Much as I try to avoid it, it seems to be difficult for me to avoid a cynical tone... A recurring theme is people thinking they're so big and clever when they're in fact not.
What I'm sort of getting at here is the prevailing modern belief that God doesn't exist. I'm not saying I believe in God yet still I kind of think we're a bit spiritually lost in 'The West'. I am particularly interested in how the spiritual and the physical, or scientific, mesh. Is this what people mean when they refer to the metaphysical?
Despite this professed non-belief, our everyday lexicon is peppered, peppered I say, with God stuff. There are more obvious examples than the following, but the following is one I like:
Who are you to {tell me how to live my life/ say/ judge}
- I think the implication is: You are not God.
Bill Hicks did a routine in which he impersonates some kind of heckler. In a whiny voice he says 'Who are you to say, what makes you the judge, wah wah wah'; His response: 'I'm me, it's true, shut the F up', which is an enjoyable riposte from a man who believed in god but was vehemently anti the prevailing view of what God is, and managed to be articulate and hilarious in explaining this. Hicks referred to a god who loves us unconditionally and who will rain down gifts of forgiveness.
'Evolve ideas' is also Hicks, a phrase he often employed during his eloquentia, his rants about the stuntedness of humanity.
'Break on through' and 'The Other Side' are Jim Morrison. I love Morrison's poetic lyrics, particularly his song The Other Side. I looked at the full lyrics, contemplating making more use of them. I couldn't think of a way this time and I suspect his wordsmithery is best enjoyed along with the music anyway. Still, here's a snippet:
We chased our pleasures here
Dug our treasures there
But can you still recall
The time we cried
Break on through to the other side
Break on through to the other side
The title of the upcoming poem, possibly misplaced, is from The Cure's 'Close to Me'. Here are some of the lyrics:
i never thought this day would end
i never thought tonight could ever be
this close to me
just try to see in the dark
just try to make it work
to feel the fear before you're here
i make the shapes come much too close
i pull my eyes out
hold my breath
and wait until i shake...
but if i had your faith
then i could make it safe and clean
if only i was sure
that my head on the door was a dream
In the insulated first world, we have the luxury of political and moral belief, in quite an abstract way. There is no such thing in The South and because survival and subsistence are more clear and present, the personal and the political are indistinguishable: Human life is cheap or disposable, priorities are different. Things like personal responsibility or paying taxes are abstract and absurd. The world is generally an absurd place and again, of course, the third world seems more absurd to a first worlder. But it's a bit like growing up; safe little notions of what should be get successively trampled by what simply is.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
If only I Was Sure
Everything revealed,
double helix unravelled
having vanquished all
as if all were foes,
fear rears still
rears forth as it did to those
who thought the world flat
and the sky imminent.
Too much at fingertips
Not enough at soul
No bottom only bold
strides, giant leaps
no gravity, no tether;
free or adrift we cannot know
until it's too late
Soul forgotten, heretic soul.
Evolve ideas, break on through
the Other Side is waiting
beyond the Wailing Wall
Perhaps a climb-down is in order
from the widget-encrusted throne
the chrome asylum
the Googlegimmick high-chair
the REAL PLAYER.
iThis, iThat, iThe other
When all the iWhile
the games console us
we drift away from the shroud
away from the tallis
and towards the man-eating
blockbustering overlapping
waves of the many many many
kinds of violence.
Thursday, 2 December 2010
Wednesday, 21 July 2010
Time as an SEC
I was listening to Sweet Thing, one of my favourite songs (Performed by The Waterboys as opposed to Van Morrison on this occasion) so some of the words in this poem are lifted from there. At the same time I was messaging with a friend who has a kid. I was suggesting we meet up but she couldn't, largely because of her kid. In reassuring her that I was fine with meeting up with her and the kid, I referred to myself as Uncle. I remembered walking on a country path on The Wirral in the north west of England with my "ex nephew", aka the nephew of my ex. She and I used to take care of him a lot and I had known him since he was very little. On this occasion I remember him being behind me, I suppose pottering and frittering and dawdling as kids are wont to do. Spontaneously he said my name preceded by the title he, I assume, had decided at that moment to bestow upon me: Uncle. Myself and my ex were quite touched. The Child in Time is a fascinating novel by Ian McEwan and I often think of it. I don't have a copy of it at the moment, must pick one up next time I'm in the UK... It charts a father's PTSD/ general state of mind following the snatching of his child and is a novel very concerned with Time as a subjective emotional concept, adding and interweaving physics. The way children experience time is different and, it could be argued, the way every human and other animal experiences time is different. I therefore like the ambivalence of "in his own time". We've all seen children in their own little worlds, playing, often alone, creating a whole inner world, far from adult clock. "More than a promise": Children are a very practical reminder, as opposed to something as abstract as the line from Sweet Thing: I will never grow so old again.
"Gardens all wet with rain". Reminds me of a fairy tale I liked as a child, involving some pauper, woodcutter, prince or whoever, who scaled the high walls of the secret garden to get at the mouth wateringly sweet lettuces. I think that garden really exists, in Calderstones Park in south Liverpool.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sweet Thing
Gardens all wet with rain, the child trailing behind,
a country trail far from his inner city circle
just digging it all not wondering why.
Could teach us a thing or two, us the containers
the carers, the modern life sharers,
he could, as he ambles in his own world.
A beautiful child in his own time
in his own time he dawdles
in his own world, he could let us in on the secret.
Left to his own devices, left to imagine and expand
he is our vow, he is more than a promise
and we dote, awaiting his next proclamation.
"Gardens all wet with rain". Reminds me of a fairy tale I liked as a child, involving some pauper, woodcutter, prince or whoever, who scaled the high walls of the secret garden to get at the mouth wateringly sweet lettuces. I think that garden really exists, in Calderstones Park in south Liverpool.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sweet Thing
Gardens all wet with rain, the child trailing behind,
a country trail far from his inner city circle
just digging it all not wondering why.
Could teach us a thing or two, us the containers
the carers, the modern life sharers,
he could, as he ambles in his own world.
A beautiful child in his own time
in his own time he dawdles
in his own world, he could let us in on the secret.
Left to his own devices, left to imagine and expand
he is our vow, he is more than a promise
and we dote, awaiting his next proclamation.
Monday, 21 June 2010
all-important context
Like many, I feel as though a different part of my brain is accessed when i listen to music - because it is. poetry, music, fluid conversation resembles both. language has rhythm, if he who uses it is deft of word. when two people engage in a conversation that's meaningful there is a fluidity like no other and not just because of the words used in fact often in spite of them; unspoken undercurrents,flirtation in every sense of the term and in every sense of the speaker.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
getting to the heart of the matter
two conversations, in quick succession
the first longer, more disjointed, the second
with more purpose but with the all-important
grounding, basis of the first; context.
and following both the music and this,
this, is the ocean beneath, the cavern
and awakened is the heart and opened is
the can, worms, warts, all asunder.
laid bare in the most pleasing way,
the tumbling words of the naive poet
borne against the twinged light of age
filtered, dark soul to confused brow.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
getting to the heart of the matter
two conversations, in quick succession
the first longer, more disjointed, the second
with more purpose but with the all-important
grounding, basis of the first; context.
and following both the music and this,
this, is the ocean beneath, the cavern
and awakened is the heart and opened is
the can, worms, warts, all asunder.
laid bare in the most pleasing way,
the tumbling words of the naive poet
borne against the twinged light of age
filtered, dark soul to confused brow.
Sunday, 13 June 2010
'sall Relative Innit
I write my stuff elsewhere before posting it here (though these, my commentaries, I do write straight onto the blog - Fascinating I know) and I noticed I had written the poem below and not posted it. I tend to reel off words sometimes, which on the plus side means I have spurts of productivity and in a general sort of way I guess I'm fairly prolific - Don't really have a lot to compare myself to. Disadvantage is I'm often not sure it's any good. This is where you come in. I repeat what I've said to "you" individually: I really value your feedback/ critique, including "I think the penultimate line of stanza II is too long" or whatever - Seriously.
Anyway, I think this poem is somehow connected to A Shockingly Vivid Dream and the link is memory and the subconscious. Cassette tapes are becoming rapidly obsolete but most of you are as old or even older (OMG LOL) than me so will know what I mean when I refer to Autoplayback - It was written on a lot of tape recorders. In my unending fascination with the mindscape and self observation, it seems that one thing the mind does, one assumes since birth, is to simply record everything it encounters, everything it "sees". This in turn is why the eye is so interesting - It seems, to me and I imagine to those of us whose eyes work, to be the most manifest part of the brain, and is sort of the loading dock or the wide mouth (see my poem called "Eye"), through which the cerebellum (...) ingests information. Of course it's not just the eye, it's the other receptive senses too, especially the ear. The autoplayback seems to occur when the organism is at rest, hence when I half wake from deep sleep, I hear voices...! Don't worry, I'm not losing it (Be quiet Gerald, I'm telling them). It does sound like a long reel of tape though, being played back in (seemingly) no particular order.
Someone sent me the video of Jill Bolte Taylor, which I find quite amazing. Her voice is a bit monotonous but anyway:
http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html
I've never had a stroke but I have felt weird and so could relate to some of the sensations she describes. When she describes feeling huge I could relate and of course we are potentially huge, I think. I think a physicist or neurologist could probably give you a formula for that, er, maybe - Something to do with gravity and relativity and depth perception. The metaphysical is pretty incredible, and poetic and mysterious. The notion that when we have experiences or traumas which are outside the normal realm we are granted another view of the world and ourselves is logical - One might even call it casting adrift from self. I recommend The Child in Time by Ian McEwan. In that book he manages to tie emotion and science together quite well, with a focus on time and our relationship with it.
First is the poem as I originally penned it, then follows another version, the Sir Fagpakit Edit. He comments:
'It occurred to me that you had deliberately made the lines longer to provide a sort of visual echo of the tape playing to the end ...'
