Glog Gets Participation Prize
Our tale’s set in a prehistoric cave
Carved in a cliff above a vast expanse
Which offers Aurochs Clan a safe enclave
Within a land the future shall call “France.”
The fecund plains below are lush and teeming
With toothy predators and shrieking prey.
A hunter who is sharp-eyed, skilled and scheming
Can readily find game to catch each day.
One hunter in this Clan of thirty souls
Has dozens of his kills marked on the wall;
He dominates the grasslands, rills and knolls—
A great tactician whose name is K’jal.
K’jal can track a mammoth, form a plan,
And with the help of practiced Aurochs brothers
Attack and slay great beasts to feed his Clan;
He has a spear-sense which confounds the others.
But some caves can’t leave well enough alone.
Sharp jealousy consumes the Chief’s first son
Whose name is Glog. He chips and shapes the stone
For spearheads—useful work which must be done.
But Glog detests his job. He whines his dole—
And claims that K’jal’s feats are just a stunt.
Glog wants to be promoted to the role
That K’jal holds—the leader of the hunt.
“The Aurochs Clan must act on Glog’s concerns!”
The Chief—Glog’s father—can’t be any blunter.
“We give K’jal more merit than he earns!
No more! From now on Glog shall be the hunter!”
The Chief has spoken. Let no Clansman sneer!
And so K’jal is formally demoted
As Glog goes out and tries to throw a spear.
Such rotten aim! But that’s how the Clan voted.
K’jal resents this and is quite annoyed
That his outstanding work has been diminished
In favor of an unskilled git devoid
Of guts. But c’est la vie, they say. He’s finished.
Of course, the saga doesn’t end just there.
What happens next… How could it be foreseen?
As Glog keeps throwing spears but hitting air,
The food stores dwindle. All grow rather lean.
The Elders still back Glog who cannot aim
And brings no meat while K’jal sits and carves
More useless spears for non-existent game,
Besmirched and slandered as his whole Clan starves.
As Glog returns home once more empty-handed,
K’jal declares he’s done—he’s had enough!
He’s leaving Aurochs Clan. K’jal is candid:
Glog should not hunt. He’s neither skilled nor tough.
K’jal then packs his skins and hies him hence.
Progressive Aurochs Clan exclaims, “Good riddance!
Such arrogance to question our good sense!”
Then Glog arrives. He’s caught a rabbit! Pittance.
But no one in the Cave will say a thing
That might hurt Glog or stifle his ambition—
Not even if they feel starvation’s sting
And are becoming weak from malnutrition.
But as they now start dying one by one
One father thinks to join K’jal’s new cave.
Survival matters, for he has a son
And wife in Aurochs Clan he might yet save.
Within a week Glog’s cave has dropped to half
As people flee who fully grasp the stakes:
A hunter must have skill to kill a calf
And bring home something they can roast as steaks.
Competing caves—but only one well-fed;
The other built on jealousy and lies.
K’jal hunts well; his spear is sharp and red;
Still, Glog gets a participation prize:
Those cavemen praising Glog despite his lack
Of skill, proclaim him hunter of the year.
They sneer at those who wish K’jal was back,
And pay no heed that winter’s drawing near.
As Glog fans starve, more quietly depart
To K’jal’s well-fed cave to join their kin.
They finally grasp that hunting is an art;
That skill, not feelings, is how Clan caves win.
The Aurochs Clan (three left) still has Glog’s back
Insisting pride weighs more than hurtful truths.
That’s when some tigers lunge for the attack.
Glog’s fate? A meal for hungry saber-tooths.
Taming the Wolf
It’s dark. I sit four paces from the fire.
I turn and see you cower near the rocks.
You do not flee yet you do not come near.
I do not want you here! You are a threat.
I throw a rock. I shout. You do not leave.
You hope to steal my food. You watch me eat.
I hear you growl. I see you stand and pace.
You’re very thin. You limp as if you had
A broken leg which must have badly healed.
I wonder if your pack abandoned you
The way that I was banished from my clan?
