.

Eulogy for a Them

We gather here to celebrate a him
Or her (an it? a they?) and in the end
A prophet of the present who could bend
Reality to suit their loosest whim.
For whatsoever they had been or might
Have been, they were their own priority;
Their every inkling claimed majority
And what they felt determined what was right.
At times of course they acted like a man,
But none of us is perfect, so it’s said,
And now their useless clump of cells is dead,
Although they could go in the garbage can,
We’ll compost them, since they’d be truly thrilled
To have eternal life as chlorophyll.

.

.

Jeffrey Essmann is an essayist and poet living in New York. His poetry has appeared in numerous magazines and literary journals, among them Agape Review, America Magazine, Dappled Things, the St. Austin Review, U.S. Catholic, Grand Little Things, Heart of Flesh Literary Journal, and various venues of the Benedictine monastery with which he is an oblate. He is editor of the Catholic Poetry Room page on the Integrated Catholic Life website.

NOTE TO READERS: If you enjoyed this poem or other content, please consider making a donation to the Society of Classical Poets.

The Society of Classical Poets does not endorse any views expressed in individual poems or commentary.


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33 Responses

  1. Joseph S. Salemi

    The trannie freak now takes his final sleep —
    What better place than in a compost heap?
    He joined a group (“The Friends of Mother Earth”)
    So let a plowed field be his bed and berth.
    Well-nourished ground produces good azalea —
    Who knows what grows from sliced-up genitalia?

    Reply
  2. Margaret Coats

    Eulogizing the subject, Jeffrey, it reads quite well. ELEVEN uses of a plural pronoun for a singular person, in a mere 14 lines, provides the emphasis they would want. And the last line might well reflect the last wishes, though in all seriousness it’s horrid.

    Joseph, your couplets in response also conclude effectively, while they suit the dismal occasion with plaintive questions: “What better place” and “Who knows what grows”

    Reply
  3. Roy Peterson

    A very descriptive ode for whatever they were. Such a perfect conclusion to their imperfect wasted life, although chlorophyll is too good for them.

    Reply
  4. Cheryl Corey

    Very clever, Jeffrey. Who the heck came up with all this pronoun crap anyway? When you write “We’ll compost them”, did you have in mind the latest suggestion the nut jobs have that we compost people when they die?

    Reply
  5. Joseph S. Salemi

    All of this contrived pronoun idiocy is narcissism gone berserk. It’s just a way for freaks and perverts to cry out “Look at me! I’m important and special!”

    We can take a lesson from Groucho Marx on this subject. Once on his TV show a woman from San Francisco was a guest. Groucho said to her “Frisco is a nice city.” The punctilious woman replied “Yes Groucho, but we who live there do not like the word ‘Frisco.’ We prefer that the correct name of ‘San Francisco’ be used.”

    Groucho didn’t miss a beat. He just answered “So tell me — how long have you been living in Frisco?”

    That’s what we all should do when some pretentious pronoun-pusher tries to shame us into using factitious politically correct pronouns. Just ignore him totally, and continue speaking normally using the proper pronouns, as if the idiot hadn’t said a thing. This puts the onus on him to start a fight, and if he does you can call him out for being a jackass.

    I do this regularly at work, and it enrages left-liberals.

    Reply
  6. Cynthia Erlandson

    Wonderful satire! “What they felt determined what was right” about sums it up. Don’t think, just feel.

    Reply
  8. Patricia Allred

    Phenomenal.! I was looking on line for pictures of lovers. Something romantic! Oy! I found nude men clutching each others buttox! Women… also!
    It totally floored me. Today the White House had an event led by Dr. Jill Biden(oh…give me a break) to
    honor women, The headliner? Righto!!!
    a transgender! Patricia

    Reply
    • Joseph S. Salemi

      This is the administration of perverts, trannies, and bizarre pronoun freaks. We shouldn’t be surprised at what is being honored.

      Reply
  9. Ben Hawkin

    What a mean-spirited and despicable poem, especially the last 4 lines (the author also went to the effort of selecting and including that photograph). I thought art, writing and poetry was intended to celebrate humanity, emotion, beauty, nature and divinity? There is none of that in this poem, only (and these do not jibe well with christian beliefs) stereotyping, mockery and contempt. The comments seem determined to surpass even that level of spite.

    Reply
  10. Sean Mulroy

    This “poem” is mediocre metrical hate speech. To pervert the use of poetic verse into this kind of snide bigotry is about as true to the spirit of poetry as perverting use of the Gospels into far-right political movements is to the teachings of Christ (something I’d wager you’re also fond of–the politics, not the Christ). Imagine having the restraint to compose verse in meter and not having the restraint to not speak ill of the dead–let alone surrender your palpable contempt for their personhood.