- It wasn't deliberate, though I like the idea and image.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Autoplayback
we are sprats in a sea of molecules branching off an ocean of energy
and we have tools which enable us to take this ocean in, for if not
it would drown us as a black hole sucks in stars and gas and light.
the tools are the mind and this reflects the ocean and the tools are
the eyes and they are the mind's closest ally because not only do they see,
they allow us to tell as in distinguish and it, the small muscle called the eye,
has an esoteric counterpart inside the fortress, amidst the microcircuitry
and this is the situation room, where raw sense data is decrypted.
the mind's eye as we call it, sees, tells, is memory and Now all at once,
a Chinese alphabet, deep in character and complex in sheer number,
quantity of linear code shapes, calculating tickertape spewing intelligence
crossed with sensory perception, streaming beaming light-resembling energy.
Small being versus big being, I am on the train as opposed to I am;
whirring away left brain chatter, all about the non-Now, whirring were
Fusing will be, no time for am being, no time to do things now because
there's way too much that already occurred, to stow and box off
and too much to come, for which groundwork must be laid, categories
lined up; all about the boundaries, the sorting office, gone postal.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Autoplayback - Fag Edit
We are sprats in a sea of molecules
Branching off an ocean of energy
And we have tools which enable us
To take this ocean in, for if not
It would drown us as a black hole
Sucks in stars and gas and light.
The tools are the mind and this reflects the ocean
And the tools are the eyes and they are the mind's closest ally
Because not only do they see,
They allow us to tell as in distinguish
And it, the small muscle called the eye,
Has an esoteric counterpart inside the fortress
Amidst the microcircuitry
And this is the situation room
Where raw sense data is decrypted.
The mind's eye as we call it, sees, tells
Is memory and Now all at once,
A Chinese alphabet, deep in character
And complex in sheer number,
Quantity of linear code shapes
Calculating tickertape spewing intelligence
Crossed with sensory perception
Streaming beaming light-resembling energy.
Small being versus big being
I am on the train as opposed to I am;
Whirring away left brain chatter
All about the non-Now, whirring were
Fusing will be, no time for am being
No time to do things now because
There's way too much that already occurred
To stow and box off and too much to come
For which groundwork must be laid
Categories lined up; all about the boundaries
The sorting office, gone postal.
Anyway, I think this poem is somehow connected to A Shockingly Vivid Dream and the link is memory and the subconscious. Cassette tapes are becoming rapidly obsolete but most of you are as old or even older (OMG LOL) than me so will know what I mean when I refer to Autoplayback - It was written on a lot of tape recorders. In my unending fascination with the mindscape and self observation, it seems that one thing the mind does, one assumes since birth, is to simply record everything it encounters, everything it "sees". This in turn is why the eye is so interesting - It seems, to me and I imagine to those of us whose eyes work, to be the most manifest part of the brain, and is sort of the loading dock or the wide mouth (see my poem called "Eye"), through which the cerebellum (...) ingests information. Of course it's not just the eye, it's the other receptive senses too, especially the ear. The autoplayback seems to occur when the organism is at rest, hence when I half wake from deep sleep, I hear voices...! Don't worry, I'm not losing it (Be quiet Gerald, I'm telling them). It does sound like a long reel of tape though, being played back in (seemingly) no particular order.
Someone sent me the video of Jill Bolte Taylor, which I find quite amazing. Her voice is a bit monotonous but anyway:
http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html
I've never had a stroke but I have felt weird and so could relate to some of the sensations she describes. When she describes feeling huge I could relate and of course we are potentially huge, I think. I think a physicist or neurologist could probably give you a formula for that, er, maybe - Something to do with gravity and relativity and depth perception. The metaphysical is pretty incredible, and poetic and mysterious. The notion that when we have experiences or traumas which are outside the normal realm we are granted another view of the world and ourselves is logical - One might even call it casting adrift from self. I recommend The Child in Time by Ian McEwan. In that book he manages to tie emotion and science together quite well, with a focus on time and our relationship with it.
First is the poem as I originally penned it, then follows another version, the Sir Fagpakit Edit. He comments:
'It occurred to me that you had deliberately made the lines longer to provide a sort of visual echo of the tape playing to the end ...'
- It wasn't deliberate, though I like the idea and image.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Autoplayback
we are sprats in a sea of molecules branching off an ocean of energy
and we have tools which enable us to take this ocean in, for if not
it would drown us as a black hole sucks in stars and gas and light.
the tools are the mind and this reflects the ocean and the tools are
the eyes and they are the mind's closest ally because not only do they see,
they allow us to tell as in distinguish and it, the small muscle called the eye,
has an esoteric counterpart inside the fortress, amidst the microcircuitry
and this is the situation room, where raw sense data is decrypted.
the mind's eye as we call it, sees, tells, is memory and Now all at once,
a Chinese alphabet, deep in character and complex in sheer number,
quantity of linear code shapes, calculating tickertape spewing intelligence
crossed with sensory perception, streaming beaming light-resembling energy.
Small being versus big being, I am on the train as opposed to I am;
whirring away left brain chatter, all about the non-Now, whirring were
Fusing will be, no time for am being, no time to do things now because
there's way too much that already occurred, to stow and box off
and too much to come, for which groundwork must be laid, categories
lined up; all about the boundaries, the sorting office, gone postal.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Autoplayback - Fag Edit
We are sprats in a sea of molecules
Branching off an ocean of energy
And we have tools which enable us
To take this ocean in, for if not
It would drown us as a black hole
Sucks in stars and gas and light.
The tools are the mind and this reflects the ocean
And the tools are the eyes and they are the mind's closest ally
Because not only do they see,
They allow us to tell as in distinguish
And it, the small muscle called the eye,
Has an esoteric counterpart inside the fortress
Amidst the microcircuitry
And this is the situation room
Where raw sense data is decrypted.
The mind's eye as we call it, sees, tells
Is memory and Now all at once,
A Chinese alphabet, deep in character
And complex in sheer number,
Quantity of linear code shapes
Calculating tickertape spewing intelligence
Crossed with sensory perception
Streaming beaming light-resembling energy.
Small being versus big being
I am on the train as opposed to I am;
Whirring away left brain chatter
All about the non-Now, whirring were
Fusing will be, no time for am being
No time to do things now because
There's way too much that already occurred
To stow and box off and too much to come
For which groundwork must be laid
Categories lined up; all about the boundaries
The sorting office, gone postal.
Tuesday, 8 June 2010
Shockingly Vivid Comment...
... from Amanda:
That's cool, man. Keep 'em coming. I know what you mean about the delightfully endless tangential journeys through wikipedia.
That's cool, man. Keep 'em coming. I know what you mean about the delightfully endless tangential journeys through wikipedia.
Saturday, 5 June 2010
The Very Bowels of Creation
It's amazing what the weird mix of red wine and slightly out of date ice cream can create. i was awoken from a dream by the sound of a voice. i awoke suddenly, i heard the voice so clearly. there was someone else in the dream with me, someone i know. was the voice supposed to belong to this person? does it matter? only me there, in reality.
how digestion affects the extent and intensity to which we dream has interested me for a while, because, as happened in the last hour or so, sometimes my own dreams are so vivid and i know it's because there is rumbling going on below. i was fascinated to learn from the genius stephen fry on the show called QI, that we have a "second brain" in our gut. further research revealed its slightly more opaque anatomical name: the enteric nervous system. it can function independently of the main brain (you know, the one inbetween the ears - yeah, cheers) and this, apart from being fascinating, holds poetic humour and mystique for me; funny to think of all the emotion that gets connoted with guts, both in cliched phrasing e.g. i think he's got the guts to go for it etc, as well as the fact that medically, so many of the symptoms of emotional angst are traced to the gut region.
neurology is endlessly interesting to me and again there is poetry in the medical terminology. we really have a sympathetic nervous system, for example. i find much poetry in scientific register, to my delight. much of the lexicon of the following poem is from my beloved wikipedia, which fans out as does the malapropping mental lexicon. i could get lost for days, drifting on a sea of wiki. there is copy here from text on gear systems, speech generating technology, even a little seismology i think - i was obsessed with geography and my ward lock's pictorial atlas as a child and distinctly remember the cut-in-half world, the inner and outer core, the earth's crust. a certain tv character i like uttered a phrase i like: "spinning iron amorphous core of the earth". i am probably mis quoting but hey, poetic license and all that. he was being dramatic (no, really?) but his phrase seems to have seeped into my conscience, like the thingies through the intestinal cheesecloth in my poem. i now think "spinning iron amorphous core of the earth" is a real thing, which i don't think it is.
from all my ferreting around on wiki, i would most highly recommend the entry on the steam digester, also known as papin's digester - amusing and very interesting, as, i think, is the way i happened across it. i was visualising pressure cookers, my mother would often use one, which somehow connected to what i reckon must go on down there in the gut. so that led me to papin and his bone crushing exploding steam digester. cool.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
a shockingly vivid dream
the various meaning of wake up
conscience clear as a bell
its voice as green as the grass
the mind-eye clockworks, playbacks
all that has been ingested
scooped, funnelled, spirited
by the soft intestinal muscle
relayed by the second brain
all unison, all a well-oiled machine,
all pith and obliviously self-aware,
bent on task, click-click go the pistons
in slots, doing the dirty work of
playback, rinse-through, spin cycle:
each cog sympathetic, each cog a
reflector of the past, the glow
lessening, increasing, fading,
soul to conscience to nerve ending
sleepers, railway junctures, spotters
sympathetic nervous system
algorhythmic homing pigeon
narrow-gauge gear-mesh idler
raw torque, loose wheels, oiled cogs
loose talk spouts forth
the voice seems to be the driver
transmitting rotational motion
mirroring what is executed in real time,
physical display the puppet, a virtual device,
the sealed vessel, organs in dermis
fat extraction, internal reaction, rendering;
the miners are busy at work,
casting bone to brittle, releasing steam
allowing liquid to be hotter, amorphous,
spinning, disordered molecules, melt,
to be found in the bowels, the core,
drawing in of all, the funnel; irrestible.
the virtualness of the device may interrupt,
thus synthethised speech, during pressing
and during draining, may suffer leakage,
may eddy and stray, filtering through membrane
through cheesecloth and so does generated voice
come through loud and clear and white and pure
and the voice is the conscience and the voice is
heard and the chords, vocal, empathetic, resound
in such arresting union that oneness is and
genera-tor is indistinguishable from genera-ted
and the lid is lifted, buffeted up, skylighted;
hatch is unbatoned, revealing all that activity.
