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Title: The Monarchs Shrugged Author: Annette Hakiel Date: 06/26/2020 Language: en Topics: poetry, anarcha-feminism, liberalism, anti-liberalism, freedom, late capitalism, anti-capitalism, love poetry, Slovenia Notes: âtrembling withinâ and âsnug up against...â taken from dawn lonsingerâs Whelm âdamn...look how yellowâ taken from Erika Jo Brownâs Iâm Your Huckleberry
Of course we as a people abhorred her prettiness, like a thorny music
sometimes disliked in fanfares for the uncommon woman, sneered at it so,
scoffed at her, had so since the beginning, and said as much of our
positions, but had also, like most â nay all â fallen victim to her
wiles. We as a people, sexist, misogynistic, hated her on those days
when the party duped was our own suckered fascinations; in fact perhaps
the only reason we began hating her at all was those first deceitful
days and then the sobering days subsequent where we took wind that the
sting was on. But we hated her and her prettiness most those days we
watched others fall for it, hoodwinked, blinded by her diaphanous veils
of phony charm. Hatred boiled. Righteousness festered into a carbuncle
of all that she and her prettiness were not: a goiter swelling from the
neck of the Just, and Lo, those the days we wanted to punch her square
in her small, angular, perfectly symmetrical nose in anger. Christ,
when that nose wrinkled in dubious delight at what was other peopleâs
less-than funny antics, how it made men and women alike tremble, buffoon
themselves into stupidity: turn reckless, idiotic, giddy and dumb. It
did, often. But Liberty herself was astonishingly stupid; she held no
truth, other than her own innate vapidity, and could barely have
declared that much or made herself known to reality in any authentic
way, in other words: falter. For itâs not that she lacked âintelligenceâ
or âwisdomâ; itâs not that she lacked âhistoryâ; she had those, and too,
she had the appearances of âheartâ and âvigorâ. That was the tricky
part. Her guile and wiliness were part her ammo. For Liberty
occasionally partied; Liberty occasionally gave the appearances of
rocking-and-rolling: Liberty seemed to have IT ALL. She was pretty.
Pretty this, and pretty that. But what she lacked, dear friends, what
she had none whatsoever of, was soul. And if thereâs something about
soul (Remember what the Russians said about their national identity)
itâs that soul insists on unity. Sure, Liberty could and would look the
part of her generationâs genius, but she could never truly be an
original: but a walking imitation, a meme for the nostalgia of truth
from a different time. Her wisdom was not her own. Her histories were
but copies of other peopleâs European histories. Her supposedly unique
intelligence was always too graceful to be based on TRUTH. Her parents
were never advised to send her to a therapist when she was a child,
unless in those circumstances where she grew up in an area of wealth and
trophy-wifery where what the rich gave to their children in terms of
character-building was their own disregard and self-involved and
unfortunate series of divorces, the norm. Any of those anecdotal tidbits
of personality she may have bestowed upon herself were tacked on later,
in retrospect, when talking about herself at get-togethers, over a game
of Scrabble, or Katan, at dinner parties, having looked at the media and
everybodyâs reaction to people focused on there, and devised her
character that way. For She and her prettiness could create nothing,
except, of course, more prettiness. True she was a frozen in her being
and never threw chairs or coffeepots, broke out it awkward screams,
laughter, or tears when no one was looking: if she did do so, it was
only because she knew those eyes were watching her, and she was
displaying, if not the proper hallucinatory emotion to be had, then one
that suggested depth and complexity of her character, her legacy and
fame, showing only the signs and symptoms of neurosis, without ever
sinking into the skin-scraping truth thereof, anything to evade from the
world knowing her actual void. As a teen, if she took drugs, she took
them when it was popular to do so, in the correct order: i.e. first
glue, then Smirnoff ice, then weed, and so on and so on, etc. She
listened to TLC when it was popular to do so. The same with rap and Pink
Floydâs Animals. For the most part she would do what her friends were
doing, but was slightly more reserved, delicate, hesitant, and sensitive
to the whims of fashion and the masses so she could gesticulate her
slightly different selfhood. When she entered middle school she went to
dances, as was expected and appropriate. She didnât always have dates
however: Liberty may have given the appearance on occasion of being shy.
But she had relationships with the opposite sex, and in an order which
suggests, again, proper emotional development: first holding hands, then
pecks, first, second, third so on and so on, never stealing ahead or
cutting corners. But Liberty and her noble prettiness was not integrity.
She was not accuracy. Sometimes she appeared to be sincerity, candor,
forthrightness with a dash of pizzazz and fluency for good measure. She
was a lie: had always been: Lady Liberty barely smelled â and only once
of perfume or bountiful wholesome foodstuffs. Thatâs why we wanted to
take Libertyâs perfect tits and cut them off with a rusty blade and feed
them to the dogs â those who couldnât shake the appearance of having to
be among the âless-endowedâ. For her prettiness had no idea what a real
fucking cynic was. But then again, neither did we. For it was hard to be
the cynic when you were the dog...
---
But donât you see, fellow ladybug? Libertyâs prettiness encumbered by
her lack of grace, and her knowing it so, must be difficult for her and
all those like her who could have been beautiful otherwise.
