We do it to ourselves-mutilate our tongue
Say "freaking"instead of Anglo-Saxon fuking
Do not mention death or bodily fluids,sex or Biblical intimacies
(even Chaucer and Shakespeare were Bowdlerised)-I
read the list of banned books-they are treasures!D H Lawrence,Henry Miller,
Norman Mailer,John Steinbeck-visions of possibilities cut,mutilated,edited to extinction
Even when published,subjected to persecution.Burning books is burning Buddhists-
silent witnesses of truths so deep we dare not speak them aloud.
Like censored films,plays,poems,songs-there is no art in limitation
Knowledge is growth,connection-wisdom is comparative literature.
Ulysses 's worth not determined by its detractors-more by those who read and enjoy
What is not said crowds all of us out of our reading rooms.We are lesser mortals when fear rules.
Figleafed genitals,or absent Disney animals mean we dare not deal with the source of our own origins.
Censorship destroys truth,substituting politically safe neutrality,which(like Switzerland)
is good only for snow,chocolate and cuckoo clocks.Say it! Write it loud!
and let your eyes and ears amplify your tongue's freedom.
The hand will write what you see and feel.Aligned with truth,
we stumble in to the new,with only the old to guide us.
Open the doors of perception!Write your Paradise!
Milton and Dante await your versions/your visions-your bravery!
UT's Harry Ransom display of banned and censored texts awaits-19th/Guadalupe daily.Behind the Gutenberg Bible.
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