how digestion affects the extent and intensity to which we dream has interested me for a while, because, as happened in the last hour or so, sometimes my own dreams are so vivid and i know it's because there is rumbling going on below. i was fascinated to learn from the genius stephen fry on the show called QI, that we have a "second brain" in our gut. further research revealed its slightly more opaque anatomical name: the enteric nervous system. it can function independently of the main brain (you know, the one inbetween the ears - yeah, cheers) and this, apart from being fascinating, holds poetic humour and mystique for me; funny to think of all the emotion that gets connoted with guts, both in cliched phrasing e.g. i think he's got the guts to go for it etc, as well as the fact that medically, so many of the symptoms of emotional angst are traced to the gut region.
neurology is endlessly interesting to me and again there is poetry in the medical terminology. we really have a sympathetic nervous system, for example. i find much poetry in scientific register, to my delight. much of the lexicon of the following poem is from my beloved wikipedia, which fans out as does the malapropping mental lexicon. i could get lost for days, drifting on a sea of wiki. there is copy here from text on gear systems, speech generating technology, even a little seismology i think - i was obsessed with geography and my ward lock's pictorial atlas as a child and distinctly remember the cut-in-half world, the inner and outer core, the earth's crust. a certain tv character i like uttered a phrase i like: "spinning iron amorphous core of the earth". i am probably mis quoting but hey, poetic license and all that. he was being dramatic (no, really?) but his phrase seems to have seeped into my conscience, like the thingies through the intestinal cheesecloth in my poem. i now think "spinning iron amorphous core of the earth" is a real thing, which i don't think it is.
from all my ferreting around on wiki, i would most highly recommend the entry on the steam digester, also known as papin's digester - amusing and very interesting, as, i think, is the way i happened across it. i was visualising pressure cookers, my mother would often use one, which somehow connected to what i reckon must go on down there in the gut. so that led me to papin and his bone crushing exploding steam digester. cool.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
a shockingly vivid dream
the various meaning of wake up
conscience clear as a bell
its voice as green as the grass
the mind-eye clockworks, playbacks
all that has been ingested
scooped, funnelled, spirited
by the soft intestinal muscle
relayed by the second brain
all unison, all a well-oiled machine,
all pith and obliviously self-aware,
bent on task, click-click go the pistons
in slots, doing the dirty work of
playback, rinse-through, spin cycle:
each cog sympathetic, each cog a
reflector of the past, the glow
lessening, increasing, fading,
soul to conscience to nerve ending
sleepers, railway junctures, spotters
sympathetic nervous system
algorhythmic homing pigeon
narrow-gauge gear-mesh idler
raw torque, loose wheels, oiled cogs
loose talk spouts forth
the voice seems to be the driver
transmitting rotational motion
mirroring what is executed in real time,
physical display the puppet, a virtual device,
the sealed vessel, organs in dermis
fat extraction, internal reaction, rendering;
the miners are busy at work,
casting bone to brittle, releasing steam
allowing liquid to be hotter, amorphous,
spinning, disordered molecules, melt,
to be found in the bowels, the core,
drawing in of all, the funnel; irrestible.
the virtualness of the device may interrupt,
thus synthethised speech, during pressing
and during draining, may suffer leakage,
may eddy and stray, filtering through membrane
through cheesecloth and so does generated voice
come through loud and clear and white and pure
and the voice is the conscience and the voice is
heard and the chords, vocal, empathetic, resound
in such arresting union that oneness is and
genera-tor is indistinguishable from genera-ted
and the lid is lifted, buffeted up, skylighted;
hatch is unbatoned, revealing all that activity.
Wednesday, 28 April 2010
the hood in brotherhood
for those of you who tend to get a little confused (there there), i am NOT Cempulappeyanirar, I am me. Cempulappeyanirar's poem is not my poem, my poem is the one that appears after the ------. Good then.
there are echoes of james taylor and a tamil poet called Cempulappeyanirar in this poem, but mostly it is inspired by talking to someone after a period of silence. i first saw the Cempulappeyanirar poem years ago on the tube in london, the tube were doing a season of poetry. this one really struck me so i jotted it down. i have since googled around, which is how i found it again. i have tried to find tamil poetry read aloud online but failed... you tube has something but it's ever so slightly cheesy music set to written poetry. i would really like to hear the red earth poem read in the original tamil. Looking around i found a poet called Daljit Nagra, who i found amusing. he's got stuff on you tube.
Kuruntokai - "Red Earth and Pouring Rain"
What He Said
What could my mother be
to yours? What kin is my father
to yours anyway? And how
Did you and I meet ever?
But in love
our hearts have mingled
as red earth and pouring rain.
-- Cempulappeyanirar
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
we are all children in the end
looking out at the highway i see the long distance trucks
pushing on through the rain to the far reaches of this land
this imperfect continent and i have just heard a voice from
such a reach, an extremity, far from the heart, beating nonetheless.
we greeted each other as i was taught by kith and kin
we greeted each other as southerner and northerner
as one to another, one tribe to another, bound by sadness,
the tone of the voice, the separation, the remembrance.
fierceness masks the child, the defiant eyes belying the trembling soul
feast days, high days, days to nod unto each other, to recognise
the ties between all men and women, ties of hope and love, the cloak
the hood in brotherhood, all else falling away in sweet relief.
there are echoes of james taylor and a tamil poet called Cempulappeyanirar in this poem, but mostly it is inspired by talking to someone after a period of silence. i first saw the Cempulappeyanirar poem years ago on the tube in london, the tube were doing a season of poetry. this one really struck me so i jotted it down. i have since googled around, which is how i found it again. i have tried to find tamil poetry read aloud online but failed... you tube has something but it's ever so slightly cheesy music set to written poetry. i would really like to hear the red earth poem read in the original tamil. Looking around i found a poet called Daljit Nagra, who i found amusing. he's got stuff on you tube.
Kuruntokai - "Red Earth and Pouring Rain"
What He Said
What could my mother be
to yours? What kin is my father
to yours anyway? And how
Did you and I meet ever?
But in love
our hearts have mingled
as red earth and pouring rain.
-- Cempulappeyanirar
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
we are all children in the end
looking out at the highway i see the long distance trucks
pushing on through the rain to the far reaches of this land
this imperfect continent and i have just heard a voice from
such a reach, an extremity, far from the heart, beating nonetheless.
we greeted each other as i was taught by kith and kin
we greeted each other as southerner and northerner
as one to another, one tribe to another, bound by sadness,
the tone of the voice, the separation, the remembrance.
fierceness masks the child, the defiant eyes belying the trembling soul
feast days, high days, days to nod unto each other, to recognise
the ties between all men and women, ties of hope and love, the cloak
the hood in brotherhood, all else falling away in sweet relief.
Sunday, 4 April 2010
Clear as a Bell
West Wing Season VII, an episode called Undecideds. Latino presidential candidate is visiting a black church in LA. There are already tensions between the two communities and now a black kid is shot dead by a Latino cop. The candidate speaks at the church but before he does the gospel choir sings. Uplifting, soulful, as gospel always is. The words of the song are the final words of this poem.
Belle of the Choir
eyes, sorrowful, eyes watery, welling up
with childishly bitten-back passionate pique
eyes that have seen so much and betray it
the voice sings as the eyes look on intently
the song reaches out towering as a school marm
commanding as she who has suffered and
mothered for sometimes the two are one and the same
preceded by a preacher a good man but his words easy
his words scripted, the valley of death.
she though, for all the spiritual reference, she has
furrowed soul and sorrowful strength and skin
ancestral, vocal chords strung high, low, wired to
heart and accessing emotion, vibrating lung
her message is simple as the bell of the choir
robed rhythm, downtrodden drudge, for a moment
free for a moment to peal forth the sweet word
and the word is listen and the command is inherent
and the word is holy: I will listen all day long.
Belle of the Choir
eyes, sorrowful, eyes watery, welling up
with childishly bitten-back passionate pique
eyes that have seen so much and betray it
the voice sings as the eyes look on intently
the song reaches out towering as a school marm
commanding as she who has suffered and
mothered for sometimes the two are one and the same
preceded by a preacher a good man but his words easy
his words scripted, the valley of death.
she though, for all the spiritual reference, she has
furrowed soul and sorrowful strength and skin
ancestral, vocal chords strung high, low, wired to
heart and accessing emotion, vibrating lung
her message is simple as the bell of the choir
robed rhythm, downtrodden drudge, for a moment
free for a moment to peal forth the sweet word
and the word is listen and the command is inherent
and the word is holy: I will listen all day long.
Sunday, 21 March 2010
Into the Light
I hope it's clear where the lines of text are supposed to end - For some reason they didn't fit on one line this time - I guess they are particularly long.
This is a continuation of/ sequel to "Homeless". The final scene, the funeral, is shot in a kind of soft focus, the bright outdoor light of Arlington Cemetery almost blinding, like what we imagine heaven to be; imagine, not know. "Know" is a very interesting verb to me. It's a state verb, so not normally used progressively, because knowing is not something we actively engage in, we either do or we don't - And our human arrogance means we often think we do, when actually do not. There is a strong streak of irony running through my stuff and I recommend it be read in ironic, often mocking disgusted tone, such as lines 3-6 of the first stanza below - Not obligatory, potentially amusing. I have made reference to eternal entities like Nature and the Universe and Time mocking us pathetic little specks and that puts me in mind of state/ action, or, more specifically, passive/ active. So here, in this poem, the very first two lines use "know" and "remind" in a grammatically conventional way, instead of for example saying: "The whizzing traffic knows us daily", to mean it reminds us. It would be interesting to play with the syntax and see if one would pull this off, as if the state of knowing, of knowledge, can be transmitted, osmosis. You know when you've been tangoed.
Deliver Us
We are all so far far beyond salvation and we know it, we know it every day.
