All The Rest Be Damned!----

Today I'm going to use a poem and a video that have previously been featured on the Questioning Way blog to make a point----

Shit. Damn. Fuck. Hell.  I've used all of these words from time to time in my writing and speaking.  They are an integral part of the lexicon of vernacular English as it is commonly spoken and written in the United States in the early 21st century.  They are very important to our language and are widely used because sometimes it is just impossible to employ any other word besides one of these as we each try to express the emotions we feel every day.  A little further down the page, I'll illustrate this point a bit more poignantly.  With the exception of one MMO computer game that I'm a massive toad for called 'Spore,' I rarely stay for long any place on the world wide web that tries to censor me if I happen to use one of these words to express myself.  Now, it might not seem like such a big deal if this or that website has a problem should I use the word shit or hell when I feel so inclined, but I know that the desire to censor speech and thought is a dangerously contagious disease and an astoundingly slippery slope that must be guarded against constantly.  With truly frightening speed it leads to vagrant attempts to control free thought such as experienced by woman in following video, which tells the story high school teacher who was recently harassed by a TV station for having the audacity to be a teacher and a erotic romance writer at the same time.  The principle of free speech is of the utmost concern to all of us if we are to remain a country that in the farthest reaches of the imagination, could be called 'free.'

Fortunately, thousands of people came to this woman’s aid with a show of support (The Questioning Way blog included) as her  story made it's way around the web.  To the TV stations credit, they later aired a piece correcting their mistake, but only after so many people came to her defense, it became painfully obvious to them they really screwed the lurch.
I've also felt the sting of serious attempts to control what I say and write.  Some years ago, I was invited to publish some poetry to a federally funded website ran by the National Endowment for the Arts.  At the time it was a pretty nice break for me because the site enjoyed thousands of viewers.  Among the work I published there was the poem “Don't Call me Collect---God”  It was subsequently banned from the site for using the word 'damned' because I had God saying “All the rest be damned!” in one of the lines of the poem.  If you don't think that swear words serve a vital function in our language, just substitute the phrase  “All the rest be darned!”in place of original phrase and see how the poem reads.

Don't call me collect  --God

Perhaps on some golden throne
alive in the sky, you watch over each of us
--rain warm love, bathing one by one
man and sparrow with most tender care

Or, like a child at play
did you make the clock your grand experiment?
then, called to dinner, you plan to be back at eight
wondering if we'll still be tocking

Are you a big ashen bearded daddy?
with all the answers up there
will you spank us forever if we don't believe?

Maybe you're a cosmic hippie
you say "Hey don't you remember?
ten thousand years ago
we all stood at Salisbury in ecstasy"
Then, with hand to forehead you say
"Or maybe it was nineteen seventy-one
you know, all that acid still gets to me"

Are you a wrinkled old man?
stuttering, the very edge of senility
you wait at the gate, white picket complacency
We come home for a hug and obligatory visit
the younger playing Grandfather for a free dime

Perhaps you are a crone, ancient and wise
living in rock, road, brook, and tree
You made a hard, wondrous, magical land
where stumbling, we acolytes slowly learn of beauty

With fire on your finger tips
maybe you throw lightning bolts
make floods, cause the sky to darken
Perhaps you'll let five thousand faithful in
"All the rest be damned!" you say as the earth quakes


Perhaps one time, some time, ever time
we'll be sitting in the park, you and I
Muhammad, Gautama and Einstein play dice across the way
cool green grass, white daisies, blue sky, shade trees
I say, "You know, I wondered always if you were a figment"
You say, "Don't we all, my friend, begin and end in fantasy?"

Dewey Dirks Copyright 2010