This is one of my more ambitious ideas in a while. Ok, ever.
It really began after the overwhelming sensation of ire that pervaded myself
and many others in the wake of September 2001, though through clever manipulation
I was able to extend some of it to that which I had written prior to that
date. Call it laziness if you will. Anyhow, in the hour of
my greatest disgust with humanity, (see "Fears in Solitude," by Samuel
Taylor Coleridge. Great poem, and still very relevant today, some
200 years later) I began thinking of all the things which were wrong with
mankind that had become so ingrained into his collective personality that
they could not be erased. Naturally, following such enumeration of
ills, I began collecting together what I saw as the necessary virtues that
an individual should possess in order to be one with his fellow man and
with the Earth as a whole. I began devising schemes and plans for
bettering the world, for making it a better place to live, for..... But
then I came back to my senses that these are not simple endeavors, and
I was not one with the ability to bring about such sweeping reform (yet?).
I just write stuff. So, I came up with the brilliant idea one day
that I would write a series of poems about those virtues, and somehow tie
them all together. What I came up with was to turn each one into
an elegy of sorts, mourning not the death of a person, but the death of
a virtue, or in some cases, the loss of a virtue by engaging wholeheartedly
in enterprises contrary to it. Maybe it works, and maybe it doesn't,
but its my project, and I'm going with it. The title, therefore,
came about in perhaps an ingenious, albeit serendipitous, way. I
started off with Saldraxe, continuing on in the grand tradition of making
up words that I inherited from Exispheles and Inuncrastication. And
then I thought about it for a while. I immediately saw the axe at
the end of the word, and it hit on me that axe had more than one meaning,
in the plural anyhow. Axes can be both weapons as well as tools,
but moreover, axes as plural for axis denotes lines of reference, real
or imaginary, that are straight and unbending and form lines which can
either support the world around them or divide them symmetrically in half
or both. Axes, as a plural, can also denote alliances between powers,
such as the Axis powers of World War II. You know, sometimes it's
scary how much genius one can come up with by accident. So here I
had it, 13 virtues, a theme, ideas, and a title. All I needed was
to fit each poem with its own title that tied into the axes theme.
Enter the imagination, and a little bit of Fuel. I heard their song
"Solace" one day, and I said to myself, "Self, that's a word we should
use somehow someway." Naturally, I agreed, so I stuck the idea of
"seeking solace" in the back of my head. When Saldraxe popped in
there also, I immediately (or almost immediately, we're only talking seconds
here) noticed that the phrase "seeking solace" had 13 letters, two of them
being "s." And there it was then, I would make up 13 words, each
8 letters long (if you couldn't tell, I like the number 8), each ending
in -axe, and each beginning with a letter that would correspond to one
of the letters in the phrase "seeking solace." And hence, Axes
was born.
Of course, I didn't write them in the order in which they are supposed
to go, and I didn't want to write out 13 separate explanations, so here
goes:
Saldraxe
Saldraxe is idealism, although the poem itself is really about the
death of communism (before you begin jumping to conclusions, I'll have
you know I don't mean the pseudo-communism practiced in China, Cuba, the
former Soviet Union, and the Eastern Bloc. I am referring to pure
ideological communism, which if you look at it is actually a very well
devised socio-economic framework. But I'm not here to be political.)
Hence, the she who dies in the poem is actually the idealism of communist
philosophy that mankind can be made to live peacefully and well according
to philosophy alone- but apparently, he can't.
Enletaxe
Enletaxe is honor, the kind of honor that keeps students from cheating
on a test they know they would fail if they had the chance, or that would
keep people from lying to avoid penalties when they know they can get away
with it because it's just indecent. The poem for Enletaxe is about
progress, or the lack thereof, because I feel that progress is a perception,
and not a reality. In the name of progress, there are those who would
cast aside their honor and go back on their own supposed ideals and morals
just so that they could enforce their greed-fed notions on others.
Eibovaxe
Eibovaxe is truth. Obviously, anyone who is to be virtuous should
know that the absolute truth, and not the truth that is defined by the
consensus of opinion, is necessary in order to have any hope for the vitality
of a society that is without problem. The poem concentrates really
on political corruption and the deception that we all put ourselves into
by believing that changing the politicians will result in changing the
outcome of policies, when in reality, it's all one big two-headed monster.
It is about how many of the things that people convince themselves are
separate and therefore must be chosen amongst are in reality the same thing,
but in their denial and their desire to have things be a certain way, they
decline to want to see this truth of matters.
Klystaxe
Kylstaxe is love. Accordingly, the person that the speaker loves
in this poem dies, and he is mourning not just the person, but the love
for that person that will never more reach its destination. But more,
it implies that love not just for one person but for all people is a very
important aspect of good social relations, as without that love, they may
one day cease to be there as part of that group, though not necessarily
dead- perhaps they are now an enemy, a suicide from your cause and a birth
for your opponent.
