Logical Palsy or Will to Power? (ROUND 2)
Let’s workshop this poem THAT I ACCIDENTALLY DELETED
scent of the day: Bonded, by Rogue
Bonded (2025, by Manuel Cross)—not quite the prohibition-era revelry I expected (barstools and countertops sticky with the smoky moss-inflected hooch of a Harlem speakeasy funkified by the tang-crease sweat of proto-Joyce-Bryant dancers as well as by the ass-armpit anxiety of a billy-club police raid that could crack down any minute), but rather something much closer to tax-attorney doldrums (flask cracked open, whiskey and aftershave aromas mixing in a nicotine-stained office of wood-paneling and all the mustard-olive-orange tones of the early 60s)—
opens with an aged apple bourbon (slightly sour but—if not better described as simply plain bourbon mixed with muddled apple—still closer, with its fall naturalism and warm spice and subtle caramel-oak tone, to the orchard-realism of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Apple than to the green-jolly-rancher-realism of Jim Beam Apple Bourbon Whiskey) into which is dipped a cigar or, as it seems more to my mind, a cured tobacco leaf
(a burley-blonde leaf, softer and sweeter than the more leathery-coffee broadleaf, then laid like a funeral flower between the pages of a book for memento petrification, only here the book is not the typical table-thudding thesaurus or unabridged dictionary whose age has radicalized its vanilla-almond mustiness but rather a glossy magazine—JFK on the cover of Time or John Glenn on the cover of Life way more likely in this office than Cicely Tyson on the cover of Ebony or gnaw-off-your-own-hand-off-for-a-piece Joyce Bryant on the cover of Jet—whose fresh ink and adhesives radiate manufacturing VOCs),
this bourbon-burley combo (dry and vanillic as a tax ledger) given extra earthy-green junk in the truck by what would have been a showstopping foundation of mentholated-soap oakmoss (a Rogue-signature) and sapling-stem-meets-industrial-glue Vietnamese agarwood (a main source of the glossy magazine aroma) were those two notes just a bit more fermented and animalic and exotic as opposed to thinned to the office-leather sophistication of Pall-Mall-smoking pale men not too far removed (although further than I would like) from Mad Men masculinity (were those two notes, that is to say, fermented and animalic and exotic at least enough to suggest the tax man stroking out an overdue payload onto the PVC traffic-mat under his desk with the taboo aid of a secret photo, yes, of the Black Marylin Monroe herself)—
the overall effect being a mass-appealing woody-boozy barbershop fragrance whose apple-cider aura (perhaps largely due to chamomile) is not too far from what we get in the deep dry down of Lao Oud (a big point in its favor) and whose camphoraceous tobacco and bourbon lands (underwhelmingly, at least for experienced noses) somewhere between Fan Your Flames and Zoologist Rhinoceros, tilting increasingly to the latter as the mentholated opening recedes over a life quite long (at least by non-vintage and non-Rogue EDT standards) until ultimately we are left with a moss-leather generic base that fulfills an important place in niche-artisanal-heavy collection such as mine (safe yet full of character) and yet still would be one of the first I would part with because of the bowing-to-Sauron amberwoody-synthetic (something more toxic than your run-of-the-mill ambroxan) that shows itself in the deep drydown powerfully enough that I now can sense it from the start;
the overall effect being, so long as we bracket off that ultra-modern if not futuristic amberwoods base, an olfactive expression of undeniable class and composure and pre-internet designer feel that, despite transporting me so clearly to a mid-twentieth-century Americana office where a weary but resolved man (definitely balding from his glory days of Mousse Illuminee) takes a little tibble in his secret workaday ritual, falls short (for all its superb blending and remarkable roundness) to similar scents more up my alley (such as the more complex and engaging Rhinoceros or even the more rugged and roughhewn The Scent of Banat, an overlooked release by Wesker that comes in at nearly half the price and yet gets me nearly to the same musty-woody place that Tabac Dore gets me).
Logical Palsy or Will to Power? “Borders,” the bullhorns bleat, “are bogus and immoral to police,” hence “no Mexican, no migrant, is illegal”— and to the gotcha “So how can you say whites stole this land?” their reply spreadeagles (speculum cranked) their power ploy: “The borders are white.”
"Logical Palsy or Will to Power?" is a highly polemical poem that critiques what it perceives as a selective and self-serving application of anti-border ideology. The poem frames a contemporary debate around immigration and land claims, arguing that a particular ideological stance, seemingly rooted in universal principles, ultimately reveals itself as a naked exercise in power.
Formally, the poem adopts a confrontational and interrogative structure. It begins with the direct address of "bullhorns" bleating slogans like "“Borders,”... “are bogus and immoral / to police,” hence “no Mexican, / no migrant, is illegal”—". This sets up the initial premise, presenting a common rhetorical position regarding open borders and the illegality of human movement. The use of quotes and "bullhorns" suggests a public, activist discourse. The poem then introduces a "gotcha" question, designed to expose perceived hypocrisy: "So how can you say / whites stole this land?" This question directly challenges the consistency of the initial anti-border stance when applied to historical territorial claims. The climax of the poem comes with the "reply" that "spreadeagles (speculum / cranked) their power ploy: / “The borders are white.”" This response is depicted as both revealing and aggressive. The imagery of "spreadeagles" and "speculum cranked" is visceral and violent, suggesting a forced exposure or a brutal unveiling of an underlying motive.
Thematically, the poem fundamentally questions the coherence and motivations behind certain contemporary political arguments. The title, "Logical Palsy or Will to Power?", encapsulates the core tension: is the inconsistency simply a "logical palsy" (a cognitive or intellectual failure), or is it a deliberate "will to power" (a strategic manipulation of arguments to gain dominance)? The poem argues for the latter, portraying the "The borders are white" retort not as a logical extension of the initial anti-border stance, but as a calculated "power ploy." It suggests that the same borders deemed "bogus and immoral" when limiting migration are suddenly acknowledged and weaponized when they serve a narrative of historical grievance and racialized land claims. This highlights a perceived selective application of principles, where the very concept of "borders" shifts its moral valence depending on who is being accused or who stands to benefit. The poem critiques what it sees as a strategic inconsistency, where the rhetoric of liberation from borders is deployed to achieve specific ends related to historical redress, revealing an underlying agenda of power acquisition rather than consistent ideological adherence.
identity politics, borders, immigration, land claims, political critique, rhetoric, hypocrisy, power dynamics, logical inconsistency, social commentary, polemic, contemporary issues, race, historical grievance, activism.