One Fine Morning… : Musings on the ‘Dangerous’ Poetry of Robert E Howard

By Jez Turner:

A long bow and a strong bow, and let the sky grow dark!
The cord to the nock, the shaft to the ear, and the King of Koth for a mark!

[Song of the Bossonian Archers]

Robert E Howard, is very much in vogue at the moment among Identitarians. For instance see the highly recommended Jonathan Bowden ‘Pulp Fascism’, edited by Greg Johnson, (Counter Currents Publishing, San Francisco 2013). This book contains a series of articles and speeches by Jonathan Bowden on the best aspects of what came to be known as pulp fiction – comics, movies and cartoon strips – and called ‘pulp’ because it was only meant for the masses and not for the elites. It was nicknamed ‘pulp fiction’ because it was not only printed on cheap paper, but because it was thought to be of such low grade value in a literary sense it could be promptly pulped once read.

However, precisely because it was thought to be of such low grade value, it was and is largely ignored by the largely Jewish New York critics – what Truman Capote called the Jewish literary Mafia – and therefore avoided much of the stifling censure and warping that they were able to impose on higher cultural fare. In other words such ‘pulp’ literature was free to be true to the values and standards of those who created it – free to be White literature – hence the slightly ironic title of the book ‘Pulp Fascism’. In this book Bowden devotes a lot of space to the Texan pulp writer of the 1920’s and 1930’s Robert E Howard and quite rightly so.

‘Identitarian’ is a relatively new term to describe who we are, we used to be called ‘right-wingers’ or ‘extreme-right-wingers’, but this led to much confusion among ourselves, among observers and among our enemies. ‘Right-wing’ could mean ‘capitalist’ and it could mean ‘extreme capitalist’ to a sort of individualist-Darwininian extreme. But Darwin never believed in individualism, because the individual without his genetic group, his community, his tribe, his nation, his race, his DNA destiny, is nothing and worse than useless.

Individualism is selfishness, and selfishness destroys the race and racelessness destroys the individual. The only selfishness that makes any long term sense, and by this I mean across the generations, is as Richard Dawkins rightly points out, the selfishness of the gene. The desire to put your genes first, as an individual WITHIN the family, WITHIN the tribe, WITHIN the nation, WITHIN the race, THIS is the only noble selfishness. Such is the origin of altruism.

We help others who are weaker than us, who are old or disabled, because they still have a part to play in the survival of the race. Traditional societies know this. An elderly crone can tend fires, babysit or watch over the children while they play or discuss family history. A wizened old man can still perform guard duty, tell tales of the past glories of the tribe and use his vast experience to advise the hunters and the warriors. The elderly know about flora and fauna, about animals, they know about the seasons, they know about families, they know about life, illness, nature, blood lines, birth, death and genetics. The elderly have time to listen and talk to the young and much wisdom to impart. Our society now, despite its television sets and its literacy and its cheaply available books, and partly because of the separation of the generations that has resulted from its books and televisions, is perhaps the most stupid and silly society that ever existed.

Incidentally a racial selfishness is also the origin on environmentalism – as it would not be healthy for our race to live in a concrete jungle or a polluted, poisonous swamp. It would not be healthy for us physically, and due to perhaps the unique way the White race is configured, neither would it be healthy for us spiritually. Hence our instinct is to protect nature in all its forms and variations.

 The ‘everyone for himself’, ‘dog eat dog’ mentality, in other words the individualist ideology that prevails today, is designed to destroy us. Designed to destroy us as a race, as tribes, as communities, as families and as individuals.

The enemy of ‘identity’ – ‘the Hostis humanis’ (the enemy of mankind’ – because they are the enemy of all identities, opposing all identities except their own), know this truism.　 Occasionally chutzpah or carelessness or an utter contempt for the qualities and abilities of the remnants of the White race to rouse ourselves and to wake up to the reality of our situation, leads the enemy to speak the truth on this matter, Disraeli admitted as much. Which is why, amidst promoting individualism, multiculturalism, multiracialism, feminism, contraception, abortion, drug addiction, Marxism and liberalism to all and sundry, they secretly promote identitarianism among their own genetic in-group. It’s a winning strategy and has been a winning strategy since time began.

To make yourselves strong, make yourselves stronger.　 Or…. make your rivals, your potential enemies, weaker.

This, is REAL POLITICS.