    As for the absolutely baseless “disclaimer” at the bottom (“The Society of Classical Poets does not endorse any views expressed in individual poems or comments.”)? Please spare us your attempts and diverting blame. The very definition of the word endorse (Merriam Webster has it: to approve openly, especially publicly) puts the lie to this statement. You approved this poem to be on your public site. That’s an endorsement. I would have thought as classicists you’d have been mightily invested in prescriptive meaning, but it appears you are more mightily invested in supporting and expressing sing-song hatefulness of a person who has died, while trying to dodge responsibility for your bigotry.

    Reply
    • Joseph S. Salemi

      Sean, in case you didn’t notice, this poem is FICTIVE. It is not about any actual person. That’s what poetry does. It creates fictional characters and places them in imagined scenarios. So why don’t you just go back to your little LGBT world and take a nap?

      As for this poem being “sing-song,” I doubt that you could produce anything close to its structure and symmetry.

      Reply
  11. Jason Schattman

    Sick and horrid. Your hatred of people different from you, who pose no existential threat to you, is a greater menace to mankind than any of the people you are accusing here. It is possible to be annoyed with someone’s behaviour without calling them worthless. I wish I could say the same about my feelings for you.

    Reply
  12. Matthew J. Scully

    I am so so sorry. I am sorry to you, to the person who wrote this, for having such a terrible view on the world and on people, for having such little compassion for your fellow human beings, that you would write this horrible excuse for a poem. I am much more sorry that you posted it, and that you felt good about yourself doing so. I am not one to criticize art, or the way people choose to live. I just hope that someday, you realize how cruel and crude you’ve been. How bitter and angry you choose to be about something that has no effect on you whatsoever, to the point of celebrating the death of somebody simply because they chose to live their life in a way that you did not like. I pray that you find some sort of peace from this anger, and that you wake up and realize that hurting people will not bring you salvation.

    Reply
    • Joseph S. Salemi

      Matt, the next time you post here be sure to include an orchestral section of violins. They will add the right background of sentimental plangency to your emissions.

      Reply
    • The Society

      Dear Scully, Schattman, Mulroy, and Hawkin,

      As Mike Bryant and Dr. Salemi highlight above, this piece is a satire; it is fictional. No one has actually died. I wonder: have you read Shakespeare? Have you read any of the other countless writers of great satire? The point of satire is to point out some flaw in human nature. The flaw in this case is the idea that people can pick their own genders and disregard those that have naturally been given to them by God, the divine, Heaven, or whatever great and good sentience exists in the universe. If you believe in no such thing, then—and this is my reading of the Poet’s perspective only—you sap the meaning from life and you end up with a really irreverent and despicable funeral completely divorced from a sense of eternal life other than that offered by textbook science. The fact that the Poet took the trouble to write this poem is an act of compassion to those who are lost.

      -Evan Mantyk, SCP Editor

      Reply
  13. Joshua C. Frank

    At first, I wasn’t sure what to say about this one, but now I’m seeing all these comments from names I’ve never seen here before! How come I’m not getting all this attention for my poetry, which is just as controversial in its own way? I’ve written against abortion, contraception, smartphones, disobedience to parents, the so-called “family” courts, and liberalism in general, and in favor of large families, career motherhood, the military, the flag, patriotism, religion, a falsely accused priest, and all that stuff.

    https://classicalpoets.org/?s=Joshua+C.+Frank

    As for the poem, I recognize that it’s satire, but I don’t agree with line 11, since the “clump of cells” language is used to justify abortion and should never be used for a human being (except as a reductio ad absurdum against pro-abortion arguments). Line 12 is similarly problematic because the dignity of the human person requires proper burial (even cremated remains have to be kept together). I’m surprised at these lines from a Catholic.

    Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Joshua, the “useless clump of cells” is NOT used in reference to a human being. The clump of cells is the organ unwanted by the deceased person dissatisfied with his gender. We need to take special care in reading this poem because it reflects on a person’s choice to self-identify with the plural pronoun “them.”

      Reply
      • Joshua C. Frank

        OK, that makes more sense. I’m really not used to referring to a singular person as “they.”

    • Joseph S. Salemi

      You’ve got to realize that these four posters (Hawkin, Mulroy, Schattman, and Scully) have come here as a team to cause trouble. They will most likely begin a campaign to inundate the SCP with outraged comments and threats. Mulroy’s comments in particular are clearly designed to set the stage for pressure and the hoped-for deplatforming.

      This sort of thing happens with regularity on the internet. The left appoints a team of enraged freaks to start the ball rolling with a bunch of angry posts, and then calls in reinforcements to up the ante.