***
A new day passes. I live all alone.
I’m not alone. I see you hiding there.
Again, I sit four paces from the fire
While you lie staring at me from the rocks.
I pity you. I toss a fat-charred rib.
You grab it quickly, grunt and limp away.
But with the rising moon you soon return.
You share my loneliness. I miss my clan.
They’re wrong to blame me for my brother’s death.
They said they’d kill me if I show my face.
They took my son. Don’t leave me, injured wolf.
***
It’s night. I sit four paces from the fire.
This time you venture closer than the rocks.
You watch me eat. You moan. I toss to you
A piece of roasted sloth. You grunt and grab
And limp away. But this time you return.
I see you are still lame. I see your ribs.
You starve for food—not for revenge like men.
I do not have more meat or fat for you.
Your eyes meet mine. I offer you a bone.
You gnaw on it. You do not run away.
The fire dies. I watch you fall asleep.
***
Today I came in contact with the Others.
They thought I was a threat. They yelled at me.
I did not raise my spear. I came in peace.
Their leader threw a rock which hit my head.
It bled so much that I could barely stand.
They slashed my leg and laughed when I fell down.
I crawled away. I will not try again
To live with men. I’m hurt. I cannot hunt.
You look to me for food. I cannot help.
Right now, I cannot even feed myself.
So, hungry wolf, perhaps we die together.
***
I fainted from the pain. But for how long?
It’s night—another night. I lie four paces
Before the empty pit. There is no fire.
I hear you but I can’t see where you are.
But then I feel your wolf fur by my calf.
I fast sit up. With shock I see that you
Stayed next to me and sought to keep me safe.
You’re lame yet brought a rabbit that you killed.
You could have wolfed it down, but you did not.
I stare. Why would you want to be my friend?
I sob great heaving sobs. I build the fire.
***
The moon is full. I sit before the fire.
And you rest only one short pace from me.
Today you helped me hunt and kill a deer.
Your teeth are sharp; its jugular was weak.
You’re dangerous. A wolf who lives to hunt.
I’m mad to let you in my broken world.
Perhaps I ought to kill you while I can.
A wolf can be a vicious, fearsome beast.
When I was young, one mauled me—here’s the scar.
Might you do that to me one day as well?
Or might we be companions unto death?
***
A storm is coming, Wolf. Come in the cave.
I do not fear you now. We will survive
Together—my sharp spear, your lethal fangs.
We will not starve. We now are our own clan.
And if I die, I know that you will care
Enough to mourn by howling at the moon.
They banished me in hate but then you came.
I trust you now—far more than my own kind.
How they betrayed me though I had no guilt!
They hope I die. They know not what they do;
They never will be tamed as you’ve tamed me.
Brian Yapko is a retired lawyer whose poetry has appeared in over fifty journals. He is the winner of the 2023 SCP International Poetry Competition. Brian is also the author of several short stories, the science fiction novel El Nuevo Mundo and the gothic archaeological novel Bleeding Stone. He lives in Wimauma, Florida.
I enjoyed both these pieces enormously, Brian. The vicissitudes of Glog and his fellows might have been lifted straight out of Aesop; while Taming the Wolf reminds me irresistibly of the wolf of Gubbio in Franciscan legend (if it is a legend). Thank you for the entertainment.
Thank you very much, Martin! I was hoping for Glog to be read as a fable, so I’m very glad you mention Aesop. As for the wolf of Gubbio, I’ve never heard of him so I just looked him up. I’ve always loved St. Francis so I’m grateful to learn of this additional Francis lore.
Brian, your works often show an amazing ability to transcend time to get a crucial message across. For me, these beautifully wrought poems illuminate the deep fractures tearing apart modern society through their prehistoric lens. “Glog Gets Participation Prize” delivers a sharp, much-needed warning that cuts to the heart of today’s fractured society, where envy and blind loyalty elevate the unworthy and weaken the whole. The piercing truth in “They finally grasp that hunting is an art; That skill, not feelings, is how Clan caves win” echoes the peril of replacing merit with empty pride in leadership and social trust.
