are humans with such a huge capacity to learn and yet, we seem to keep on repeating the same mistakes over and over again.
    Fabulous writing which gets right to the heart and cuts in deep with its truths.

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  2. Well, this ain't your usual hearts and flowers poetry, that's for sure!
    And I love it. It's real. It's hard. It's true.

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  3. "You see in my face the waste of skin"
    "They say hate lives in a house of salt"

    These are unbelievable lines, Charles. And I love the new layout.

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  4. Sometimes my writing scares me too that I may be looking in the mirror more than te world when I pen. I'll see if I still love myself after my last words are written. Nice piece,

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  5. I love this personification of hate...amazing write!

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    1. man you went both barrels on this one charles...great piece...and it was a hard read at first...hate consumes...it destroys...and then it def goes to church,, pays the bills and plays with its kids, until they mis step...

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  6. And another one soars out of the park, over the heads of the astonished spectators...we are indeed much more defined by what we hate, and hate is a hard master to placate, ever, because we learn to love it so--the title here, so eloquently evoked again at the closure, seems to point out that it's only as malleable as we are, or as stiff and unforgiving. The couplets are the most mind bending part of this for me, because they occupy the most difficult space to get to, that tiny corner where one finds some honesty about ones self and others--the heart, perhaps? Fine writing, as always Charles, but exceptionally so tonight.

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  7. I like your writing Charles...a new perspective on living and hating what we do but we do it anyway. I specially like:

    We hate what we can and cannot change.
    As time works out its purpose in us,
    the wax icon we shape looks like ourselves.

    So hold me close, dear enemy, as close
    as your love and then, then I will love you if I can.

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  8. We hate what we can and cannot change.
    As time works out its purpose in us,
    the wax icon we shape looks like ourselves.

    I love your writing--I think we hate in others that which we hate in ourselves and hands down, that is a tough row to hoe--

    Great write! All the way around!

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  9. its a wicked fuel -
    a V. intense investigation
    charles - thrashing it all with a sure fire and
    a hard energy - skills - you pack
    a powerful punch here brother :

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  10. heck charles...They say hate lives in a house of salt.
    The priests come at night to scratch
    from the walls.. this just left me speechless.. you're always fantastic in your use of images and metaphors..

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  11. deep, powerful and so well written. Your descriptionare very vivid and a live.

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  12. This is a tremendous piece of poetry...really impressed!

    r.m. @ newviewfromhere.wordpress.com

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  13. Phew...you knocked the wind right out of my sails!Will need to read this a few times and think upon it. . I womder what inspired this You're a fine poet Charles.

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  14. You do stun me, yes you do! Look how you describe hate so beautifully. And how disguised it often is, under the guise of normalcy. That stanza where hate takes its children to the park, pays its bills..etc.. chilling, but oh so true. That penultimate stanza says it all for me. Really a great work, C. I'll be thinking of this for a long time. x

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  15. Fantastic Charles! I really enjoyed this. Thanks for sharing!

    "We hate what we can and cannot change.
    As time works out its purpose in us,
    the wax icon we shape looks like ourselves."

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  16. Terrific meditation on the "double-blind" double-dumb doppleganger of perception, where what pisses me off most about you is the thing I hate the most about me, and so turns my attention to you into salt and smirch. In the poetics of intimacy, language is stained past the knees in error and vanity and braggadocio and pissiness. And the irony is that we teach people to treat us they way they do; our own incompleteness and irresolution peoples our world with those who remind us relentlessly of what we lack. Who put 'em there? Hard to accept that this fool heart opened the door and shouted them out. I need to remind myself of these things when I seethe across the political divides of the day. - Brendan

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  17. Yes, very chilling and thought-provoking--the house/temple of salt especially powerful. K.

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  18. A very intense affecting read Mr C, if you have experienced real hate from those that should love, you can either sink and join them in perpetrating darkness/alienation out into the world or you rise above & are/or become incapable of such thoughts & feelings you describe here.. I find it incomprehensible that others are capable of this, they must be so impoverished inside, & empathy & sadness is the only available response, although it would be felt as a patronising act, or even a threat, however soft & real those feelings of a wish for healing are, whereas it would be an acknowledgement of their descent down one of the roads available to humanity, despite, in this case, my lack of comprehension...

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  19. An added comment, Chazz...I think to not understand and own hatret is inhuman and dishonest. We all hate, whether we admit it or not. I think to see it for what it is, deal with it and then bury it is the way to go. I believe you did that here in your poem.

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  20. Hate can be double edged. Avoiding it is one thing but sometimes hate is shoved down on the innocents and the helpless.Great write,Charles!

    Hank

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  21. Wow...deep, intense & powerful writing. Superb stuff...

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  22. As others have said an exceptional write which I read back to back with Maureen's protest poem. They seemed companion pieces examining what it is to hate, to accept, to love, to forgive in a world where we may unwittingly be a part of the problem if we don't become part of the solution. Brilliant, Charles!

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  23. Strong poem, here and very engaging. Almost claustrophobic the way you engage the reader. A poem and an experience!

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  24. what a rich, layered poem. your voice is so true and honest and ernest. i think it is tremendous, too. the writing is clear and sharp. you take me somewhere emotionally and intellectually.

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  25. Such a pleasure to read this, with its alternating images of incendiary hate and tenderness. This, in particular, is brilliant:

    They say hate lives in a house of salt.
    The priests come at night to scratch
    from the walls, the jambs, the sills
    what they use in the sacrifice to the god
    of anger.

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  26. Longfellow says it aptly: "there's nothing in this world so sweet as love. and next to love the sweetest thing is hate"

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