"Ugly, grunting, disgusting creatures"
In the style of that bloke off The Fast Show: this week I have mostly been thinking about the above quotation from Miroslav Holub's poem, Suffering, in conjunction with Raymond Carver's short story, Feathers.
In the poem the speaker examines cancer cells under his microscope and reacts with those immortal words. The statement ends up applying to the whole of the human race, in its bestial cycles of fucking, shitting and dying.
In the story, Carver describes a couple (without children, possibly unable to have kids) going to visit acquaintances and their new baby. They arrive to find out that the baby is unbelieveably ugly. Their visit is overshadowed by the hideous squawking of their acquaintances' pet peacock, as it strolls about the house, hops on the roof and gruntsquawks, gruntsquawks, gruntsquawks.
It's not that I find love abominable. It's lovers that are ugly grunting beasts. The doe-eyed optimism, the happy-as-a-dove feckless meandering over parks with unbearably sweet icecreams. The mindless spoon-for-spoon dissection of desserts, the clammy-handed weaving through crowds, the endless pushing of the last bite across the table.
The way they exchange fat eyes like their heads are so fucking saturated with love that their sockets can't cope with the swelling. The looks when they go out with 'single' friends, as if they have the only key to the lock on how that friend will find a partner. The sage advice about how to get hooked, an "I'll set you up," burbling from their love-crusted lips.
And what is worse, some of them are pig-ugly. The same absurd blinkering that lets a mother fall in love with the hideous, slime-mongered beast that slithered out of her womb, lets certain people fall in love with a monster.
I can't help looking at certain couples and thinking I'd rather grind up broken glass into my next lonely mug of Horlicks and shit blood onto the sofa while watching Love, Actually for the umpteenth time, than fall in love myself with an ugly, grunting disgusting creature like that. By that I someone with a face that makes you want to lick roadkill to get the foul taste out of your mouth.
Where I live, there's a particular genetic defect I've noticed where people's mouths don't shut properly. They look like they have harelips, only they don't. It's a passably ugly feature, which often comes with bug-eyes, grease-lanked hair, several chins and more fat rolls than a bakery. Some of these people are married!
Yes, 'in the eye of the beholder' and as shown elsewhere, that only applies to the frozen moment, the point the artist has captured. Eventually, gravity and a slowing metabolism will scrape the beauty off of all our bodies. But if that's possible - that even people I find attractive can manage to date someone with a face like the kind you find lurking in the milk six months after it's been left on a windowsill in summer - if it's really possible, then is it also possible that I myself am dating a munter?
Is my girlfriend uglier than a mass grave? Has no one told me? Has Cupid jabbed my eyes out with his cuntish little arrows? Love, that cunt, to boot, has made me paranoid.
In the poem the speaker examines cancer cells under his microscope and reacts with those immortal words. The statement ends up applying to the whole of the human race, in its bestial cycles of fucking, shitting and dying.
In the story, Carver describes a couple (without children, possibly unable to have kids) going to visit acquaintances and their new baby. They arrive to find out that the baby is unbelieveably ugly. Their visit is overshadowed by the hideous squawking of their acquaintances' pet peacock, as it strolls about the house, hops on the roof and gruntsquawks, gruntsquawks, gruntsquawks.
It's not that I find love abominable. It's lovers that are ugly grunting beasts. The doe-eyed optimism, the happy-as-a-dove feckless meandering over parks with unbearably sweet icecreams. The mindless spoon-for-spoon dissection of desserts, the clammy-handed weaving through crowds, the endless pushing of the last bite across the table.
The way they exchange fat eyes like their heads are so fucking saturated with love that their sockets can't cope with the swelling. The looks when they go out with 'single' friends, as if they have the only key to the lock on how that friend will find a partner. The sage advice about how to get hooked, an "I'll set you up," burbling from their love-crusted lips.
And what is worse, some of them are pig-ugly. The same absurd blinkering that lets a mother fall in love with the hideous, slime-mongered beast that slithered out of her womb, lets certain people fall in love with a monster.
I can't help looking at certain couples and thinking I'd rather grind up broken glass into my next lonely mug of Horlicks and shit blood onto the sofa while watching Love, Actually for the umpteenth time, than fall in love myself with an ugly, grunting disgusting creature like that. By that I someone with a face that makes you want to lick roadkill to get the foul taste out of your mouth.
Where I live, there's a particular genetic defect I've noticed where people's mouths don't shut properly. They look like they have harelips, only they don't. It's a passably ugly feature, which often comes with bug-eyes, grease-lanked hair, several chins and more fat rolls than a bakery. Some of these people are married!
Yes, 'in the eye of the beholder' and as shown elsewhere, that only applies to the frozen moment, the point the artist has captured. Eventually, gravity and a slowing metabolism will scrape the beauty off of all our bodies. But if that's possible - that even people I find attractive can manage to date someone with a face like the kind you find lurking in the milk six months after it's been left on a windowsill in summer - if it's really possible, then is it also possible that I myself am dating a munter?
Is my girlfriend uglier than a mass grave? Has no one told me? Has Cupid jabbed my eyes out with his cuntish little arrows? Love, that cunt, to boot, has made me paranoid.
posted by Anonymous | 5:52 pm
She's fucking rough mate..!
But nah, seriously, I'd give her one.
P.S. Loved your post, I really connected with paragraphs four and five. It's amazing how the blinkeredness can settle not only over their own relationship, but over everybody else's solitude as well. Are the doe-eyed lovers just blind to every-fucking-thing?