In profound contrast, “Taming the Wolf” offers a raw, lyrical meditation on isolation and the painful, slow work of rebuilding trust. The refrain “I sit four paces from the fire” powerfully evokes the courage it takes to reach across divides and heal wounds borne of fear and exclusion. For me, its heartbreaking lines, “I stare. Why would you want to be my friend? I sob great heaving sobs. I build the fire,” capture the fragile hope and urgent need for empathy in a world broken by alienation. I like the symbolic fire – warmth and distance… the welcome… the warding off… Superb!
Together, these poems work perfectly with their contrasting poetic styles – the satirical communal voice of “Glog” and the intimate, meditative lyricism of “Wolf” – to challenge us fiercely yet compassionately. They hold up a mirror to modern society’s dangers of hollow allegiance and social denial, while also offering a hope in the healing power of honest connection and heartfelt vulnerability. In this duality, they remind us that only through both truth in leadership and courage in compassion we can mend the devastating divides of our time… at least, I hope so. First, we must look the harsh truth in the face and acknowledge it… therein lies the problem.
Brian, these poems are excellent. Thank you!
Susan, I’m so grateful for this wonderful comment and your keen eye. Yes, you read everything I had hoped you would read into both of these poems — the first, social satire; the second, a meditation on trust with a harsh conclusion which suggests it may be easier to trust a faithful dog than one’s fellow human beings. The funny thing about the “blind loyalty” you mention vis a vis present times… I’m not always certain that the imposition of incompetence upon us is truly based on benevolence. I sometimes think — as with women’s sports and college admissions — having people pushed into fields they have no business participating in is done so in a spirit of malice.
I’m especially glad that you understood the lyrical aspects of Taming the Wolf and the lines which you single out and which happen to be my favorite of the piece. When I began this poem I never expected to find it moving, yet the idea of the solitary speaker (a lone wolf, so to speak) should be so surprised at the gestures of friendship that the wolf offers, truly moved me. I pictured a man sobbing at the end of his rope. Been there. On the subject of taming and trust, you and other readers may have noticed the use of the upper case for Wolf in the last stanza. The beast has been promoted from wary ally to trusted friend. Not always an easy transition to make in a world which is no less hostile now than it was 20,000 years ago.
Thank you again, Susan. I’m thrilled that you enjoyed these pieces!
I love both of these poems. The way you can inhabit any character from any time is almost spooky.
I’m sure that I’m not the only one who has experienced way too many Glog moments in my life. I suppose when you’re surrounded by Glogs and their nodding fans, a wolf starts looking pretty good.
You know, with Glog’s constant whining and complaining about how the Clan undervalues him, his dismissal of K’jal’s feats as “just a stunt,” his insistence on being promoted without earning it, and his repeated failure to deliver anything of real value—yet still receiving praise from the Clan—he sounds exactly like a snootsplainer!
Thanks, man just wonderful poetry…
Mike, thank you so much for the compliment. I love doing dramatic monologues because it’s a lot of fun for me to put on a (figurative) costume, get into character and just start writing. In another life I think I would have tried my hand at playwright or screenwriter.
I’m tickled with the way you’ve sort of taken the name “Glog” and coined it into a type — sort of like a conservative “Karen.” But, yeah, I’ve known many a Glog in my day. Still do. And you’re so right — he’s very much like Susan’s “snootsplainer” (which, by the way, is a fantastic coinage!) Although I tend to think the snootsplainer might be the one who justifies to us lesser mortals why he’s giving all the perks and jobs and praise TO Glog rather than Glog himself. In other words, I think Glog and the snootsplainer are in a toxically symbiotic relationship. Am I overthinking this?
A great satire on the “Aurochs” of our time, particularly considering that the actual aurochs are no more. I especially liked “But c’est la vie, they say,” the future French. The story of dog domestication, a pharmakos by a pharmakos, is so touching and plausible. I wish not only adults but children read these, gathering around a fire. Morality is not shoved down one’s throat but inculcated.