A village elder in an Afghan hill tribe knows more about real politics than most civilized people today.

When just such a village elder was told recently that the foreign forces were bringing ‘democracy’ to his nation, and that it would be good for his tribe, he replied that the valley of his tribe were the only nation he acknowledged or wanted and that if ‘democracy’ means his tribe will be swamped by foreign immigrants, have to give away their sovereignty to foreigners, have to be nice to criminals, have to denigrate their own culture and music, and listen to rap music instead, have to discourage the young of the tribe from having children, have to encourage his boys to behave like girls and his girls to behave like boys and allow inverts, unnaturals and perverts to marry each other in the village mosque, then he’d rather not have ‘democracy’!

The extinction of his tribe he foresaw would be the result of democracy.

When offered financial bribes and a nice shiny new school for the young girls of this tribe, and perhaps even a few personal backhanders, in return for allowing these improvements, he replied, “You want me to accept a bribe in return for putting my tribe on the road to extinction?”, adding that he’d prefer his tribe to be poverty stricken and yet strong and healthy, rather than wealthy, weak, ill and dying out.

Wealth and property are not worth extinction. Some things are more important than money.

Indeed prosperity and economic growth in the modern sense – in the sense actually talked about on the television and the radio – actually means the exact opposite of the ‘good’ it is assumed to be. It actually means a weakening of our race. It means we are further along the road to extinction.

‘Progressive’ when applied in the modern sense to politics, movements or agendas, actually means ‘whatever weakens us’. It pushes us further down the road to extinction.

When most people think of politics they think of Lib-Lab-Con, or if American Democrat-Republican, and similar bland brands exist in all other White countries. But all of it makes us weaker. This sort of politics is the politics of the enemy of the White race. It’s the politics they want us to have because it makes us weaker and is designed to destroy us. It pushes us towards extinction. All the options available are designed to destroy us, because they all lead to the destruction of our race. Most people are rather like rabbits, mesmerised by the steady left-right movements and beguiling eyes of the python that encloses them within it’s coils.

Well, we nationalists aren’t most people!

‘Western civilization’ – which I use it as a synonym for ‘White civilization’, including every nation where Whites are still, or could still be a viable force – is being weakened to an alarming degree, it is being rapidly destroyed.

To counter this we have to push, support, promote everything that makes the White Race stronger and … our Enemy weaker.

So what makes our Race, the White Race stronger?

Well, there’s an easy trick you can use to determine this. Whenever a news reader, a diplomat, a politican, a political commentator, a social expert uses the word ‘dangerous’, then you can be pretty sure that whatever is described is something that is extremely healthy for our race. When they say, ‘dangerous’, what they actually mean is that it is ‘dangerous’ for them – ‘dangerous’ for those who are trying to destroy our race.

‘Dangerous’ when applied in social or cultural terms by our current elites invariably means ‘whatever makes White communities stronger’. It is the opposite of ‘progressive’.

What a Race needs to strengthen itself and to protect itself – rather like an immune system – is it’s own culture and it’s own exclusive living space within which to express that culture. ‘Race’-‘nation’-‘culture’ – each element of the triangle protects the other and over time, and if conditions are favourable, a civilization will develop within that triangle.

If the culture is indigenous, is native to that race, then it will be a healthy racial culture for that race, in other words a culture that has grown out of and been nourished by that race.　 Race creates culture, not the other way around.

A culture enables the race to express itself in the way it knows best, in a way that is in harmony with its genetic coding and enables the race in turn to thrive and to work out its own unique destiny. The nation protects the genetic identity of the race and protects the culture.

Forcing a race to accept the culture of another race is tantamount to genocide, because in time it will lead to the extinction of that race. This is why we must pay attention to our culture and defend it as vehemently as we seek to defend our borders and our blood. Art, music, architecture, literature, and poetry are all expressions of our culture and all must be promoted.

Robert E Howard’s opus contains some of the most heroically vital, and inspiring work in our White cultural treasure trove and deserves a wider audience.

Now some commentators wonder whether Robert E Howard was in favour of the New Deal and therefore a Democrat, or in favour of free enterprise and therefore a Republican, or there again a fanatical Goldwaterite Conservative. This is just the sort of reasoning you’d expect from rabbits. (I want to point out at this point that I’m not being prejudiced against rabbits here. I’m sure there are some very wise rabbits who aren’t hypnotised by the python’s stare, and some brave ones too, that will fight courageously rather than be mesmerised. Indeed if Richard Adams’s ‘Watership Down’ – where a small group of heroic rabbits escape from an endangered warren to set up a fresh one far away – is anything to go by we could do with taking a lesson from them).