We are reminded daily by the whizzing traffic and the onward march of grime
so it is nice, nice to be scruffed up by Humanity, once in a while, you know,
it's nice isn't it, the clarion call of those few who were once outside the kingdom
the kingdom of laundered cloth, forever and never, nice for the man to notice
to make use of his nevereending influence to reach down and entitle and bestow
and endow and bring in to fold, to fold in to the glimpsed glory, beholden are we all.
In glimpsing the snug world of the speaker, of the vox, the spokesman, we might be
seduced and in our intoxicated state dream that this trapping is the kingdom
but though the voicer grabbed us up and deposited us within feet of the seat
beside the flower of power the oval of office, this is not the glory nor forever is it
novel yes, eternal no; for thine is not the kingdom of anything, deliver us ye shall not,
cannot; inside with the insiders, once the gleam wears off, the cloth is thin as the glimpse
and we take account, approaching the truth, the benign line, that all behold and none know.
This is a continuation of/ sequel to "Homeless". The final scene, the funeral, is shot in a kind of soft focus, the bright outdoor light of Arlington Cemetery almost blinding, like what we imagine heaven to be; imagine, not know. "Know" is a very interesting verb to me. It's a state verb, so not normally used progressively, because knowing is not something we actively engage in, we either do or we don't - And our human arrogance means we often think we do, when actually do not. There is a strong streak of irony running through my stuff and I recommend it be read in ironic, often mocking disgusted tone, such as lines 3-6 of the first stanza below - Not obligatory, potentially amusing. I have made reference to eternal entities like Nature and the Universe and Time mocking us pathetic little specks and that puts me in mind of state/ action, or, more specifically, passive/ active. So here, in this poem, the very first two lines use "know" and "remind" in a grammatically conventional way, instead of for example saying: "The whizzing traffic knows us daily", to mean it reminds us. It would be interesting to play with the syntax and see if one would pull this off, as if the state of knowing, of knowledge, can be transmitted, osmosis. You know when you've been tangoed.
Deliver Us
We are all so far far beyond salvation and we know it, we know it every day.
We are reminded daily by the whizzing traffic and the onward march of grime
so it is nice, nice to be scruffed up by Humanity, once in a while, you know,
it's nice isn't it, the clarion call of those few who were once outside the kingdom
the kingdom of laundered cloth, forever and never, nice for the man to notice
to make use of his nevereending influence to reach down and entitle and bestow
and endow and bring in to fold, to fold in to the glimpsed glory, beholden are we all.
In glimpsing the snug world of the speaker, of the vox, the spokesman, we might be
seduced and in our intoxicated state dream that this trapping is the kingdom
but though the voicer grabbed us up and deposited us within feet of the seat
beside the flower of power the oval of office, this is not the glory nor forever is it
novel yes, eternal no; for thine is not the kingdom of anything, deliver us ye shall not,
cannot; inside with the insiders, once the gleam wears off, the cloth is thin as the glimpse
and we take account, approaching the truth, the benign line, that all behold and none know.
Saturday, 20 March 2010
The INside
Some of you, my adoring grovelling public, seem to be under the impression that the title of the posting is the title of the poem. No, the title of the poem is the title of the poem. Blogger requires me to title the postings, so I do, usually with some item from the poem which strikes a chord. Honestly, get it right will you.
The following poem, called Homeless, was inspired by Episode 10 in Season One of West Wing, called "In Excelsis Deo". Toby, who is based on me, as you know, gets a call from the DC police who it turns out have found his business card in the overcoat of a homeless man who has died during the freezing east coast night. Toby notices the US Marine tattoo on the dead guy's arm and so ensues he, Toby, use of undue influence to arrange a full military burial for this guy, this "nobody". The story rekindles throughout the episode; My poem is fired by all of the kindling but particularly by the scene where Toby ventures down to Capital and P, where the bums of DC find shelter beneath the highway overpasses.
Toby, we know from other episodes, comes from poor Brooklyn Jewsville. His father worked for the Yiddish mafia ("Kosher nostra", as coined in a review I once read of Once Upon a Time in America). There are many references to this in West Wing and, more than the specific references, we sense this hard-bitten background in Toby constantly, his attitude, his unending, obsessive, die-hard, would-gladly-die-for-the-cause drivenness to use his high office to help the underpriveleged. Er, OK, maybe I'm not that much like Toby...
Toby successfully finds the brother of the deceased, who, fittingly for the fable-like nature of the storyline, is "a little slow", as an unnamed fellow bum says, a character who leads Toby to the brother. At this point, all Toby wants is to let the deceased's next of kin know that his brother has died but, as destiny, morality and storyline would have it, of course has a change of heart as he is leaving, work here apparently done. Awkward as ever, Toby splutters forth, offering to take care of the funeral. There Toby is, someone who comes from a world not so very unlike the one he is re-visiting ("Another home"), now on the inside, now very much a somebody, within spitting distance of the seat of power, but with the ever-present sheathe of the fearsome street hovering in his demeanour. He is a speech writer, deft in word and turn of manipulative phrase - He writes the State of the Union for God's sake. There too is the brother, "a bit simple", unwittingly endowed with the weight of word reserved for and by The Simple. So that when Toby asks him if he knows that his brother fought in Korea, the Simpleton repies Oh I'm sure he didn't mean anything by it, sometimes people start things and... etc. Puts me in mind of Being There with Peter Sellers. One wonders whether the writers had some biblical reference in mind, seems not unlikely. The guy who leads Toby to the Simpleton could be some kind of Guide, Samaritan, something.
Homeless
Under an overpass, marginalised men were sleeping:
"Homeless", the name those inside said margins
had bestowed, for "home" was considered more than
a trapping, indeed it was the trapping; the foundation.
Beyond, beyond the realms of quilted sleep,
life goes on, though it is more raw, weather-
beaten, death creeping up the cracks in skin,
breathing down the neck, breath losing its value.
in a rare moment of seeming spillage, there came
a man from the society, the snug side, the inside
wandering into harm's way he came in peace,
seeking one of the men, bringing news.
In this rare joining of worlds, this soul fusion,
amidst the rareness, the cold biting air, the
urban desperation, we the spectators noted
a gritty past in the society man: another home.
The following poem, called Homeless, was inspired by Episode 10 in Season One of West Wing, called "In Excelsis Deo". Toby, who is based on me, as you know, gets a call from the DC police who it turns out have found his business card in the overcoat of a homeless man who has died during the freezing east coast night. Toby notices the US Marine tattoo on the dead guy's arm and so ensues he, Toby, use of undue influence to arrange a full military burial for this guy, this "nobody". The story rekindles throughout the episode; My poem is fired by all of the kindling but particularly by the scene where Toby ventures down to Capital and P, where the bums of DC find shelter beneath the highway overpasses.
Toby, we know from other episodes, comes from poor Brooklyn Jewsville. His father worked for the Yiddish mafia ("Kosher nostra", as coined in a review I once read of Once Upon a Time in America). There are many references to this in West Wing and, more than the specific references, we sense this hard-bitten background in Toby constantly, his attitude, his unending, obsessive, die-hard, would-gladly-die-for-the-cause drivenness to use his high office to help the underpriveleged. Er, OK, maybe I'm not that much like Toby...
Toby successfully finds the brother of the deceased, who, fittingly for the fable-like nature of the storyline, is "a little slow", as an unnamed fellow bum says, a character who leads Toby to the brother. At this point, all Toby wants is to let the deceased's next of kin know that his brother has died but, as destiny, morality and storyline would have it, of course has a change of heart as he is leaving, work here apparently done. Awkward as ever, Toby splutters forth, offering to take care of the funeral. There Toby is, someone who comes from a world not so very unlike the one he is re-visiting ("Another home"), now on the inside, now very much a somebody, within spitting distance of the seat of power, but with the ever-present sheathe of the fearsome street hovering in his demeanour. He is a speech writer, deft in word and turn of manipulative phrase - He writes the State of the Union for God's sake. There too is the brother, "a bit simple", unwittingly endowed with the weight of word reserved for and by The Simple. So that when Toby asks him if he knows that his brother fought in Korea, the Simpleton repies Oh I'm sure he didn't mean anything by it, sometimes people start things and... etc. Puts me in mind of Being There with Peter Sellers. One wonders whether the writers had some biblical reference in mind, seems not unlikely. The guy who leads Toby to the Simpleton could be some kind of Guide, Samaritan, something.
Homeless
Under an overpass, marginalised men were sleeping:
"Homeless", the name those inside said margins
had bestowed, for "home" was considered more than
a trapping, indeed it was the trapping; the foundation.
Beyond, beyond the realms of quilted sleep,
life goes on, though it is more raw, weather-
beaten, death creeping up the cracks in skin,
breathing down the neck, breath losing its value.
in a rare moment of seeming spillage, there came
a man from the society, the snug side, the inside
wandering into harm's way he came in peace,
seeking one of the men, bringing news.
In this rare joining of worlds, this soul fusion,
amidst the rareness, the cold biting air, the
urban desperation, we the spectators noted
a gritty past in the society man: another home.
Monday, 8 March 2010
Self Conscious Habit
This was inspired by a couple of couples I have met, tourists in the far south of Argentina and the book Stuff White People Like. It's not meant to offend anyone... Or is it. Some may think it's a single man's diatribe against couples. It certainly isn't; it's against couples and the middle class, so there. Also, I have soent time in the advertising world over the course of the last year. Oh well, perhaps I will fall into line one day. Must do better...
The Matching Fleece Brigade
Present arms in unison, coupledom
Present our class for all to see,
Here is our greatest weapon,
our taste, our ever so tasteful taste
our painfully painstaking manners
knowing looks, we know so very much
We are in it up to our eyeballs,
in the know, we do, we think we do
we know each other so well so very
well we wear it well, the same clothes
Our talk is of one another, our talk is
constant and defining, we present our
talk to you, we talk of each other in
Present Simple, so conscious is our habit
In unison, in dreaded crowded unoriginal
originality, sophisticated banality, re-
constructed, tongue in cheek we reek
of sun-dried optimism, unrelenting,
brand new loyalty, spoilty, spoilt we,
we who came from miles around to forget
to convene in repackaged working values
new labour new america, this administration
this vaccuous disease, this advertisement for
nothing but different versions of same.
