to what effect, by what means -
two distinct questions.
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Sunday, 28 February 2010
Saturday, 27 February 2010
Friday, 26 February 2010
The Unknowable Thing
Shifting the epicentre of a life
consumes it whole,
requires its years,
its growing points,
regressions,
lies.
And even then
tectonic plates will not shift far,
a childhood will not slide away
as stage sets do when plays move on,
but makes of life a one-act play,
its whole world rooted in a single scene.
Trees - apple, plum and elderberry -
were the watchtowers of our world.
Beyond the fence, the wilderness;
behind each rock a shadow or an unknown shape
would move or lie in wait.
The trees out there were postlapsarian:
one struck by lightning,
another by the blight;
one poisoned at the root;
and one, we thought, the haunt of ghosts -
one, certainly, of rats.
Within was Eden, still intact
despite the plague.
A passer-by was stranger, threat or friend -
and sometimes fraud - and only we,
who knew the shades of difference,
could tell. Out there life opened up,
though now it closes it. The way it was -
the lies it taught
of life, death, God,
life after death,
what we become,
the life of tombs
and catacombs - becomes
the great taboo.
Airbrushed away,
forgotten as an unmarked grave,
it is the shadow that we cast on death.
consumes it whole,
requires its years,
its growing points,
regressions,
lies.
And even then
tectonic plates will not shift far,
a childhood will not slide away
as stage sets do when plays move on,
but makes of life a one-act play,
its whole world rooted in a single scene.
Trees - apple, plum and elderberry -
were the watchtowers of our world.
Beyond the fence, the wilderness;
behind each rock a shadow or an unknown shape
would move or lie in wait.
The trees out there were postlapsarian:
one struck by lightning,
another by the blight;
one poisoned at the root;
and one, we thought, the haunt of ghosts -
one, certainly, of rats.
Within was Eden, still intact
despite the plague.
A passer-by was stranger, threat or friend -
and sometimes fraud - and only we,
who knew the shades of difference,
could tell. Out there life opened up,
though now it closes it. The way it was -
the lies it taught
of life, death, God,
life after death,
what we become,
the life of tombs
and catacombs - becomes
the great taboo.
Airbrushed away,
forgotten as an unmarked grave,
it is the shadow that we cast on death.
Thursday, 25 February 2010
Wednesday, 24 February 2010
Flight of the Departed 2
For those who have asked about the possibilities of manipulating images, here's one I did earlier!(Scroll down to see the original.)
Haiku #60
or mesmerised by wasps?
Introducing at the BAFTAs.
May not be around much today and tomorrow - but the Haiku should appear as usual. See you Friday!
Tuesday, 23 February 2010
The Flight of the Departed
Going through past digital doodles, I came upon this, which I was sure I had posted before. If so, I can find no trace of it. Good enough reason, I thought, wouldn't like to deprive the world of it ...
Haiku #59
An afternoon nap -
See how learning, memory
and brainpower soar!
See how learning, memory
and brainpower soar!
Monday, 22 February 2010
Sunday, 21 February 2010
Saturday, 20 February 2010
Friday, 19 February 2010
Exhibit #94 : The Iron Poet
1
Forensic scraps of human flesh
still cling to its iron spikes -
last vestiges of past obsession.
2
The things you hear in galleries...
the things the couples do!
Seeing them and hearing what they said
alerted it to what it lacked:
a gender - or a gender substitute,
some similarly sensuous equipping
of the flesh.
Then overhearing that the angel hosts
have nothing in their natures of that kind,
evoked in it the rash thought that perhaps
it was a sort of angel in disguise.
From thought grew wings -
those fine steel mesh accessories you see.
3
An angel haunted by its history,
afflicted by its past,
pursued by shapeless echoes,
hounds of incoherence,
garbled utterance
and sounds of choking. White
noise, whispers, shrieks and clunks
like train wheels on a track.
Words from repetition, rhythm, rhyme
the way a train's wheels fashion them.