      Joshua, you need some pointers in polemics. Your last paragraph, raising minor issues about “clumps of cells” and the proper disposal of cremated remains, is totally irrelevant to this kind of fight. NEVER show weakness and compromise when fighting with the enemy! Essmann’s poem should have been defended fiercely and unapologetically, not with allusions to petty points.

      Reply
      • Joshua C. Frank

        That’s good to know, I was under the assumption that they all found him independently.

        As for the last part, my concern is that we’re standing up for morality, and as Catholics, which you, Jeffrey, and I are, we have a particular idea about right and wrong. If we defend the parts of it we like while dismissing the parts we find inconvenient, then what exactly are we defending? My understanding (which Margaret corrected) was that Jeffrey was saying that a transgender person is just a clump of cells rather than a person, just like pro-abortion people say about unborn children. We can’t promote Church teaching by violating it, any more than we can promote truth by lying. Have I misunderstood something?

      • Joseph S. Salemi

        Yes. You misunderstand polemics. Polemics is NOT the kind of logical argument you get in The Summa of Thomas Aquinas. Polemics is VERBAL COMBAT. It is hard, it is dirty, and it doesn’t follow the Marquess of Queensberry rules.

        In a theological treatise you can worry about all the little details of how cremated remains should be treated. But here at a website, when you have to smack down four leftist creeps who have shown up to start trouble, the important thing is to identify what they are, call them out, show contempt for their comments, and stand up strongly for your fellow soldier (in this case, Jeffrey Essmann).

        As I have explained to Monika Cooper in a recent post, I am not here to promote Church teaching. This is a site for the preservation of traditional formal poetry. Be careful about how you use the pronoun “we.”

      • Joshua C. Frank

        I see. Yes, I was assuming that polemics was more like the Summa Theologica. Given what you’ve described of it, you do it quite well.

        Generally, in an online debate, I write for anyone who might be reading the comment as opposed to specifically for the opponent. (I’m indebted to Susan for this idea.) I know I can’t get the opponent to change his mind (usually, he disappears once I corner him), but I can at least present the truth in the hope that some reader out there may be influenced by it, or at least less influenced by the opponent’s words.

      • Axolotl Maniac

        you are the people advocating hate against others, not them. the language this poem uses is despicable – and it’s a poorly-written poem to boot. Every poem on this website is. You’re a bunch of bigoted hacks. I could rattle out something better than any poem I’ve seen here in fifteen minutes. More importantly, it’s shameful that you use your ability to write to spread such disgusting celebration of death – it isn’t clever satire, it’s heavy-handed, hateful, horrible rhetoric. You all should be ashamed of yourselves.

      • Joshua C. Frank

        Let’s see one of your supposedly better poems. Prove to us that it isn’t just bad prose with random line breaks.

        More importantly, it is you liberals who should be ashamed of yourselves. It’s not okay to write about killing, but it’s okay for mothers to slaughter their own babies in the womb? You are the ones who celebrate death, not we.

  14. Ben Hawkin

    Dear Joshua C. Frank,

    In the finest traditions of men of letters, and in the hope that literature must indeed be “the axe for the frozen sea within us”, I’ll accept your challenge.

    Set me a sincere subject, and a poetic form, and I’ll write you a poem.

    Reply
    • Joseph S. Salemi

      Joshua, remember what I said above. Hawkin and the other three have come here as part of a wrecking crew. The absurd pseudonym “Axolotl Maniac” is probably one of them in disguise, or somebody whom they have pushed to post here. By the way, pseudonyms are not permitted at the SCP, so A.M.’s semil-literate post shouldn’t even be here.

      It’s clear what their plan is. They want to maneuver you into challenging one of them to write a “better poem,” and thereby they will get to have one of their left-liberal propaganda pieces published here. That’s the thin edge of the wedge.

      Poems don’t get published here as part of a “challenge.” Every poem is decided on by one person — Evan Mantyk.

      Don’t fall for what these little creeps are trying to do, Joshua. Instead, write another slash-and-burn poem about transgender freaks, as Essmann has done.

      Reply
      • Joshua C. Frank

        Darn it! I didn’t see your reply until after I posted mine.

        But some anti-transgender poetry is definitely on the way.

    • Joshua C. Frank

      Dear Mr. Hawkin,

      Thank you for accepting my challenge. Since Mr. Essmann’s poem is intended to make a case against the transgender cause, and your objection appears to be the methodology rather than the subject matter (judging by your comment), I’d like to see you write a poem defending (however you see fit to do so) traditional male and female roles, with male and female defined strictly by biological sex. Since we write classical-style poetry (it’s in the name, after all), make sure to use strict rhyme and strict meter (any meter as long as it’s consistent). I’m partial to the French forms myself, so how about a villanelle (with no changes to the refrains)?

      I’d love to see what you come up with.

      Reply

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