Michael, I’m so glad you liked these poems! You grasped the amused wink I offered with my anachronistic invocation of breezy modern French to foreshadow an ignoble future France. If I could have shoehorned a “let them eat cake” in there I’d have done that too. And, by the way, a small think to notice but Glog — whose jealousy and entitlement seem almost socialist in character. He has a name in which I rather hoped people would hear the echo of “Gulag.”
Thank you for teaching me the word “pharmakos.” I had to look it up. And boy is it useful! You and I both know something about the poisonous ideology behind scapegoating. I wonder if pharmacology and pharmocy come from the same Greek root…?
Sure they do. Here is a quote from a paper of mine: “Interestingly, the word that was used for the scapegoat, pharmakos (φαρμακός), while etymologically related to magic (Harrison, 1903), is of the same root
as, and perhaps a form of, pharmakon, drug or poison (Hughes, 1991).” My article is about substance use, of course.
Brian, “Taming the Wolf” is truer than many readers might think. Genetic evolutionists point out that the DNA of wolves is practically identical to that of our dog species (Canis canis). This means that our dogs were originally wolves that for some reason became acclimatized to living with people, probably very much like the scenario you paint. Naturally we humans have bred and selected our dogs in all sorts of crazy ways to produce the incredible variety that we have today, from poodle to St. Bernard. But they all descend from those wolves that gathered around human campfires many thousands of years ago, and that eventually became our companions and guardians.
Your poem about Glog is a wild combination of serio-comic narrative, exemplum, and allegory, all relevant to current concerns. I have had a lengthy ongoing discussion with a colleague at work about “the collapse of competence,” and how it is spreading everywhere. The causes are precisely what you describe: favoritism shown to incompetent groups, and protected by political power; the collapse of education in many fields; the quasi-religious need to ignore plain facts; the personal dissatisfaction of malcontents that pushes absurd social changes; and the mulish refusal of many in our population to question orthodox and bien-pensant idiocies. “Glogs” are the ones making the endless complaints, and “Glogs” are the ones in charge, setting policy guidelines.
These are two great poems about our paleolithic history. And they have real resonance today, since both touch on the theme of expulsion from the clan. Many of us know what this expulsion is like.
Thank you so much for your highly informative comment, Joe — as I understand it, there are biologists who would not even consider wolves and dogs to be different species. They satisfy the test of being able to breed and produce fertile offspring (unlike mules, for example.) I remember once seeing a dog and wolf mix which greatly resembled a German shepherd. He just seemed like a normal if slightly intimidating dog. And if I recall correctly, the wolf in the film “Dances with Wolves” which the Kevin Costner character names “Two Socks” was also portrayed by a dog-wolf combo. So they are clearly trainable. And you are so right — dogs seem to have by far the most genetic diversity and potential of any domesticated animal, ranging from purse-sized to small pony-sized. We take it for granted with dogs, but imagine if our domesticated cats exhibited a similar range of size! Few would want a housecat the size of a small lion! We can never know how dogs and humans first approached each other but what is clear is that they did eventually discover that an association was to their mutual advantage. A good thing too, because I’m a dog-lover.
I’m so glad you enjoyed the Glog poem. It was great fun to write and was meant to showcase exactly those destructive societal values which you have mentioned. It has many applications these days, ranging from men hijacking women’s sports to DEI hiring. My own personal irritant is with the idea of schools giving out trophies to everyone who competes because they are so worried that little Tommy or Suzie is going to go home feeling insecure. But DAMMIT how do you think little Tommy or Suzie are ever going to decide to improve and achieve in life? How are they ever going to WANT anything?? Gold stars for everyone only dilutes real achievement. It makes those who worked hard to succeed feel trivialized. And it makes unmotivated kids — and adults — stop trying. Very few people seem inclined to work hard if they don’t have to. That’s why socialism and communism carry the seeds of their own destruction.