Robert E Howard was not political in the sense of Lib-Lab-Con, he was political in the sense that his cultural output was ‘dangerous’. In other words his cultural output was healthy and true to the DNA of the White race.

He believed in REAL politics, in what REALLY matters. He believed in the survival of the White race, in the thriving of the White race. His writing, his views, the ethos he promoted was and is healthy for our race. He was in short an Identitarian.

However, an aspect often overlooked is that Howard was also a noted poet. Indeed ‘Pulp Fascism’ gives very little attention to ‘pulp poetry’, Howard’s or anyone else’s. But poetry is important – it can be imbibed, absorbed in a very short time, it can be learnt off by heart, recited, passed on to others and its impact can be tremendous. There is no better way to get an idea of Howard’s work than to read some of his poetic offerings. Better still read it out loud, nay chant it to yourself in the way a skaldic bard would have done of yore.

Poetry has a force, power and impact that prose lacks and is somewhat neglected by nationalists – Paul Comben’s volume of poetry ‘Occupation’ published in the 1980s is a rare exception – yet there are signs that poetry is now being recognised as the formidable weapon it is.

I have before me a copy of Robert E Howard ‘Selected Poems: with introduction, selections and commentary by Frank Coffman’. Not the complete poems of Robert E Howard, (both the selected and the complete volumes are available from the Robert E Howard Society), but a very special volume as it was lent to me by Jonathan Bowden himself. It now belongs to the Jonathan Bowden Society, but I cling onto it on an extended loan for sentimental reasons.

A few choice specimens of Howard’s poetry will be enough to give you a flavour of the man and his work.

The following poem depicts the White man’s straightforwardness, his hardiness, his honesty, his bravery, his distrust of wealth and the pampered easy life and his sensible disgust of a civilization that has decayed into multi-racial, multi-cultural mess.

The Phoenix on the Sword [extract]

When I was a fighting-man, the kettle-drums they beat;
The people scattered gold-dust before my horse’s feet,
But now I am a great king, the people hound my track
With poison in my wine-cup, and daggers at my back.

What do I know of cultured ways, the gilt, the craft and the lie?
I, who was born in a naked land and bred under the open sky.
The subtle tongue, the sophist guile, they fail when the broadswords sing;
Rush in and die, dogs – I was a man before I was a king.

[The Road of Kings]

Look at this extract from ‘Memories (1)’, which could easily have been titled ‘the human parasites’, and which makes hints towards ‘that very special people’, (those strangers in our midst), that treacherously threw open the gates of White cities to the non-Whites – the Turks, the Moors, the Mongols and the Tartars – and then obtained special protection and favoured trading and money lending rights from the conquerors. By the time Vienna was besieged we’d probably learned our lesson – a lesson we need to re-learn urgently.

Extract from Memories (1)

Here in old times a city rose
With human loves and hates
And men came over the desert sands
To beat at the brazen gates.
The towers broke their spears and mauls
As a red cliff breaks the sea;
Ten thousand men beat at these walls –
but those walls fell because of me

I was the thorn that stings the flesh;
The worm that gnaws the root;
A snaky net that might enmesh
A nation’s iron foot.
I was the thief that slipped the bolt,
That broke the secret bars.
The red tide thundered through the wall,
And the flames put out the stars.

Dim time has blotted out that night
Of death and scarlet rain.
Victor and vanquished long are dust
But the traitor lives again.
I mock the jests the eons have brought
In stone and the pale starlight,
And I laugh in the ruin that I wrought
Like a jackal in the night.”

[The Human Parasites]

Some say such work as Howard’s is ‘cultural pessimism’, but I disagree. I’d even go so far as to say that the term ‘cultural pessimism’ is a term foisted on us by those who do not wish us well. Pessimistic for them maybe, but not for us.

Civilization the greatest of the White Race’s Cultural creations is fragile. Civilization – culture – race – nation are all linked, and if any one of the links are broken or any one of the constituents weakened, then corruption sets in and all may be ruined, as the next poem ‘Warning’ prophesizes.