Then mistranslation to angelic form,
having wings of confidence to find
words in the sounds and sounds in silences
and thoughts in words - and neither thought nor words
the same for poets as for us.
4
What matter if the visitors, the suits of armour
or the rows of children murmuring
with pencils in their hands
were spinning what the found thing heard, out of themselves
the way that spiders spin their silken threads?
Who knows where these things come from? Half the time
they are like clouds: amorphous things
that float by in the air. But certainly
the words fell somewhere there-abouts,
and by their being there,
by their proximity to that iron thing,
were known as metaphors.
"By whose proximity?" the people asked.
Well, not the words', for sure. The people's,
surely... Surely Duchamp got it wrong!
But poems need a structure, it would learn
from its attempt to prod them into life
(returning to the old ways, if you please),
just knowing in its gut
they were its only chance.
5
For some it will be drugs, for others booze,
but for the found thing, morphing yet again,
it was - had always been -
that hankering for human flesh;
insatiable, raw cruelty. It had
been born an Iron Maiden, and the iron (here)
had taken full possession of its soul -
until the day it felt the metal softening
beneath the power of poems in its loins.
Haiku #55
Angry young men
trek the wilderness.
Nature absorbs anger
Forensic scraps of human flesh
still cling to its iron spikes -
last vestiges of past obsession.
2
The things you hear in galleries...
the things the couples do!
Seeing them and hearing what they said
alerted it to what it lacked:
a gender - or a gender substitute,
some similarly sensuous equipping
of the flesh.
Then overhearing that the angel hosts
have nothing in their natures of that kind,
evoked in it the rash thought that perhaps
it was a sort of angel in disguise.
From thought grew wings -
those fine steel mesh accessories you see.
3
An angel haunted by its history,
afflicted by its past,
pursued by shapeless echoes,
hounds of incoherence,
garbled utterance
and sounds of choking. White
noise, whispers, shrieks and clunks
like train wheels on a track.
Words from repetition, rhythm, rhyme
the way a train's wheels fashion them.
Then mistranslation to angelic form,
having wings of confidence to find
words in the sounds and sounds in silences
and thoughts in words - and neither thought nor words
the same for poets as for us.
4
What matter if the visitors, the suits of armour
or the rows of children murmuring
with pencils in their hands
were spinning what the found thing heard, out of themselves
the way that spiders spin their silken threads?
Who knows where these things come from? Half the time
they are like clouds: amorphous things
that float by in the air. But certainly
the words fell somewhere there-abouts,
and by their being there,
by their proximity to that iron thing,
were known as metaphors.
"By whose proximity?" the people asked.
Well, not the words', for sure. The people's,
surely... Surely Duchamp got it wrong!
But poems need a structure, it would learn
from its attempt to prod them into life
(returning to the old ways, if you please),
just knowing in its gut
they were its only chance.
5
For some it will be drugs, for others booze,
but for the found thing, morphing yet again,
it was - had always been -
that hankering for human flesh;
insatiable, raw cruelty. It had
been born an Iron Maiden, and the iron (here)
had taken full possession of its soul -
until the day it felt the metal softening
beneath the power of poems in its loins.
Angry young men
trek the wilderness.
Nature absorbs anger
Thursday, 18 February 2010
Haiku #53 and #54
Spinner dolphins twist in air
sometimes just for fun
sometimes removing ticks.
That was news to me.
My haiku was part fun
part cure for writers' block - and tics.
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
Tuesday, 16 February 2010
Monday, 15 February 2010
Sunday, 14 February 2010
Tanka #1
I have been thinking for some time that I might throw in the occasional tanka, just to relieve the monotony, so here is the first:
Saint Valentine's Day
starts the year of the tiger
for star-crossed lovers -
the lunar and the solar
calendars are out of synch.
Happy Valentine's Day and New (Chinese) Year to you all!
starts the year of the tiger
for star-crossed lovers -
the lunar and the solar
calendars are out of synch.
Saturday, 13 February 2010
Friday, 12 February 2010
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