---
Difficult, no doubt, because those figures are probably often mistaken,
as by a stranger in passing, for being noble and beautiful. Which, in
the scheme of human wrongings, isnât that severe or critical of an
injury. But to know your feminine gracelessness is one thing, and to
have your nature incessantly reassessed so that it is downgraded on
every other glance is another.
---
O! To live near that graceless godless wonder! Because, in the end, she
is probably like anyone else: self-serious & -important.
---
Itâs true that for any single one of the graceless, knowing,
almost-beautiful beings in the world to be called beautiful, and their
beauty would have to re-proportion to their very human lives. The
makings of beauty they have are both too small and too larger for their
persons, unequally distributed. And it is that graceless semblance, that
lack of elegance that causes strangers to look at them and think they
saw there the eye, demeanor, look, voice, or gate of beauty, since most
pieces are there, even if they are somehow skewed or out of order, and
then think, unfairly, the whole of the personhood beautiful. But the
noses of these graceless, although it could be a perfectly normal nose,
would only be truly beautiful if it were on a graceful face. True too of
their feet and smarmy witticisms, their baleful glee and laughter. And
they know this. They think they do not deserve and are struggling to own
those appraisals â the first enchanted ones, and the later reconsidered
ones. But they can hardly obtain that aura of authenticity: everyone
doubts them; no one believes what they are lying down.
---
They are therefore a necessarily awkward lot, and awkward about their
awkwardness, for on first meetings, one does not expect them to be so
freely strange coming upon them with only the expectation of beauty and
elegance and pure astonishment, and when the silent observation in the
viewer is made that they are inelegant the whole thing makes them
stumble all the more further into disaster. All a bluster, they
therefore are constantly digging themselves into a hole whilst in
conversation; their thinking themselves graceless is a self-fulfilling
prophesy. Had this lot only the good fortune to have not become aware of
their own gracelessness, not so highly attuned and self-conscious about
the human need and reverence for the blessings of order, each of their
individual inelegant indiscretions could have been dismissed of as just
cute quirk, like a lisp or crooked tooth, on an otherwise lovely
demeanor, and they could have at least been called that dreaded word
pretty, and that be the end.
---
...Although, it probably wouldnât do. The girl on the beach in the grey
gown standing tall wouldnât enjoy being called pretty. Prettiness is a
term reserved for a petty, selfish affectation for those graceless,
knowing, near-beautiful who feign ignorance of their own inelegance.
Neither graceful or beautiful, these people choose looking stupid over
looking ugly. But who, really, could not be aware of their own lack of
grace? Her view of such people is probably so overwhelmingly in the
negative, so large is her scorn for the well-proportioned, well-groomed,
un-itched, and affected, that people probably think her demeanor
well-beyond affectation â she appears instead shrewd, manipulative,
crude, dubious, her hunger large and undeserving, her snubbing
unwarranted, her supposed self-effacement a deceptive faux-naturalism;
in the end: a garrulous monster. Therefore, as she now lilts in her
neoliberal voice up into a high, sardonic laugh at our present day
troubles, the people here on this beach and pier will stop their
shell-collecting, set down their towels, or just pause mid-game with the
volleyball in hand so that they may take a moment to look at her and
take the composition in.
Because, in the end, her hip bones and finger joints seem to move of
thier own accord. Her sunburn and purpled grey lips doesnât even seem
to belong to her. Her voice doesnât even seem to be coming out of her
mouth. But I bet she is in yet another way like anybody else: apt to be
lonesome, and seeking genuine human contact. Grace beckons power, and I
can tell by the way she squints into the sun she is so tired and can
only play the muse to otherâs destinies for moments at a time, too weak
for that the burden of âblindâ influence that is beauty.
---
And by the way she leans in an inelegant position, striking a pose not
to be seen in magazines, knows it, knows her own gracelessness, knows
how unflattering it all seemsâŠand canât even carry or wear that shame
well.
---
Life may be, after all, just a game for a while of how many different
groups of people of which you can make fun or at which you can laugh,
but she has, quite obviously, grown tired of this too, tired of the
grace, and wants only inelegance: no more theoretical perfection. The
situation is merciless. To think lacking grace is a deficiency, and to
be ashamed. So give her pity. To lady Liberty, then?! âPity her though
not because she needs it. But because she wills those freedoms and we
are left wondering why.
soft line of the instants of detroit, the heat of a red star at the
core of the asphalt gardenia. in the ceiling of the universe a
satellite dubbed pope alicia of the crooked marigolds searches the
kachin protesters there are the dying acacia, the dying african
penguins, evasive speech and a techno-hop dance version of these are a
few of my favorite things. Â
wedge sandals, flowers, and a police barricade painted onto an ukrainian
easter egg Â
a soap dish in the shame of joan of arcâs chest plate.  the agony of
revolutionary and injured floridians echoing in the metal and plastic
mainframe like a shell. i put my ear not to its mouth but its chest.Â
in a museum room, a door that leads to nowhere with a pink stilettoed
knee high boot stuck in it.Â
the outlines of persons all shape and sizes composed of starlight wait
outside. above neon sign above the door reads: âlifeâ  an easily
breakable cotton thin-thread crocheted map of paris inserted into a
circular glory hole.   Â
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