Warning

‘’You have built a world of paper and wood,
Culture and cults and lies;
Has the cobra altered beneath his hood,
Or the fire in the tiger’s eyes?

You have turned from valley and hill, and flood,
You have set yourselves apart,
Forgetting the earth that feeds the blood
And the talon that finds the heart.

You boast you have stilled the lustful call
Of the black ancestral ape,
But Life, the tigress that bore you all,
Has never changed her shape.

And a strange shape comes to your faery mead
With a fixed black simian frown,
But you will not know and you will not heed
Till your towers come tumbling down.”

Explanations, interpretations aren’t necessary for understanding such poetry. You don’t need to be specifically educated in order to understand it, in the way you supposedly need to be in order to understand modern art, or modern architecture. No, this sort of poetry hits you right in the heart, a schoolboy could understand it and take fire from it and be inspired to become a poet or a writer himself.

Howard is best known for his unique blend of what could be termed ‘violent historical poetry’ – he was the man who basically created the sword and sorcery craze – yet the breadth of his poetry covers all themes and genres. However, it is when he is treating historical or mythical themes that he truly excels.

History and myth to Howard are the here and now, they are all embracing and influence all we do and say and all what we are to become. What else is our DNA but the creation of history?

We are here because of our ancestors – because they fought, loved, lived and died – yet the DNA survived.

We are a chain linking the ancient myths of the past to the star-flung reaches of the future. And if any links in the chain are broken, there is no more chain.

Howard himself spoke of the historical characters he wrote about as being alive to him. He felt that they dictated their histories to him over his shoulder while he wrote – and who is to say they didn’t?

One of my favourites in the romantic-historical genre is ‘the Gladiator and the Lady’.

The Gladiator and the Lady

When I was a boy in Britain
And you were a girl in Rome,
Forests and mountains lay between,
And the hungry, restless foam.
Today naught lay between us,
Only the wall, at least,
That guards the proud patrician
From the slave and the dying beast.
Our hearts we read that instant
My eyes with yours met,
But there were swords to sunder
And life blood to let.
And you will marry a consul
And live on the Palatine
And I will take some slave girl
From the Garonne or the Rhine.
But you will dream at the banquet,
While the roses scent the air
Of a blazing eyed barbarian
With a shock of yellow hair.
And through the roar of the lions
And the clang of sword and mace,
I’ll dream of a pair of dark deep eyes
And a proud patrician face.
We still are as far asunder
As the hut and the arch and dome
When I was a boy in Britain
And you were a girl in Rome.

There is something in that poem that appeals to our instinctive feel for pathos and brings a sad-sweet smile to all alike – male, female, young and old.

The next poem ‘To a Friend’ conjurs up images of enslaved Europeans languishing under the whip of Ottomans Barabary pirates, and could quite easily be re-titled ‘White Slaves’.

To a Friend (White Slaves)

I toiled beside you in the galley’s chains
Through long, long days of deathly toll the same.
North born, from some far Viking land you came;
The dark Milesian fury coursed my veins.
Then came a night of battle, blood and flame,
And we rose up and shook our tangled manes
And wiped out days and nights of fear and shame
With a rage that laved the decks in gore and brains.

The years have stretched to eons – vanished quite
That day we burst the grim forecastle door.
Yet let them have a care who mock our might –
The hour may come as in those days before
When we shall rise and bellow to the night
And plunge our hands in hot red blood once more.

The metaphor couldn’t be clearer.  As I say, ‘dangerous stuff’. Such poetry as Jonathan Bowden rightly said, ‘builds courage’ and this is why it is dangerous, dangerous for our enemies.

We have two options before us: Extinction; or Survival. That is real politics.

When you’re a slave, when your people are slaves and by degree slowly being exterminated before your very eyes, you don’t seriously bother about the irrelevancies of the left wing, centrist, right wing political process. You might engage in the political process to build networks, to use it as a way to gain experience to reach out and to wake up members of your race, but it most definitely is not the be-all-and-end-all, for we are talking about our very survival here!

With survival as the prize you engage in ‘real politics’, you work, you build, you spread the word, you inform, you enlighten, you educate, you inspire, you gain little victories, you prepare the ground. You use Culture and yes poetry, you bide your time, you wait, wait and nurse your hate for the enemies who hate our race and want to see it exterminated. You grow stronger, you reach further, you gain larger victories, and then still larger victories.  And then, one fine morning …

By Jez Turner © 2014

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