Inilwaxe
Inilwaxe is justice. This is the first half of a larger two part
framework based on...Batman. Lately, that's become an interesting
focus for me, the life and mentality of Batman and all the things that
surround him. So this is the first one, a dramatic monologue based
on the idea that Alfred is attempting to convince Bruce Wayne to quit being
Batman. There is a right amount of justice that is based on the idea
that those who would act against the best interest of the whole should
be reprimanded appropriately and by proper channels, not by vigilantes
who mete out justice on a whim as a payback for injustice perpetrated on
them. Justice should not be equivalent to vengeance, but Batman has
become so consumed with his vengeance (at least in my interpretation here)
that his sight of justice has become blinded, just as justice herself is
represented as being blind.
Nebilaxe
Nebilaxe is patience, for as they say all things come to those who
wait. But apparently, some of us never got that memo, because they
don't know how to wait and instead just take and seize with reckless abandon.
Gizebaxe
Gizebaxe is diligence, and this poem (actually two poems I slapped
back to back because they're both villanelles) is about how quickly people
are ready to ignore one day all the things that incited them only a short
time before. It is about the end of constancy, and how in being that
way they ignore a great many things that beg for change that cannot be
as immediate as those without the diligence to see them through to the
end would care for them to be. Plus, it's a villanelle. Two
really. And that's not easy man.
Suntraxe
Suntraxe is reason, which can be a double-edged sword at times.
So, accordingly, this poem is double-edged. On the one hand, it is
very much a rallying cry to patriotism and to supporting this country.
That was the intial response I had to things which happened in September.
But the more you think about it, the more you realize that acting that
way is in effect shoving reason off the plane without a parachute and sealing
back up the hatch, because if you listen to reason it will tell you that
nobody hates someone else enough to do something like that for no reason,
and seeking vengeance will only compound that further.
Okminaxe
Okminaxe is defiance, and this poem was originally a little more violent
I think. It used to be entirely in the past tense, as if to say that
the event (which actually referred to the act of writing poetry and not,
I repeat not actually kicking someone down stairs) had already happened.
It was supposed to imitate someone trying to convince themself that they
had done the right thing by repeating these mantra-like statements over
and over again. But I thought about it and I felt it might be better
if I changed it to the future tense, as if the speaker were still pondering
the act, and if it resembled more of a conversation between an authoritative
side of himself demanding he do it and a reluctant side that questions
the motives but in the end acquiesces because they cannot defy this authority.
And that, in the framework of this set, is something that is unforgiveable,
because sometimes you must question and sometimes you must defy,
you should not simply accept what has just been given to you because someone
else says it must be so. People can be wrong or misguided.
Lischaxe
Lischaxe is curiosity. This is the second half of the Batman
ideology, the reply from Bruce to Alfred. Perhaps also a tad autbiographical,
at least in the beginning. The basic premise of this one is that
Bruce had been for so long within his little sphere of self-pity that once
he found his way out of it in the form of Batman, he ceased to be curious
as to what may be beyond being Batman, he dedicated himself to one set
course, to one narrow purpose. But curiosity in its pure form is
inquisitive and naive, innocent and child-like, seeking out everything
that is unknown and assimilating it into a larger picture of what life
is. Curiosity is not necessarily about pursuing an idea to its logical
conclusion, along the way having to destroy whatever may be in the way
to get there; rather, it is about not shutting one's self off from the
world around them and fixating solely upon what may be just the tip of
the iceberg.
Aejulaxe
Aejulaxe is what I call philgeopy, a sort of global love that extends
beyond just loving other people into wanting to see the best not only for
people but for the world as a system. I like the secondary title
(Corps) as a play on the idea of an amry corps but also the idea of a corpse
(with an -e, yes). The whole point of this one is that men become
consumed with their own benefit that they cease to care about the welfare
of their fellow men as well as the world around them, for no man is an
island; you remove one gear from the machine and the whole thing goes out
of whack, even if only slightly. Maybe it doesn't go as much into
the welfare of the planet so much, but seeing as how war in general implies
destruction and chaos, I figure that's kind of implied.
Cefapaxe
Cefapaxe is equality, which obviously is very important if one is to
eliminate greed and envy and other sins which contribute to decadence and
decay. If there is not absolute equality, one can only assume someone
is gonna get pissed off that they got the shaft while someone else is living
large. This cannot happen. The poem though is a bit different.
It starts off with the assumption that everyone is born on equal footing,
but then it goes on to talk about how others force upon unsuspecting children
their own agendas, which very often are corrupt and inescapable except
by moving on to another agenda which is just as corrupt and inescapable
and in a certain sense no better, just different. It is about the
loss of congenital equality in the guise of child rearing and education.
Bummer.
Ersiqaxe
Ersiqaxe is hope, which springs eternal they say. But not always.
Someone pointed out to me that the final line almost sounds extremely hopeful,
but I offer this instead; throughout the poem, the night is made to represent
calmness, serenity, peace, and in general that which the speaker wishes
would stay as pertains to his relationship with his beloved. The
day, on the other hand, is full of the war and the storms and the general
turmoil that is slowly turning his world into a wasteland. When the
sun rises, it signals the end of the night and the start of the day, so
even though it is currently night, that transitory condition will not remain
forever, and the day will return, complete with its full aresnal of negativity.
Hence, the speaker is resigning himself to hopelessness that things will
ever change. But hope, if you have seen "The Shawshank Redemption,"
is one of the most powerful and important things in this life that cannot
be taken from you against your will. Keep hope alive they say.
Good things may result.