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.
Sunday, 21 March 2010
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.
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