The Matching Fleece Brigade
Present arms in unison, coupledom
Present our class for all to see,
Here is our greatest weapon,
our taste, our ever so tasteful taste
our painfully painstaking manners
knowing looks, we know so very much
We are in it up to our eyeballs,
in the know, we do, we think we do
we know each other so well so very
well we wear it well, the same clothes
Our talk is of one another, our talk is
constant and defining, we present our
talk to you, we talk of each other in
Present Simple, so conscious is our habit
In unison, in dreaded crowded unoriginal
originality, sophisticated banality, re-
constructed, tongue in cheek we reek
of sun-dried optimism, unrelenting,
brand new loyalty, spoilty, spoilt we,
we who came from miles around to forget
to convene in repackaged working values
new labour new america, this administration
this vaccuous disease, this advertisement for
nothing but different versions of same.
Fight or Flight
My image for this poem is essentially two ants approaching eachother and jousting their antennae the way they do. They both are on the same path. I also had in mind that familiar image of the evolution of homo sapiens, the one where he starts off as a crawling ape and ends upright, a man. Someone should make a new version of that, with man destroying self. Er, oops... Still, it doesn't seem the best idea in the world for humankind to keep procreating just because that is our instinct. As Hicks said, Evolution didn't end with us growing thumbs - We are supposed to evolve ideas.
Evolution Does Not Equal Progress
Two life forms head toward one another,
their paths separate but aligned by instinct
the search for food, the automated DNA
homing in on water, survival; very little protocol.
Very little room for creativity or spin doctoring,
yet there is a fault in the genetic code because
not all paths are linear and not all quests progressive;
impetus for nutrition is not as impetuous as other instincts.
Other instincts explode when the two life forms meet,
when, antennae interlocking, they sense each other:
Each - Other - Instinct is now aligned, original path forgotten,
for now at least, as, jousting curiously, a semblance emerges.
A semblance of semi formalised social code, after all
not as automated as first thought, not as laid down.
Not quite as etched as at first, more - "wiggle room"
and wiggling there surely is, sparring, almost violent.
Almost violent but not quite, frisky would be the word;
now the only impetus is caprice, the only winner whimsy
but wait because as ever, as ever, the mother plan,
the masterboard, the code maker mocks the code breaker.
The code breakers rebel, children in the garden of freedom,
seemingly cast adrift from Nature's rod, about to be reeled in;
two paths, one casting director, unseen puppeteer, flesh
coloured, air coloured, broad strokes and sharp prods.
Sharp prods with hormone-injecting rod, electric shocks,
engendering the kind of change only suns and gods brandish
antenna to paw, paw to opposable attitude, social code indeed
fanning out of paw, as a pup kneads the mother's breast
As the paths diverge, blood vessels on dermis, roads on a map.
As child needs mother, life forms need formation, edges to the mess
Means to the very end, end to the quest, meaning, reason;
sensing end-beginning, love-hate, danger-opportunity.
Evolution Does Not Equal Progress
Two life forms head toward one another,
their paths separate but aligned by instinct
the search for food, the automated DNA
homing in on water, survival; very little protocol.
Very little room for creativity or spin doctoring,
yet there is a fault in the genetic code because
not all paths are linear and not all quests progressive;
impetus for nutrition is not as impetuous as other instincts.
Other instincts explode when the two life forms meet,
when, antennae interlocking, they sense each other:
Each - Other - Instinct is now aligned, original path forgotten,
for now at least, as, jousting curiously, a semblance emerges.
A semblance of semi formalised social code, after all
not as automated as first thought, not as laid down.
Not quite as etched as at first, more - "wiggle room"
and wiggling there surely is, sparring, almost violent.
Almost violent but not quite, frisky would be the word;
now the only impetus is caprice, the only winner whimsy
but wait because as ever, as ever, the mother plan,
the masterboard, the code maker mocks the code breaker.
The code breakers rebel, children in the garden of freedom,
seemingly cast adrift from Nature's rod, about to be reeled in;
two paths, one casting director, unseen puppeteer, flesh
coloured, air coloured, broad strokes and sharp prods.
Sharp prods with hormone-injecting rod, electric shocks,
engendering the kind of change only suns and gods brandish
antenna to paw, paw to opposable attitude, social code indeed
fanning out of paw, as a pup kneads the mother's breast
As the paths diverge, blood vessels on dermis, roads on a map.
As child needs mother, life forms need formation, edges to the mess
Means to the very end, end to the quest, meaning, reason;
sensing end-beginning, love-hate, danger-opportunity.
Sunday, 14 February 2010
Everywhere you go, always take the weather with you
Hello. I am posting two poems now, poeming two postings. They are both borne, originally, of an obsession with the sensation of feeling off balance, physically I mean. Following my obsession with eyes, I started thinking about ears, particularly the way the inner ear affects/ helps control our balance. In preparation for a poem, I Wiki'd and purloined lots of interesting terminology and facts about how the whole thing works. Then, the other day I was going down in the lift in my building and sort of over anticipated the point which it was going to hit the ground, i.e. stop at the ground floor, so I sort of semi consciously braced myself, because it's an old lift and hits ground quite abruptly. Having braced too early, I was struck by the sensation my brain sent through me as it were: Almost as though I could really feel the thud of the earth beneath me, but not quite - Odd. So then I thought that might be a good connection for my ear poem. There are also echoes of my earlier poem "Uniting Bullet", particularly the Russian doll analogy, that is chambers within chambers. In Uniting Bullet, the tiniest chamber was the part of the gun where the bullets are housed and in Breaking Too Early, the smallest chamber is the lift, then the bigger one is the lift shaft. In both poems, the bigger chamber is I suppose the space outside, which technically must be the atmosphere, is that right? I mean the air around us, which stops at some point above us, becoming something other, rarified. Beyond that is the stratosphere I think and beyond that Outer Space? I find the concept of outer space a bit scary; infinity is hard for my brain to handle. I like Paul Simon's lyric: "Spinning in Infinity" - I think I've used it somewhere.
The thing about the "bigger chamber", the thing about the atmosphere, is that it is prone to weather. Weather is getting to be bigger and scarier, as we all know: Tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, etc etc. All quite apocalyptic and more often than not caused by us humans. As Bill Hicks said, we are a virus with shoes... Weather and mood are reflective of one another, thus in Death Warmed Me Up is the line "the weather had, up to that moment, been indifferent". One thing weather and mood have in common: They can both be unpredicable, often frighteningly.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Breaking too early
a body within a body, within a shaft,
Knowing the elevator would hit ground
with an unceremonious thud, it being old,
braced himself, and for a fractured moment
the body's sense of itself in space interrupted
the vestibule of inner ear tensed, mid-air.
Russian dolls: Vestibulated, elevated,
descending, relative to space, outer,
inner, each defining the other, necessarily,
airily, impressively, compressively, rippling
outward from tiny stones to vast column,
column of air, calcium to atrium, bone to stone.
As the lift bore down, barrelling, balling,
the man's mind stalled, cast adrift momentarily,
ball bearings cast adrift, knees chuckled, swash
buckled, no metal rods did though, nevertheless
he was impressed by the over-arching timeless
marching of molecules, how it was stopped.
Once safely thudded, gravitational pull restored,
Another impact struck, while he the being was
still off-balance, still weak at the knees, brain
swilling in its own fluid. It struck that while falling
essentially, really, truly, physically, downward force
is all in the mind - All the while the infinity mocks us.
---------------------------------
It's Getting Realer
Infinity is too vast a concept
and weather too diverse
for the tiny atrium of the mind to contain,
for the grey matter to unfurl.
As the globe warms, the pace quickening,
mother earth angrier and angrier,
we specks are cast about and woken
from our ignorant semi slumber.
We, now so much more than the twelve tribes,
now The Six Billion, each a vacuum,
each sealed, deluded, individualised,
the outer infinity invisibly, insidiously closing in.
For the physicist will tell you: the perfect vacuum
is only a philosophical concept,
it is never observed in practice;
When will the individually-wrapped packages burst?
When will the vacuum packed become
the ransacked, get sucked back
out into the space void
backfilled, mere filaments in a vast lightbulb?
The thing about the "bigger chamber", the thing about the atmosphere, is that it is prone to weather. Weather is getting to be bigger and scarier, as we all know: Tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, etc etc. All quite apocalyptic and more often than not caused by us humans. As Bill Hicks said, we are a virus with shoes... Weather and mood are reflective of one another, thus in Death Warmed Me Up is the line "the weather had, up to that moment, been indifferent". One thing weather and mood have in common: They can both be unpredicable, often frighteningly.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Breaking too early
a body within a body, within a shaft,
Knowing the elevator would hit ground
with an unceremonious thud, it being old,
braced himself, and for a fractured moment
the body's sense of itself in space interrupted
the vestibule of inner ear tensed, mid-air.
Russian dolls: Vestibulated, elevated,
descending, relative to space, outer,
inner, each defining the other, necessarily,
airily, impressively, compressively, rippling
outward from tiny stones to vast column,
column of air, calcium to atrium, bone to stone.
As the lift bore down, barrelling, balling,
the man's mind stalled, cast adrift momentarily,
ball bearings cast adrift, knees chuckled, swash
buckled, no metal rods did though, nevertheless
he was impressed by the over-arching timeless
marching of molecules, how it was stopped.
Once safely thudded, gravitational pull restored,
Another impact struck, while he the being was
still off-balance, still weak at the knees, brain
swilling in its own fluid. It struck that while falling
essentially, really, truly, physically, downward force
is all in the mind - All the while the infinity mocks us.
---------------------------------
It's Getting Realer
Infinity is too vast a concept
and weather too diverse
for the tiny atrium of the mind to contain,
for the grey matter to unfurl.
As the globe warms, the pace quickening,
mother earth angrier and angrier,
we specks are cast about and woken
from our ignorant semi slumber.
We, now so much more than the twelve tribes,
now The Six Billion, each a vacuum,
each sealed, deluded, individualised,
the outer infinity invisibly, insidiously closing in.
For the physicist will tell you: the perfect vacuum
is only a philosophical concept,
it is never observed in practice;
When will the individually-wrapped packages burst?
When will the vacuum packed become
the ransacked, get sucked back
out into the space void
backfilled, mere filaments in a vast lightbulb?