A prehistoric poem from a contemporary poet!! You often surprise me, Brian, with your captivatingly novel concepts. In your 1st piece, I’m reminded that Mans’ total lack of ‘common sense’ is far from a new phenomenon, and has caused many to suffer for eons. In the second, of how wonderfully well ‘strange bedfellows’ can cohabitate when alternatives are exceedingly scarce. As I think you know, I’m a big fan of ‘story poems’, of which I’ve penned more than 200, and I sincerely enjoyed this ‘relatively- Yapko’ pair.
Thank you so much, Mark! I realize that since I favor dramatic monologues, I’ve sort of taken on a predictable poetic niche. But with that said, there are literally billions of people who have populated history from prehistoric times to the present. That’s a big pool of potential poetic stories to tell! In addition to that, I really do try not to repeat myself. It’s boring for the reader and it’s boring for me as the writer. So to hear you characterize my work as “captivatingly novel concepts” is deeply satisfying to me. I hope to read more of your own “story” poems.
Man’s lack of common sense does, I’m quite certain, go all the way back. I’m sure it was present among the cave-squabbles of Lascaux and Altamira just as certainly as it goes back to Eve’s decision to eat the apple, Esau’s trading his birthrite for a bowl of lentil soup and Samson convincing himself that Delilah was really into him. Bad ideas pepper human history: was Helen really worth abducting? Who thought Elagabulus would make a good emperer? And I won’t even ask what morons would let a Trojan horse past the gates and into the city. The West keeps doing it.
Brian, as a Texan I translated “K’jal” as “Kill ya’ll. Your logical and entrancing tales are magical, entertaining, and steeped in wisdom. Like the previous commenters, I recognize the inordinate elevation of incompetency to an undeserved level of recognition in a culture and society as presented in your story and the deterioration that results. Brilliant as always and a scary portrayal of present and future mismanagement. I noted a particular reference to France, yet recognize that is but one of your targets.
Roy, thank you for an extremely kind comment which also has me rolling on the floor! K’jal as a contraction of “kill y’all” is clever as all heck — but something which never crossed my mind. I came up with this name for much more prosaic reasons: I needed a two-syllable name which scanned correctly, rhymed with “wall” and sounded prehistoric — but not as cartoonish as “Glog.” I used K’bal for a little while until I realized it sounded too much like cabal and would have given a reading to the poem that I never intended.
Interesting about France — that you detected a slight dig. This is not a poem about France per se. It became a natural setting to this poem by virtue of the fact that southern France and northern Spain are ground zero for the location of neolithic cro-magnon cave paintings, with the premiere sites being Lascaux in France and Altamira in Spain. (I actually wrote a poem a couple of years back called “The Ghosts of Altamira.”) But now that I had France on my poetic radar, I did take advantage of the locale to slip in a little dig. I rather think of Glog as the perfect stereotype of the entitled yet cowardly “cheese-eating surrender monkey” image of the French (as skewered by the Simpsons.) “C’est la vie” indeed. It would be nice if they cared about their own history and culture more. I am still stunned at the way the French have ignobly surrendered what was once a noble country.
I think, Brian, that you might well enjoy Burroughs’ Pellucidar series, one of which is titled Back to the Stone Age. Tarzan once tamed a lion (Tarzan and the Golden Lion), and if there had been wolves in his Africa, well who knows?
Thank you very much for reading, commenting and for the suggestion, Kip! As it happens, I have just started the Tarzan series and will look out for Tarzan and the Golden Lion. I’ll also look up Back to the Stone Age. I’m a sucker for prehistoric subjects — Land of the Lost, Journey to the Center of the Earth, the old tv series “It’s About Time” (with Imogene Coca and Joe E. Ross.) I long ago became deeply invested in Jean Auel’s Clan of the Cave Bear series. She also depicted the first domestication of a wolf but in a rather different way.
Taming wild beasts seems to be something of a literary trope which may well go back to Androcles and the Lion — or even earlier. But trope or no, domestication started somewhere. It’s a fact of history whose particulars are lost to the fog of time.
Brian,
Thank you.
