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Tuesday, June 30, 2009
The Queen of Punk
City
Alice Hate on "stereotypewriter" from her days fronting "The Fetal Circus."
Alice Hate on "stereotypewriter" from her days fronting "The Fetal Circus."
THE OLD DAYS. To quote Apotheosis, our favorite commenter Penny is "nuttier than a bushel basket of hydrocephalic squirrels. But God love ya." True. And that's exactly why we love her. I have no freaking idea where this came from in in her comment on Dirty Rotten Varmint's post:
In an "insta"nt, we are reminded that
they are only "polite" about their wives. Or maybe to Lake, because he
nearly "gets it", and is of course "in-step" and even more polite than
the punks on their best behavior.
DRV said nothing about wives. Nor did IP. Is she miffed that the names named in the post were all male? That's only because the names named are mostly alumni of the old Boomer Bible Forum, which flourished for several years as a duelling ground for internet punks like Null (the forum's visionary founder), Malachi, Winston Sith, Lake, Apotheosis (under a different nom de guerre then and a royal pain in Instapunk's side), Kajeshell, BalowStar, and many many others who debated everything from technology to Christianity to quantum physics to, most importantly, literature and, expressly, the literary output of the punk writers of South Street in Philadelphia. So if Penny was offended, it was for an invalid reason she couldn't be expected to know about. But...
And this is why we so love Penny. She lives in a realm more akin to Jung's collective unconscious than anyone we know or have ever met. We don't disregard her because she's often in touch with relevant concepts that simply wouldn't occur to anyone else. This time, she gave us an idea we're surprised we didn't think of before. Of course, maybe we're wrong and nobody would be interested, but it's certainly within our power to use this site to publish some of the works of the original punk writing movement discovered in the "Cream King Trove" back in the early 1990s. Would anyone like that?
Today we're giving you a sample, one that Penny's dudgeon provoked us to recall. The punks of South Street were not sexists. Much to the contrary. They had five kings in their seven year lifespan as a literary movement but only one queen. Her name was Alice Hate. She had her own band and she walked like a goddess among the other punk writer bands of the time. When she was felled in the final days of Punk City, punk writers -- who loved to rewrite great works from the canon for their own purposes -- memorialized her with this, a hand-inked parchment manuscript recovered in poor but legible condition from the Cream King Trove:
The text is reproduced below. Bear in
mind that punk writers did everything
in chapter-and-verse, not just
The Boomer Bible. It was their
signature and an indispensable component
of the physics of their universe.
0.
Here, where the rigs are quiet,
2 Here, where punk fiction seems
3 Dead words and failed chips’ vomit
4 On ruined reams of dreams;
5 I watch the green mold blighting
6 Remembered bands and writing,
7 Their painted wrath and fighting,
8 A mildewed frieze of screams.
1.
I am tired of pain and anger,
2 And punks who warred and bled
3 In hope of hope hereafter
4 For offspring of the dead:
5 I am spent of floods and fires,
6 Red realms of climbing spires,
7 Green seas and woods and mire,
8 And everything but dread.
2.
Here Alice lies for ever,
2 Beneath the Headhouse Square,
3 Where weeds and weak reeds quaver,
4 Whipped dogs and seagulls glare;
5 They sense the swallowed thunder,
6 Entombed, brave heart asunder,
7 But hear her not down under,
8 Nor see her sightless stare.
3.
No deep looks glad or tragic,
2 No gazes veiled or straight,
3 But blueless vials of magic,
4 Blank eyes of Alice Hate;
5 Cold stones of grave decision
6 Choose neither light nor vision,
7 But gray of cancelled mission,
8 In cataracts of slate.
4.
Asleep, without dream or dragon,
2 Inside her wall of thorn,
3 The queen does not awaken,
4 To kiss of life at morn;
5 Her tale is stopt unbidden,
6 Prince Charming’s mount unridden,
7 The ending still unwritten—
8 Her beauty full forlorn.
5.