Wednesday, 3 February 2010
At a Loser's End
I am between holiday and work. I don't do well without structure... Addicts always cite boredom. Don't worry, I haven't taken to heroin or anything.
The Perils of Boredom
The benign enemy, insidious, creeping
transparent ivy, toxic as only nothingness
can be, can be and be and be some more
until, melting away, a cobra emerges, its
head reared, its name Danger.
Spongiform is this lump, absorbing of all
repressing quality, void of all imperfection,
or perfection, for that matter; spikeless,
toothless, but with every hour surrounding
more, soporific, anaesthetic, heavy.
As more cold liquid fills the arteries
its dullness convects towards the heart.
As the temperature rises, meandering,
at first until the chameleon, the serpent,
shape-changer whip-cracks, lashes.
Laying in wait, in slumbering potency,
the undergrowth takes shape, silent,
cowering with sinister smile, manipulative
as only neuro transmitting raiders can be;
hormone imbalancing, trojan, shocking.
The Perils of Boredom
The benign enemy, insidious, creeping
transparent ivy, toxic as only nothingness
can be, can be and be and be some more
until, melting away, a cobra emerges, its
head reared, its name Danger.
Spongiform is this lump, absorbing of all
repressing quality, void of all imperfection,
or perfection, for that matter; spikeless,
toothless, but with every hour surrounding
more, soporific, anaesthetic, heavy.
As more cold liquid fills the arteries
its dullness convects towards the heart.
As the temperature rises, meandering,
at first until the chameleon, the serpent,
shape-changer whip-cracks, lashes.
Laying in wait, in slumbering potency,
the undergrowth takes shape, silent,
cowering with sinister smile, manipulative
as only neuro transmitting raiders can be;
hormone imbalancing, trojan, shocking.
Friday, 29 January 2010
Statesmen vs Action People
The following was inspired by the concept of feelings that are so strong they are scary. There is a running grammatical metaphor too. I have worked in language teaching for several years and am of course interested in language. My poetic linguistic interest, as it were, is conceptual, so that a grammatical concept such as state and action, i.e. state and action verbs, stimulates me. The terms Subject and Object do too; they, like state and action, are layered with meaning. The rhythm is influenced by Gil Scott Heron's The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, specifically the way he echoes; will not be televised, will not be televised - do not take an object, do not take an object.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
INTRANSITIVE FEELINGS
Intransitive feelings
do not take an object,
direct or indirect; usually.
State, action, they are.
Sleeping dogs, they cannot
they will not, do not lie.
Awakened rudely, their
will, instinct, raison d'etre
is self-involved, The Subject.
Though unseen, unheard,
as neglected children,
they are a flight risk.
Defying life's syntax,
society's plot, theirs is
a different course, coursing.
Hung on a timeline of
verb-rich depths, framed
shaded, contradicting.
Assured of divine right,
as arrogant as the day born,
self-appointed, holding court.
Their silence is raging,
Regal, high high above,
whether present or absent.
Whether complementing
or absenting selves
their potency outnumbers.
Their seeming swells
no pronoun is needed
active or not, voiced always.
Past, present, tense,
defusing, re-wiring, foot
-noting, copulating, paring.
Minimising, over-arching,
striking fear and stark starched
clusters, filibusters.
Do not take an object
Not to be taken lightly
or sprinkled or dusted over.
Not to be underestimated nor
held up by amenders, laying,
in wait or in vain.
Molesters, abusers don't
make a difference, don't make
us laugh, don't move us.
We shall not be moved,
flapped, shall not fly,
Risk will tempt us though.
Til dying day, last
full breath, despite It All,
the petulant pronoun.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
INTRANSITIVE FEELINGS
Intransitive feelings
do not take an object,
direct or indirect; usually.
State, action, they are.
Sleeping dogs, they cannot
they will not, do not lie.
Awakened rudely, their
will, instinct, raison d'etre
is self-involved, The Subject.
Though unseen, unheard,
as neglected children,
they are a flight risk.
Defying life's syntax,
society's plot, theirs is
a different course, coursing.
Hung on a timeline of
verb-rich depths, framed
shaded, contradicting.
Assured of divine right,
as arrogant as the day born,
self-appointed, holding court.
Their silence is raging,
Regal, high high above,
whether present or absent.
Whether complementing
or absenting selves
their potency outnumbers.
Their seeming swells
no pronoun is needed
active or not, voiced always.
Past, present, tense,
defusing, re-wiring, foot
-noting, copulating, paring.
Minimising, over-arching,
striking fear and stark starched
clusters, filibusters.
Do not take an object
Not to be taken lightly
or sprinkled or dusted over.
Not to be underestimated nor
held up by amenders, laying,
in wait or in vain.
Molesters, abusers don't
make a difference, don't make
us laugh, don't move us.
We shall not be moved,
flapped, shall not fly,
Risk will tempt us though.
Til dying day, last
full breath, despite It All,
the petulant pronoun.
Thursday, 21 January 2010
Non Urbane
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I am interested in megacities. I inhabit one (Buenos Aires) and like most inhabitants of a metropolis, I switch between loving and loathing it. Simple poem, with a cinematic tone, by which I mean that I imagine a camera taking a swooping-down shot, as in a movie. I was born and raised in north London, and am thinking of places like Green Street in Seven Sisters, amongst many many others, where immigrant communities bring a taste of the developing world to the city. Looking at it now, strictly speaking, I should think of a word other than urbania, because it sounds like urbane, which is out of place... What is the synonym of urbane...?
The Third World
Image from above
Swooped down over the vastness
A cinematic bass drum
Heralding the shanties
The teeming South
There are big pockets of it
In
But in Mumbai and
It’s unencumbered, let loose
This is real urbania
This is what we have done.
A Carousing Tunnel is Forged
This started out as a different poem, one I have recently re-worked. The "original" is called Why We Need Verse and follows the more structured first one below. I'd have to look for the exact quote but it was Bukowski who said that those who have to ask what the creative process is for penning poetry shouldn't be allowed to write it, or something - I'm para/just plain wrong-phrasing. Well, typically OTT arrogant Bukowski, but I do agree in many ways. One of the reasons I like him, of course, is that his writing is so very simple and unfettered. so, my point with these poems forms part of a common one for me: Cutting through the mind-numbing, uber-irritating stuff of everyday life, which is often the reason I write. Similarly, my own everyday inarticulacy is countered when I write a poem, though of course it's a classic case of I know what I mean. But because the context is so different, the content is too? Something like that. Maybe I mean that because it's lah-de-dah poetry, people give you more of a pass on the unintelligibility.
I love the word carouse, and would like to extend a nod to my Uncle David, with whom I associate the verb if not the action. Tongue in cheek, as ever, he was visiting me in Prague for one of his endless international conferences, and referred to the carousing that had gone on the previous night amongst him and the other elderly academics. Er, yeah, OK.
Bukowski's point, I guess, was that a true poet's words just flow unstoppably, there is no need for
editing, perhaps? Well that's one interpretation. I often just sit and the words do trip out onto the page/ screen and sometimes I leave it at that, raw material. But polishing and scaffolding are good too - A bit of legwork never hurt anyone, right.
As long as I'm quoting "Beatnik" generation poets or "Beat Poets" or whatever (I'm afraid I think the inverted commas are necessary because I suspect neither poet I'm mentioning would warm to being labelled), let me reference another moment I like. Ginsberg (Yes, I'm predictable) in the Dylan DVD No Direction Home (Yes, again), in describing the creative process, blahs a bit about what one does then adds in an offhand way Then you call it poetry later. Amen, and I would like to think that could be applied in other creative situations in life, whatever they may be. Hm, perhaps I could be like Damien Hirst et al and make a huge mess then dress up in a pretentious way and call it art. Yes, I think I will. Who's with me.
There is Nothing High About Art
In this hair-splitting world, arena
of back-pedalling splutter, rising
above is not the priority, over-under,
over-analysing paralysis must be
burrowed beneath, the mediocre
dallying detritus must be, for it is
foreground, over-ground, beneath
which a carousing tunnel is forged.
Seedy is always where it starts
slewing its sewery way to the crest
the volcanic peaks of beaconsville
furtive, subverting, versed in the ways
sped on by days of sucked-out life,
fomenting, strung-out, laid-out
slabbed, hung on a hook, fleshed
many a half-baked truth to the dozen
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I love the word carouse, and would like to extend a nod to my Uncle David, with whom I associate the verb if not the action. Tongue in cheek, as ever, he was visiting me in Prague for one of his endless international conferences, and referred to the carousing that had gone on the previous night amongst him and the other elderly academics. Er, yeah, OK.
Bukowski's point, I guess, was that a true poet's words just flow unstoppably, there is no need for
editing, perhaps? Well that's one interpretation. I often just sit and the words do trip out onto the page/ screen and sometimes I leave it at that, raw material. But polishing and scaffolding are good too - A bit of legwork never hurt anyone, right.
As long as I'm quoting "Beatnik" generation poets or "Beat Poets" or whatever (I'm afraid I think the inverted commas are necessary because I suspect neither poet I'm mentioning would warm to being labelled), let me reference another moment I like. Ginsberg (Yes, I'm predictable) in the Dylan DVD No Direction Home (Yes, again), in describing the creative process, blahs a bit about what one does then adds in an offhand way Then you call it poetry later. Amen, and I would like to think that could be applied in other creative situations in life, whatever they may be. Hm, perhaps I could be like Damien Hirst et al and make a huge mess then dress up in a pretentious way and call it art. Yes, I think I will. Who's with me.
There is Nothing High About Art
In this hair-splitting world, arena
of back-pedalling splutter, rising
above is not the priority, over-under,
over-analysing paralysis must be
burrowed beneath, the mediocre
dallying detritus must be, for it is
foreground, over-ground, beneath
which a carousing tunnel is forged.
