Faulkner’s Christmas

She hid in the bushes panting, emitting lustful grunts, waiting to be taken.

Waiting for her black stud, Mr. Christmas, whose present she craved like none other.
She was starved for attention, like an anorexic, desperate, but not for food,
no; a nymphomaniac, deprived of attention and exhausted by years of waiting,
she hunkered down that night, ever hopeful. She’d been driven to this,
shamed and shunned for years for her desires, mocked and cast out of polite society.
She now acted out her fantasies, lay awake in remote corners of her property,
looking forward to being raped by a man named Christmas who gave her what she wanted.

She lay grunting in the bushes there, stark naked, you can just imagine.
Hiding in wait, ready to bend over or be bent over, like a zebra or a baboon in heat,
kicking or screeching. Her cries make one’s hair curl.

She wanted to be taken back, back to when men dragged women around
by their hair, back to the cave, back to the bush, and all for a thrill.
According to William Faulkner, the author who made her up,
this is what some women want.
This one cried herself to sleep after her husband passed away.

And then it was Christmastime, oh boy, and did he have a present for her.
She’s been eager for it, quite desperate, waiting for it, hiding among the azaleas
all day and night, for years. Today she’s been waiting since nine and she’s pissed.
She’s no longer waiting; now she’s crouched over, ready to pounce like a squirrel,
or a rabid raccoon. Faulkner says women get like this when left alone too long.
They can go insane. This one begged like an alley cat.

She screamed, “It’s Christmastime,” as he fucked her. “Hallelujah.”

It is enough to make one tear one’s clothes off and head for the nearest magnolia tree
to squat down in its shadow and scream, “It’s my turn!”

This book is not an entertainment; it’s an emergency.
My God, is this what’s been going on down there at night in the woods?
There wasn’t a white man around for miles who dared approach this wild bitch.
The men were little girls. The only man man enough for her was merry Christmas
who had the right present for her, just what she’d been begging for,
the very gift she told Santa she wanted.

This is what awaits the reader of America’s finest novel of the 1920’s,
a recognized masterpiece, that is rarely read and just as rarely taught,
if not ignored. I wonder why?
It’ll set your hair on fire, that’s the first thing.
The prim will be shocked. Better keep it hidden.

Indecent Calculations

Miss Lion, Miss Lion! I have a question.
Miss Lion, Miss Lion! I have the answer.
The boys raise their hands and hope to be called on.
Miss Lion, however, has something else in mind.
She’s trying to decide which boy to suck off.

Standardized testing creates a lot of stress. English
teachers and their colleagues in geography, Spanish
and arts appreciation all have it easy. Female teachers
of geometry and algebra have fantasies of blowing
their fourteen-year-old male students.

Why this should be so is not easy to explain.
It wasn’t so in my day. Mrs. Mills, I can assure you,
had no such thing on her mind. It’s most definitely
generational. Like their male counterparts in the NFL,
these gals seem determined to take a knee.

Have you noticed it’s always 23-year-old blondes with husbands
who get caught in the front seat with naked adolescents? Or
they bring a couple of teenagers home for an orgy. They arouse
the boys first by sending naked photos on Instagram. Sooner or later
the pictures wind up on the principal’s desk.

If you read the New York Post you’ll notice this phenomenon rarely
involves men. Male math teachers seem able to control themselves.
It’s the pretty wives of working-class men who seem unable to resist.
What is it about pimply faces and little dicks that attracts these women?
Boredom, no doubt, plays a part. The boys, one assumes, are nervous wrecks.

Is it their innocence or their politeness? “Yes, Miss Lion, whatever
you say.” That must be a turn-on: Their sweet dispositions and their soft
peach fuzz. I can see how the ladies find them charming. All across America,
in cities like Chattanooga and Tulsa, Albuquerque and Des Moines,
Iowa, young female teachers seem desperate.

Interesting, too, how understanding and forgiving our judiciary is.
Men who molest students, male or female, get called perverts and
are prosecuted to the full extent of the law. 20 years to life is not
too much for these monsters. But the demure math teacher is forgiven.
She gets a suspended sentence or probation. Cocksucking is natural.

Teaching provides little satisfaction. Perhaps herein lies the answer.
There is little learning and not much teaching. English teachers can
show movies. The Spanish teacher makes piñatas. In the gym, they play
tag and when nobody is watching, the coaches make the boys do pushups.
It’s the math teacher who wants to pull her hair out when the boys can’t count.

They don’t know their multiplication tables and they forget their calculators.
So, substitutes throw up their hands and offer to help the boys pass sex
education. They gamble away their lives, their good names, and their profession
to have an adolescent cock in their mouths. Who can blame them? This is, in
many instances, all they have to give. Our culture is bankrupt.

Et Tu, Gwyneth, Barbra, and Meryl?

Is there nothing worse than the Right’s bad breath? Will they never learn to stop
driving Cadillacs and wearing polyester?

The gloating newsman on TV laughs at the Republican politicians, clucks his tongue
and wags his finger. Oh, the pleasure accorded those who are always right.

One assumes that moral superiority casts a shadow, the bearer’s back should
break under so much weight, but no.

Moral rectitude allows the righteous to stand up straight. It’s Salem all over again, a village
ruled by Pastor McCarthy, only this time the congregation of sinners is to be drowned.

