- Slum-house Divinity -
A REVIEW OF HARLEY CLAES’ HEDONISTS HEAVEN
Hedonists Heaven is the most recently published work from Ms. Claes, a story of vulgarity, pain, and the divine feminine power she’s taken with the direction of her life. If you’re unfamiliar with Claes, I highly suggest you look up her page here on Substack; The Dharma Bum Poetess. Harley is a passionate force in the literary world, bringing the anachronistic to the modern page. She is both tender, playful, and points a sharp sword with her style and work.
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We begin with PACIFIST IN A PUNK HOUSE, A tale of a homeless youth, jumping from place to place, a soul deep and tortured by the nary ways of living on concrete beds. Drugs and affairs become her home throughout these poems, as she reconciles with the hopeless nature of her situation. Any bed is better than the benches at the park where danger is ‘round every corner, and seemingly every ceiling houses a creep, a leech slipping under the skin of a vulnerable youth.
Madness becomes a normality. In desperation, she searches from trap house to punk shed for a person worthy of becoming her compass. A sign, by god, any sign, any butterfly passing in the window, to tell her where to go, what direction leads from the left hand path. And in the end, we find a savior, in the midst of LSD dragon-brained delirium and the heat of running from violence, a blond man with the heart of a new age Jesus who sees the truth, that Claes is not a cursed cigarette butt to be tossed around between bad men, but a pariah of the new age, radiant in the arms of true love.
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The second entry, THE HOLY EROTIC ARMAGEDDON, was written in the furious rebirth after trauma. Claes takes to the word, so oft forgotten when living from a bag, and takes her power back as she muses on sex. From filth, hands in youth, hungry for soft innocence, the debauchery turns the child to adult. Carnal desires, flirting with gender and sexuality, she finds both beauty and razors-edge terror in her lovers.
At times the absurdity of the attraction is clear. Claes writes, “When I have sex I think of Debra print-purses, no Juicy Couture, I can be your Polly Pocket, Coach, Christian Dior…” In what might be seen as humorous, sad, and also symbolic of toxic masculine views of womanhood. Between tender entries, violent abusive affairs, and objectifying the self in a statement of irony, we see through a clear lens the drastic dichotomy of being a sex symbol, being a woman, and becoming a willing participant in the sexual realm.
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In CIRCE DE CABARET, Harley continues her story of alternative living by writing of her profession as a nightclub dancer. We see Claes take on the role of seductress, willingly wrapping herself around poles, stripping for men with their dog-teeth and their dollars. She muses on the lifestyle of taking advantage of men’s loneliness and desperation, their show-off gluttony, amidst also being portrayed as the whore, the cheap thrill, the home-wrecker.
Such contrast is seen, such questions asked, who has the power? Where does morality play in? The women who work paint their skins, diet, and cry together. They earn and bond.
Pigs raid the joint, angry at the world and at their failures. They beat on those who’ve found success in the underground, taking what they earn and spitting on the idols of the night. Feminine power is looked down upon, and the men who smoke and pay, get nothing but freedom.
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Harley Claes laces together three stories intertwined by both timeline and theme. Her poetry is sprung from truth. She tells a cautionary tale that poses questions along with philosophical ideas. In the age of youths being taught coquetry as a personality to be admired, children raised under poor conditions, fed the lie of drugs ecstasy, the dismal portrait of what true love consists of, this poetry collection comes as a refreshment.
We see through the vision of those a parent might warn their child about and take compassion for the tale of the lost generations. Claes, the tormented poet, manages throughout all the vile and toxic, to find beauty in her world, in her being, one possessed with the power of creation. A visionary in modernity’s churning pool of mediocrity and fast-paced algorithms, Claes stands the test of time with her honest prose and miraculous mind.
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You can get a copy of Hedonists Heaven (And more from Claes) here:
https://angelicalraviings.gumroad.com/l/hedonist
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Thank you for reading!! If you’d like me to review your work, send me a suggestion in my DM’s and I’ll consider it!