She waits for no lord’s favor,
2 She waits for no man’s form;
3 Forgets St. Nuke her lover,
4 The nights of moon and storm;
5 Though arms of punks surround her,
6 And prayers kneel about her,
7 No words have yet unbound her,
8 Where she awaits the worm.
6.
From too much faith in caring,
2 From blood and loss escaped,
3 She fell to sleep forswearing
4 The hopes your gods had raped:
5 That no sleep lasts forever;
6 That dead men rise up ever;
7 That even the blackest fever
8 Yields victims who are saved.
7.
Then quest nor queen shall waken,
2 Nor any fire or ice:
3 Nor winged foe of Raven,
4 Nor hibernating mice:
5 Nor living seed nor kernel,
6 Nor greatwing ghosts eternal:
7 Only an Eden infernal,
8 Your vacant paradise.
Here, where the rigs are quiet,
2 Here, where punk fiction seems
3 Dead words and failed chips’ vomit
4 On ruined reams of dreams;
5 I watch the green mold blighting
6 Remembered bands and writing,
7 Their painted wrath and fighting,
8 A mildewed frieze of screams.
1.
I am tired of pain and anger,
2 And punks who warred and bled
3 In hope of hope hereafter
4 For offspring of the dead:
5 I am spent of floods and fires,
6 Red realms of climbing spires,
7 Green seas and woods and mire,
8 And everything but dread.
2.
Here Alice lies for ever,
2 Beneath the Headhouse Square,
3 Where weeds and weak reeds quaver,
4 Whipped dogs and seagulls glare;
5 They sense the swallowed thunder,
6 Entombed, brave heart asunder,
7 But hear her not down under,
8 Nor see her sightless stare.
3.
No deep looks glad or tragic,
2 No gazes veiled or straight,
3 But blueless vials of magic,
4 Blank eyes of Alice Hate;
5 Cold stones of grave decision
6 Choose neither light nor vision,
7 But gray of cancelled mission,
8 In cataracts of slate.
4.
Asleep, without dream or dragon,
2 Inside her wall of thorn,
3 The queen does not awaken,
4 To kiss of life at morn;
5 Her tale is stopt unbidden,
6 Prince Charming’s mount unridden,
7 The ending still unwritten—
8 Her beauty full forlorn.
5.
She waits for no lord’s favor,
2 She waits for no man’s form;
3 Forgets St. Nuke her lover,
4 The nights of moon and storm;
5 Though arms of punks surround her,
6 And prayers kneel about her,
7 No words have yet unbound her,
8 Where she awaits the worm.
6.
From too much faith in caring,
2 From blood and loss escaped,
3 She fell to sleep forswearing
4 The hopes your gods had raped:
5 That no sleep lasts forever;
6 That dead men rise up ever;
7 That even the blackest fever
8 Yields victims who are saved.
7.
Then quest nor queen shall waken,
2 Nor any fire or ice:
3 Nor winged foe of Raven,
4 Nor hibernating mice:
5 Nor living seed nor kernel,
6 Nor greatwing ghosts eternal:
7 Only an Eden infernal,
8 Your vacant paradise.
Punks aren't just "polite" to their women. They adore them.
Let us know if you want more excerpts from the Cream King Trove. If you don't, that's fine. This is an appropriate candidate for "one and only." If you do, thank Penny. It would never have occurred to us to do it without her "hydrocephalic squirrel" genius.
UPDATE: Poetry already. This from Billy Oblivion, our correspondent in Iraq:
We adore the women around us
As all adore that which is precious and rare
Even after life bangs off the corners and
The gilt wears off
Other blog sites worry about death threats and obscene language. We
here at Instapunk worry only about poems that go on after they've
already laid down the perfect completion. Which this was. Who else has
commenters like this?As all adore that which is precious and rare
Even after life bangs off the corners and
The gilt wears off
No one.
Thank you.
But our question remains. Do you want more punk writing here? Or not?
