The Barbaric Writers

“This is my last communiqué from the planet of the monsters.” Roberto Bolaño , Distant Star When I watched the Barbaric Writers defecate on my manuscript, I felt a great sense of relief, a great sense of fraternity with these men who loved literature enough to destroy it, and I recalled a poem I had once written, but never had the confidence to publish, about a so-called poet who shat himself into a toilet, only to float on his back as torrential downpours of power filled the bowl and drowned him. I have always know that constipation is essential to poetry, though what I did not realize, until recently, was that poetry itself is repulsive. Words on their own are bad enough. But when placed alongside other words, when formed into rhythmic lines and stanzas: no act of creation is more hideous. In the salons, I have often watched, before my turn came on, our local poets reciting their verses. They speak politely, and with grace, to an audience that sips wine and chuckles at the words that flow not from their mouths, but from their plugged-up behinds. What a holy mockery of literature! Were the barbarians to see such a spectacle, no theater walls could stand the shock of their laughter. No, poetry is not what I want. Only defecation on poetry. For after years of humiliation, I have finally learned that to humanize our poems, we must shit on them. We must shit freely, with arms raised, as detectives in blue sport coats examine our feces for sustainability, all the while fighting off other detectives in bluer sport coats who take our poetic leakage to their laboratories to search for parasitic demons, or diamonds, depending on the angle. We smear what drips from our self-inflicted wounds onto our verses, combining blood and ink into new poetic forms in which we rub our faces, the better to smell our disgusting children with, the better to drool on our disgusting children with; and once we have bled and drooled and driveled, we declare our poems complete, the better to wipe our asses with, before submitting them for publication. We smear our typewriters with pus and semen, and chastise any fool crass enough to declare himself a poet, an offense punishable by confinement in a cage surrounded by Barbaric Writers who expectorate between the distinguished author’s eyes, his hands tied behind his back to prevent him from cleaning his face. For poetry is hard work! It is hard to create such filthy, vile putrescence.