I rarely find others who share my passion for writing narrative tales hung on the backbone of form and meter. Your imagery is wonderful, and the story flows smoothly and cleanly. We can all feel for K’jal, and the current situation across much of the country, and in many ways the world, is reflected in the poor choices that are embodied in your first tale. Well done.
Your second poem, however, is my own personal favorite of the two. I have felt the spiritual bond of a kindred soul in canine form, and have often wondered if the first close contact was something just like this. You have crafted a small story that has an emotional impact, and the ring of a possible truth, experienced by some long distant ancestor.
You made my day.
Dusty
Dusty, thank you so much for this very generous comment which also made MY day! I love writing narrative pieces and feel that poetry is a terrific (if underused) medium for many stories. This is one of the reasons I love writing dramatic monologues — for some reason a narrative story that is told in the first person just strikes me as more compelling than one told with a third person narrator. The immediacy and emotional impact are more direct. At least that’s how I see it.
I am so glad you liked Taming the Wolf. This is also my favorite of the two and, to be honest, I still get choked up when I reread the lines “Why would you want to be my friend?/I sob great heaving sobs. I build the fire.” Maybe it’s because I know so well the love of a dog (more than one in my life) and I know how profound that connection is. It’s the darndest thing. I’m very grateful to that long distant ancestor who decided to risk trusting a wolf who had for some reason made himself vulnerable to humans. Neither that person nor the wolf had any idea how amazingly well that unexpeccted relationship would play out over the subsequent 15,000 years.
The most plausible explanation for the domestication of wolves, I think, is that, having killed the mother, someone took home the pups.
Kip, you are probably right. In Jean Auel’s Valley of Horses (the second Clan of the Cave Bear book), the protagonist, Ayla, kills a she-wolf only to find that she has killed a desperate, nursing mother. Only one of the cubs is viable so Ayla adopts and raises him. As you would guess, the wolf that she raises becomes her loyal companion. Canines and humans are both noteworthy for being highly social. This makes them/us predisposed to cooperate and collaborate with others, even across species lines.
These are interesting and highly original works. I can’t say I’ve run into poetry in a prehistoric setting before — I imagine because the scientific mind shuns all things poetic like creation myths. How impoverished we’ve become from this false dichotomy. Settings like yours offer endless unexplored fertile ground, and I applaud you for venturing there.
Glog’s story is a very modern tale set in prehistory — its message just clear enough, yet disguised in the story just enough, as well. I can tell you had great fun writing it. “Taming the Wolf” really was something. I skipped over the title, and I’m glad I did. I found the read suspenseful, wondering at your engaging and mystifying tale until I came to the last stanza, when everything came together. Might I humbly suggest a less revealing title, so that you hold the readers in suspense?
Thank you very much, Adam! I’m intrigued by your observation about the scientific mind and the poetry of creation myths and similar subjects. There are so many ideas to be artistically developed if one tries to find ways to bridge that false dichotomy! I myself have always been fascinated by prehistoric times. I find the challenges of living in a caveman setting to be useful to analyzing current social concepts and constructs. I often wonder how certain ideas would have worked in a precivilization setting where survival and cohesion was paramount. When survival is on the line, you don’t worry about gender ideology, DEI or the foreign policy opinions of narcissistic actors.
I’m thrilled that you liked “Taming the Wolf” and am grateful for the title suggestion. It never occurred to me that I gave too much away. You see, the title — to me — reflects both the taming of the literal wolf… but also the metaphor of taming the wolf within men. Wolf to dog was easy. But the speaker’s relationship with other humans is so troubled that it would seem that taming the wolf within human beings is an uphill battle. I will give some thought, though, to whether a different title might have more impact. Thank you for the suggestion!
Brian, have you seen the 1981 film “Quest for Fire”? It is set 80,000 years ago, and if you’re fascinated by prehistoric times, you’ll be bowled over by this one. By the way, no known language at all is used in the sound track. There are just primitive, rudimentary grunts and growls for communication, showing the very earliest verbal exchanges among humans.
No, Joe, I’ve never seen Quest for Fire. I just looked it up and it sounds amazing. I’m going to get it and watch it. Thank you for the suggestion!