Seedy is always where it starts
slewing its sewery way to the crest
the volcanic peaks of beaconsville
furtive, subverting, versed in the ways
sped on by days of sucked-out life,
fomenting, strung-out, laid-out
slabbed, hung on a hook, fleshed
many a half-baked truth to the dozen
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Why we need verse
Sucking the life out of everything
Take the fun out
Over analyser
Splitter of hairs
I like you a lot
I love you a bit
I’m not in love with you
Splutter, back-pedal, spit, stutter
See because it’s not this it’s that- Well,
It is a bit of that, just – What I mean is-
People;
People think we need verse because it’s art,
High art even, it rises above
Prefer to think of it as under, not over:
Burrowing beneath, furtively and subversively
Rebellion, fomenting in the sewers, seedy is always where it starts,
Strung out, laid out, too much wine and song,
Carousing its way to the volcanic peaks of beaconsville
So, you see poetry
Is just quicker, that’s all.
Sunday, 17 January 2010
True Smile
This one came about after I'd been travelling on the Subte, the Buenos Aires underground. I practically live on the Subte midweek and there is a constant stream of beggars, hawkers, buskers, blind beggars, blind buskers, lottery ticket sellers, etc, making their way through the carriages, many of whom are children. One gets to "know" as in recognise most of them. The ones asking for money all speak and many have rather an elaborate spiel. It's hard not to feel irritated by them. I am generally a very intolerant, impatient person and the ones I feel most irked by are the ones with the sob story that goes on and on. It's undoubtedly part of the strategy: If I go on and on and on, they're bound to give me some spare change just to have me shut up and move on. So with all this in mind, I felt quite moved when a woman with AIDS got on and did her thing. She was very genuine and people responded to her realness, giving her change where they hadn't been up until then (Even I gave something). She had a true smile; I'd never seen her before and haven't since.
Death Warmed Me Up
I was on an underground train and Death got on;
the weather had, up to that moment, been indifferent.
It changed when Death got on the train. When Death
got on the train, Death spoke and the chatter, the chug-chug,
the tunnel whistling by, all stopped because Death got on.
What we the chatterers think we know, what we think is
fated, it grabbed us with its power, it located our wounds
when we thought its wounds were greater, it located them
and sucked them out so fast we could hardly catch breath
and the sucking out was warm and the poison was expelled.
Choking up the indifference we were left with something
raw, something real and be it Life or Death or simply dust
is neither here nor there for feel it we could, as one of us.
She was here before us, a face, words in themselves nothing,
heard a thousand times before and in that same context:
In themselves just words and in ourselves we know not what.
She, with her heart and soul and cast-outness was all-seeing
and more genuine than a child and she sucked out the poison,
the wounds in us the same as the wounds in her, may God bless,
may God bless you Sir, Ma'am, they came forth as never before,
rattling change into her box and kind words into her eyes, see:
They heard Death's voice loud and clear, imploring, commanding.
Death Warmed Me Up
I was on an underground train and Death got on;
the weather had, up to that moment, been indifferent.
It changed when Death got on the train. When Death
got on the train, Death spoke and the chatter, the chug-chug,
the tunnel whistling by, all stopped because Death got on.
What we the chatterers think we know, what we think is
fated, it grabbed us with its power, it located our wounds
when we thought its wounds were greater, it located them
and sucked them out so fast we could hardly catch breath
and the sucking out was warm and the poison was expelled.
Choking up the indifference we were left with something
raw, something real and be it Life or Death or simply dust
is neither here nor there for feel it we could, as one of us.
She was here before us, a face, words in themselves nothing,
heard a thousand times before and in that same context:
In themselves just words and in ourselves we know not what.
She, with her heart and soul and cast-outness was all-seeing
and more genuine than a child and she sucked out the poison,
the wounds in us the same as the wounds in her, may God bless,
may God bless you Sir, Ma'am, they came forth as never before,
rattling change into her box and kind words into her eyes, see:
They heard Death's voice loud and clear, imploring, commanding.
The Melodramatic Now
Inspirations: A couple of ex girlfriends who shall remain nameless and, believe it or not, Johnny Ramone. Agog indeed -Fagpakit. Who me, melodramatic?
This is no Game to Me
Life demands confrontation and
The Grand Gesture; If not we are no-where
If not we just flounder, just flounder.
The grand statements we make bely our intention
I really mean this = I don't mean this at all
I don't know what I want = I don't want this.
And all the while, nevertheless, we await a saviour
A dear old friend from The Past, The Future;
To untangle the twine, unhook the nets,
cast us adrift and free from the prison of Now.
This is no Game to Me
Life demands confrontation and
The Grand Gesture; If not we are no-where
If not we just flounder, just flounder.
The grand statements we make bely our intention
I really mean this = I don't mean this at all
I don't know what I want = I don't want this.
And all the while, nevertheless, we await a saviour
A dear old friend from The Past, The Future;
To untangle the twine, unhook the nets,
cast us adrift and free from the prison of Now.
Sinisterly Good
I live in Argentina. It is very noisy.
Don't Forget Silence
Much like darkness
This silk-like substance
envelopes its victim,
python-like, not just from
behind and underneath but
curling over around and
most of all within,
sinisterly good, rich
in milky substance
base vitamin, soil
nourishing for the roots
tasty, a hybrid
of nature's own making.
Don't Forget Silence
Much like darkness
This silk-like substance
envelopes its victim,
python-like, not just from
behind and underneath but
curling over around and
most of all within,
sinisterly good, rich
in milky substance
base vitamin, soil
nourishing for the roots
tasty, a hybrid
of nature's own making.
I skipped the part about Love/ It seemed so silly...
Prepare to be depressed, though I am pervesely proud of the ending. Endings can be tricky you see, in fact often instead of being the going-out-with-a-bang thing one is conditioned to think they should be, they are mere trailings-off. Though Hegley has validated the abrupt/ trailing off thing. He is Maharajah of The Mundane and as such must be revered. If you dont know who he is set forth and discover him forthwith. On your knees.
dull
like thuds and unchanging drudge
misery drags one down, the quag
the syrupy mire where inner realms
of age old cranked down sageless
wisdomless detritus-filled mono
globular collected grime reside.
Of guilt and yes shame and
old pick up truck small minded
gloom I speak, it reeks of
unevolved low calibre lo-tech,
ridden by every slight disease
not a pestilence just a pest.
And in this sheer cave there is
a canvas upon which is projected
second guessed, reinvented
the spruce of modern analysis
adornment of spin doctoring;
modernity, parasitic and false.
for underneath the onion
below the becauses and the ah buts
lies a festering hearth, a busy hive,
an unreconstructed, gladstonian
never trove of deeds, blunt with
amoral fibreless slack bone.
deeds plain grey, plain stupid
un-dress-up-able, mutton
laced with lamb and thus the
product lurches out, grotesque
as a newborn sin, ugly in an everyday
way, head to foot in excuses.
dull
like thuds and unchanging drudge
misery drags one down, the quag
the syrupy mire where inner realms
of age old cranked down sageless
wisdomless detritus-filled mono
globular collected grime reside.
Of guilt and yes shame and
old pick up truck small minded
gloom I speak, it reeks of
unevolved low calibre lo-tech,
ridden by every slight disease
not a pestilence just a pest.
And in this sheer cave there is
a canvas upon which is projected
second guessed, reinvented
the spruce of modern analysis
adornment of spin doctoring;
modernity, parasitic and false.
for underneath the onion
below the becauses and the ah buts
lies a festering hearth, a busy hive,
an unreconstructed, gladstonian
never trove of deeds, blunt with
amoral fibreless slack bone.
deeds plain grey, plain stupid
un-dress-up-able, mutton
laced with lamb and thus the
product lurches out, grotesque
as a newborn sin, ugly in an everyday
way, head to foot in excuses.
Eyedendum
Further to "Eye", here is part of the diagnostic letter my father forwarded to me at my opthalmologist's request. The jargon is delightfully dense, impressisively impenetrable. I'll be adapting it, maybe. So there. Prominent floaters - Tee-hee.
Mr Charlaff was referred directly, after seeing Pat Leaning who correctly identified acute entoptic symptoms requiring evaulation.
I saw him on 14 January by which time the prominent floaters in his right eye were resolving and, on reviewing the history, he had presented with alarming symptoms some 14 days earlier, suggestive of retinal traction. He has a past history of radial keratotomy elsewhere, at which time retinal examination was satifactory in both eyes.
Mr Charlaff was referred directly, after seeing Pat Leaning who correctly identified acute entoptic symptoms requiring evaulation.
I saw him on 14 January by which time the prominent floaters in his right eye were resolving and, on reviewing the history, he had presented with alarming symptoms some 14 days earlier, suggestive of retinal traction. He has a past history of radial keratotomy elsewhere, at which time retinal examination was satifactory in both eyes.
Nookless?
Inspiration: The film Elegy, with Ben Kingsley and Penelope Cruz, poignant scene where the old Kingsley character gives a lame excuse for not showing up at the graduation party for the Cruz character. Could probably do with a more imaginitive title.
Elegy
An old man backed out of a social engagement,
unceremoniously, transparently, ineptly, awkwardly.
He was a player in a bittersweet love story, all the
sweeter for its bitter undertow and yes there was
a gap, an age, an atrium, a gaping wound, so very
buried and forgotten, closed up but not healed over;
so closed it was open as open can be, thus the event
he was supposed to attend, the crux of the story,
was an attack on his buried wound, for you see there
would have been nowhere to hide and lick said wound,
not a single nook for the old dog to skulk to; even if one
there had been, his role in the engagement, would have
connotation, ties, he would have been tied, in front of
gawkers, free, open, smiles an attack on his solitude,
ghastly politeness assaulting his senses, exposing the
wound that noone can see, all this, had he gone.
Elegy
An old man backed out of a social engagement,
unceremoniously, transparently, ineptly, awkwardly.
He was a player in a bittersweet love story, all the
sweeter for its bitter undertow and yes there was
a gap, an age, an atrium, a gaping wound, so very
buried and forgotten, closed up but not healed over;
so closed it was open as open can be, thus the event
he was supposed to attend, the crux of the story,
was an attack on his buried wound, for you see there
would have been nowhere to hide and lick said wound,
not a single nook for the old dog to skulk to; even if one
there had been, his role in the engagement, would have
connotation, ties, he would have been tied, in front of
gawkers, free, open, smiles an attack on his solitude,
ghastly politeness assaulting his senses, exposing the
wound that noone can see, all this, had he gone.