How dare the pockmarked slob, that Jew, act on his sexual impulses. It’s only days since
we saw the much-admired inventor of perpetual adolescence buried in a bunny suit.

When Hugh Hefner asked the girls to hop around his grand hutch, no one complained,
but when the scar-faced fat man begs for a rubdown, they ring their agent and then the FBI.

The haughty left has a taste for blood. They can smell it. We’re steps away from seeing heads roll. They always begin with the most talented: Woody Allen, Polanski and Harvey Weinstein.

Together they have done more to make this world livable place than all their detractors combined. The ferocity of the attacks reminds one of Moscow in 1929, 1938, and 1962.

The relentless condemnations take on that ghoulish glee. Meryl Streeps to the rescue. Like rabid dogs, the pack surrounds the bear, a powerful and frightening animal when injured.

Yes, Weinstein’s victims need someone to support them. A fat man in an open robe must be hard
to face, let alone refuse. The women are not to be faulted; they are to be applauded. Bravo.

But: “How dare he ask me to join his bath.” For this, the founder of Miramax Pictures deserves a
2×4 across the back of the head, Soviet-style? This genius needs to be taken to a cell?

The comics are gleeful. Who better to humiliate the likes of Mayakovski and Solzhenitsyn than frustrated supporters of Hillary? They’ve failed to take down our clownish president.

It is no surprise to anyone that the rich forget their manners. They’re used to getting their
way. Ask Jack. Ask Warren. Do we really want to castrate the producer of Pulp Fiction?

There is only so much talent to go around. God holds back. By the time Stalin was finished
there was no one left. Why are the bloodthirsty never sated?

Triumph of the Will

The age of Trump and I don’t mean seventy.
I’m speaking of our time, our sad era, and I don’t mean aura,
although they say it is black, a dark presence.

Democracies don’t survive men who don’t need money.
What’s an oligarch, after all, but a democrat with dough?
Boo hoo. The country’s going down the drain.

Yes, that was me you heard. I often sing to myself. I talk
to myself, too. I work up little speeches on the principles of
Horace. I practice my acceptance speeches.

I exhort the troops. I declare myself available to the people.
I resign. I throw in the towel. I declare war. I accept prizes.
Cicero, from my point of view, was the man.

People are starving for the truth.
Trump talked trash for two years but now promises to deliver.
Let’s call him the garbage man who makes deliveries.

He dumps it all directly on your lawn, front and back.
Good thing your flag is flying at half-mast.
Someone shot a cop last night and the killer is on the loose.

Demosthenes doesn’t hold a candle. Cicero and other Romans, including
the historians Sallust and Tacitus, knew a thing or two. One thing clear to
them but not to him was the importance of dangerous women.

This made the Romans scary. We know it’s true; the Greeks were naïve.
Treachery and intrigue ruled the roost: what fun! Juicy parts for the likes
of Glenn Close and Sharon Stone: poisoned baths and whipped backsides.

The orators were putting their lives on the line. Public pronouncements could
be caustic. Talk about the deplorables! They devised verbal assassination
plots. There were epic put-downs: ridicule and denunciations.

The despairing come together. Christians celebrate wealth. A theology
of good fortune, a belief system based on bank accounts. Let them be.
Why shouldn’t the rich be happy? Leave misery to the poor.

Trump towers over the rest of us. He went to Wharton. He and his kids
have degrees in business. They can use a calculator. Calculation is one skill
he’ll need. I for one recommend reading Machiavelli’s The Prince.
Why would a successful businessman want his sons and daughters in trade?
Our business class produces clerks and bondsmen only; if not from the rich,
where are our artists to come; who else can afford Manhattan rents?

Trump says bravo when he looks at himself in the mirror. Why not live like there’s
no tomorrow? Then he thinks, “fuck that.” I did it all myself. Why be nice?
The poor lack stamina. We’re the opposite of resentful; we’re grateful. I’m thankful.

We’re set for life. Our God doesn’t believe in sharing; it’s a religion of hoarders.
Membership’s limited to the greedy, deliberately. Fuck the needy. They can go to Hell.
We’ll give them financial aid to get to Heaven; there they practice affirmative action.

John Adams, America’s founding father, wanted his kids to write poetry, to be artists.
I urge Trump to call his children together. If not writers, then anthropologists.
Someone in this country has to study ancient languages.

When the bombing starts his artistic son can suggest we not bomb ancient sites or
capital cities. An artistic education might come in handy. With presidents this low,
we depend on children to write their epithets.

Just read Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. He loved the Romans. Lincoln did, too. In
America today, people obsess over the right to bear arms; they want to carry concealed
weapons. Of greater power is one’s tongue. A golden voice or a hidden pistol?

Hell is an equal opportunity employer. Hallelujah. We’d prefer, it seems, to put
a cap in our opponent’s ass. We’ll know America is back when people once again
value the power of words and the right to speak.

Burden of Appreciation

It is enough to see one’s gifts received and thusly loved.
Out of weakness and striving some seek to extract thanks.
If only all could give freely and not expect love shown.
It is enough to see one’s gift received and thusly loved.
The act itself says so much it leaves the giver moved.
Our hearts keep our gifts as safe as priceless jewels in banks.
It is enough to see one’s gifts received and thusly loved.
Out of weakness and striving some seek to extract excess thanks.