Steven Joseph Bruening, Poet

I met Steven on FanStory. His often uses the classics to inform his poetry - mythology, religious texts, etc. Some of his most striking work is on death and dying. Here's a a link to a new one he just posted tonight: The Bridge

Steven adds, "I originally studied to be theologian, thus, a great deal of my poems draw from the wealth of comparative religions I have studied."

Steven has given me permission to post this poem of his with his comments:

The Rape Of Me

you violated me
while i slept in newborn innocence, you came
you with your lofty ideas
your pristine struggles
no form nor motion did have i
rather you raped me with yours
you clothed in your rage
you smothered me with your love
raised me with your indifference
and enslaved me with your religion
you violated me
while i slept in newborn innocence, you came
you with your unnatural technologies
your man made philosophies
in the name of "tradition" you raped me of my
identity
eradicated from me my history
and erected unto yourself a monument from my bones
you violated me
raped me while i wept in newborn innocence

by Steven Joseph Bruening 2009

Comments on The Rape of Me by Steven Joseph Bruening

This poem is a reflection on how society's, especially oppressive and militaristic/communist based societies, attempt, through "education" and other media means, to indoctrinate their beliefs on an individual, suppressing the individual's own uniques. Its concept is drawn from the lain phrase "tabula rasa" or "blank slate", meaning that, philosophically, we are all born as blank slates and should be allowed to develop our own writings on our personae, rather than have them spelled out or indoctrinated upon us against our will.