Bamboozledendum
There must be a way to edit already-published posts but I haven't worked it out... Addendum to my last post, Bamboozlement: Bunny-lovers, spot the nod to McCulloch.
Bamboozlement
Here's another inspired by West Wing, an episode where the Toby character (Who is based on me of course) is played by an opposition political operative, played by Felicity Hoffman.
Left for Dead
An important man looked a gift horse in the mouth
the horse was beautiful and its foreign phrasing
was so remote that the VIP was bamboozled.
Unnoticing, indifferent, aloof, his bamboozlement
suppressed like the guile of the beauty and the
opaque words, the bejewellment complimented:
a sky all hung with jewels, as someone once said.
The gift a detail, the gift unnoticed, adorning.
But where is my gift, where is mine, came the
petulant question, sprinkled over their heavy talk;
light, meaningless: pleasant, just-registered insistent.
All pleasantries as good as ignored, all that glitters
consigned to the children's table, seen but not heard
for these are serious times, and so was he hypnotised
by complexity and dark strategising, all the while seduced.
Every disposed-of moment immeasurably snug in the edifice,
cement and binding in the edifice, the tricks and mortar;
the insidious and eventually looming, dooming
tower of impenetrable gore-tex, ti-tanium, the very materials
the very elements deriding his archaic and moribund, his
self-deluding, draconian monolithic peppered ivory.
Left for Dead
An important man looked a gift horse in the mouth
the horse was beautiful and its foreign phrasing
was so remote that the VIP was bamboozled.
Unnoticing, indifferent, aloof, his bamboozlement
suppressed like the guile of the beauty and the
opaque words, the bejewellment complimented:
a sky all hung with jewels, as someone once said.
The gift a detail, the gift unnoticed, adorning.
But where is my gift, where is mine, came the
petulant question, sprinkled over their heavy talk;
light, meaningless: pleasant, just-registered insistent.
All pleasantries as good as ignored, all that glitters
consigned to the children's table, seen but not heard
for these are serious times, and so was he hypnotised
by complexity and dark strategising, all the while seduced.
Every disposed-of moment immeasurably snug in the edifice,
cement and binding in the edifice, the tricks and mortar;
the insidious and eventually looming, dooming
tower of impenetrable gore-tex, ti-tanium, the very materials
the very elements deriding his archaic and moribund, his
self-deluding, draconian monolithic peppered ivory.
Saturday, 16 January 2010
Aye-aye
I started getting obsessed with eyes around May 2009, when, after going to the eye doctor for a new prescripton for me specs, I got drawn into getting further tests done. As far as I know, that was the first time I've been subjected to the test in which they dilate the pupils using special drops, then blow air onto the eyeball, then shine bright lights onto the retina, all the while telling you the farm animal oh sorry patient to keep your eyes nice and wide open, when of course all your instincts, psychological and physical, are contradicting the dictatorial matron. This morning I went for another test, Campo Visual, Field of Vision, which is very tiring. It starts off fun, like a video game, but they make you do it for so long... Sadistic. As I was clicking away at the little handheld widget they give you, I second-guessed myself a lot: Am I really seeing the little white specks, or do I just think I am? Which reminded me that the brain and the eye are almost the same thing... Aren't they.
Here is an edited comment from Sir Fagpakit, from a paragraph he included in an "Email" to me:
The nearest I can come to explaining its effect is an image of myself waiting for a tram or something and being accosted by some delirious eye doctor delivering a rant at me which is disturbing and transfixing and seems initially to be scientific, and only on second thoughts, poetic.
The poem's fairly dense, I was quite deep in eye navel gazing mode. Thanks to Wikipedia. I should really donate some money to them, you know, before I go blind.
Eye
A throbbing sphere, complex muscle, worthy
of higher species. Appearing from afar sheer,
in fact its surface is planed into many intersecting
multi-faceted forms, a dodecahedron perhaps,
though not quite rigid, it breathes, chain-mail,
plate armour, armadillo shell. Expanding-contracting
the movement transmits information inward,
mantle to core, panelled outer layer to viscous
spinning iron amorphous control centre; for
gemstones are formed in high pressure conditions
thus it is no coincidence that when transmission
interrupts, the unrefined image projected is diamond,
the outer lattice accepting all manner of visual clues
at the loading dock, the wide mouth, before the many
soldiers go to work, fibre-optic, nerve-thin, housed
in enriched gels and liquids, sheathing the flight of
precious data along for deciphering, 360-degree
neuro-analysis and despite optimal lab environment
and unimagineably evolved encrypted chromasomic
festoonery, there is a blind spot where synthesis is
imperfect, light is eclipsed and ellipted, impeded by
simple mechanical constraints, obscured by position:
There's something in the way, reducing hyperspectral,
binocular, wide-angle know-how into dizzy blur,
yet though an aberration, a malfunction, invalid,
the result is lustrous, as the unaccounted-for pixels
fall between the cracks, dispersing in colour
and aurora, blur to borealis, spinning in infinity
arid sands of galactic eggshell time, dawn times a million
iridescent, whirlpooling magnetic dust-wind, ionospheric,
diffuse glow, self-exploding photon charge.
Here is an edited comment from Sir Fagpakit, from a paragraph he included in an "Email" to me:
The nearest I can come to explaining its effect is an image of myself waiting for a tram or something and being accosted by some delirious eye doctor delivering a rant at me which is disturbing and transfixing and seems initially to be scientific, and only on second thoughts, poetic.
The poem's fairly dense, I was quite deep in eye navel gazing mode. Thanks to Wikipedia. I should really donate some money to them, you know, before I go blind.
Eye
A throbbing sphere, complex muscle, worthy
of higher species. Appearing from afar sheer,
in fact its surface is planed into many intersecting
multi-faceted forms, a dodecahedron perhaps,
though not quite rigid, it breathes, chain-mail,
plate armour, armadillo shell. Expanding-contracting
the movement transmits information inward,
mantle to core, panelled outer layer to viscous
spinning iron amorphous control centre; for
gemstones are formed in high pressure conditions
thus it is no coincidence that when transmission
interrupts, the unrefined image projected is diamond,
the outer lattice accepting all manner of visual clues
at the loading dock, the wide mouth, before the many
soldiers go to work, fibre-optic, nerve-thin, housed
in enriched gels and liquids, sheathing the flight of
precious data along for deciphering, 360-degree
neuro-analysis and despite optimal lab environment
and unimagineably evolved encrypted chromasomic
festoonery, there is a blind spot where synthesis is
imperfect, light is eclipsed and ellipted, impeded by
simple mechanical constraints, obscured by position:
There's something in the way, reducing hyperspectral,
binocular, wide-angle know-how into dizzy blur,
yet though an aberration, a malfunction, invalid,
the result is lustrous, as the unaccounted-for pixels
fall between the cracks, dispersing in colour
and aurora, blur to borealis, spinning in infinity
arid sands of galactic eggshell time, dawn times a million
iridescent, whirlpooling magnetic dust-wind, ionospheric,
diffuse glow, self-exploding photon charge.
judder nought
I have finally gotten round to the un-get-round-able. The main purpose of this blog is to facilitate my posthumous fame, so that people will be able to adore me more easily. Put more simply, it's a window for my versicals. I haven't put a huge deal of thought into the order of posting of the poems, and am plumping for this one, based loosely on Sean's appraisal of it as "visceral". It's inspiration, no, I'm not ashamed to say it, is an episode of the greatest series ever made, West Wing. Specifically, Episode I of Season II, possibly one of my favouritest episodes. No wait, my favourite is... Oh never mind.
Uniting Bullet
Out of one miniscule moment, one chambered capsule,
a upsetter launched, tiny, potent, exploding sound
from atop a tall glass housing: chamber within chamber.
The shot sped forth and grabbed time by the scruff,
imploding all matter into its jet stream, air becoming
water-like, a membranal tunnel lashing downwards.
Thus the action triggered within said capsule, the verb
was born and vaulted towards a target, vibrating around,
re-verb, ripple effect, correlating that first spark.
Ignition, bolting charge, through night sky and fire,
the criminally distorted moment and ground chaos
the tunnel of charge barrelling, zeroed in on earth's crust.
The viral spark conducted by human forms, rendered;
fear upsurging as converging frequencies are, necessarily,
physically, balanced and seismically adjusted, atmospere to lung.
From the gun cylinder to the bronchial cavity, a line, a vein
was drawn and the two compartments united in flatlining fear
the ripple conducting through all, crust to legs to inner organ.
The molecules, upon rearranging to the rung-out shot, made air
viscous, a corridor of fibrous matter, corresponding the eventual
yet simultaneous primary muscle, stripping away the protection.
Amid the cacophonous chaos nature has a channelling plan:
limbs become rods, conveying the lightning change, vocal chords for
the imploding context, the organic penetration: mere bystanders.
Uniting Bullet
Out of one miniscule moment, one chambered capsule,
a upsetter launched, tiny, potent, exploding sound
from atop a tall glass housing: chamber within chamber.
The shot sped forth and grabbed time by the scruff,
imploding all matter into its jet stream, air becoming
water-like, a membranal tunnel lashing downwards.
Thus the action triggered within said capsule, the verb
was born and vaulted towards a target, vibrating around,
re-verb, ripple effect, correlating that first spark.
Ignition, bolting charge, through night sky and fire,
the criminally distorted moment and ground chaos
the tunnel of charge barrelling, zeroed in on earth's crust.
The viral spark conducted by human forms, rendered;
fear upsurging as converging frequencies are, necessarily,
physically, balanced and seismically adjusted, atmospere to lung.
From the gun cylinder to the bronchial cavity, a line, a vein
was drawn and the two compartments united in flatlining fear
the ripple conducting through all, crust to legs to inner organ.
The molecules, upon rearranging to the rung-out shot, made air
viscous, a corridor of fibrous matter, corresponding the eventual
yet simultaneous primary muscle, stripping away the protection.
Amid the cacophonous chaos nature has a channelling plan:
limbs become rods, conveying the lightning change, vocal chords for
the imploding context, the organic penetration: mere bystanders.
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