What a powerful, razor-sharp allegory, Brian. Your prehistoric setting makes the modern malaise feel inevitable and immediate, and K’jal’s quiet competence contrasted with Glog’s jealousy illustrates how blind allegiance props up ineptitude and weakens a community. The imagery is vivid, the moral unflinching, and that final, brutal payoff lands like a warning punch.
You had me before “…I see that you stayed next to me and sought to keep me safe” and “…might we be companions unto death?”. I’m the one who still weeps at “Ol’ Yeller, Bambi”, and “Marley and Me”, never fulfilled without a furry friend. No greater love in any era.
Thank you so much, Laura! You’ve said a mouthful — “blind allegiance props up ineptitude and weakens a community.” So true! As for those tearjerker dog films — I can’t watch them at all. Nothing will make me sob like a child more than a beloved animal death. I’m that guy who cries at cartoons and commercials. I lost it over New York’s politically-motivated and indefensible arrest and euthanizing of Peanut the Squirrel.
I was waiting for Laura’s comment. “Blind allegiance props up ineptitude and weakens a community.” True in your cave community where food is the priority, and yet more significant in contexts where broader capacities of human judgment and emotion operate. “Taming the Wolf” has as its backdrop a weakened human community that has injured and excluded one of its members. The title is good, I think, because of the double meaning gradually realized by the reader before the poem’s final line declares the “lone wolf” man to be tamed. This is a story that need not be prehistoric, as every happy relationship of human to animal takes taming of both to overcome natural reserve, and to develop the benefits individuals come to perceive in one another upon settled acquaintance. Your story is, perhaps, more effectively told because you are able to use primitive imagery and circumstances. But even at the imagined early era, you move well beyond a competent cooperation between man and beast, into the realm of affection based on experience. It’s a wonderful touch to imagine this wolf howling at the moon in grief should his human companion die. That combines nature and spirit of beings very diverse in kind.
Thank you so much, Margaret, for this insightful and appreciative comment. Yes, blind allegiance is a dangerous quality in a society. But there’s an aspect to this which is not truly blind. In these truly cynical times, I perceive a malignant reveling in the vaunting of the incompetent. It’s almost as if the DEI CRT woke crowd is daring us to call them out on choosing diversity and inclusiveness over competence and high achievement. People are being celebrated for identity markers rather than for actually accomplishing something. One which comes to mind is the recent Oscar awards in which a male “identifying” as a female was nominated in the Best Actress category. It had nothing to do with quality of performance and everything in the world to do with virtue signalling. And so this goes across the board throughout our troubled society.
I’m especially pleased you liked “Taming the Wolf.” I agree — it did not require a prehistoric background — actually neither of these poems did. But using this prehistoric seeting allowed me to strip the issues down to their bare essence so that the issues were about a) survival and competence in the first poem and b) survival and trust in the second. The more social and historical layers added to those subjects, the less I could focus on their elemental aspects. People in modern times — especially in the West — seem to have lost sight of the very qualities of character which are required of survival. We are a civilization flirting with cultural suicide and people need to start recognizing which aspects of our overly indulgent values cause more harm than good.
Brian, you raise a point that was mentioned many years ago by George Orwell in one of his essays. He said the qualities that modern liberals are uncomfortable with, and which they are anxious to disparage and breed out of the race, are precisely those characteristics that make for civilization and survival: male aggression, forceful competition, the will to control and dominate, skill in combat, bravery against enemies rather than negotiation.
In a primitive culture, these qualities of the hunter, the warrior, and the leader are what keep the tribe alive, and what keep the enemy at bay. The profound honor that has historically been given to heroes, to the brave, to the daring, and to the conqueror is evidence of this fact. Among the ancient Celts, if a man were effeminate or cowardly he was strangled and then thrown into a peat bog.
Thank you, Brian, for both of these poems. I really enjoyed them!
Thank you so much, Marguerite! I’m so pleased that you liked them and am very grateful for your comment!