First there was the swan photo. When I took it, I was just a few steps away from the two swans. I am sure they noticed me, but they had this distanced, unimpressed air around them. There was something peculiar about that moment; one of the swans floating in the water, the other standing at the edge of the lake, and me, standing at the lakeside.
I knew I wanted to write about this mood, this edging in. I didn’t know where to start, though.
Fast forward a week, another waterside. Me there, with Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs Dalloway. The green Penguin edition, with two penguins on the cover. I read the first thirty pages, then later browsed them again, noting down words, half-lines, in word play: even now, at this hour; beauty was behind, making it up, all this one, the motor car with its blinds drawn, passing invisibly....
The next day, I read on. And came across this line: “There was an emptiness about the heart of life; an attic room. Women must put off their rich apparel.”
It was this attic room that took shape. And a woman. In a society of swans. That’s how the poem unfolded.
Dorothee Lang is a writer, web freelancer, traveller and gardener. She lives in Germany, edits the BluePrintReview and Daily s-Press, and keeps a sky diary. Sometimes she dreams of having wings. Recent publications include HA&L, elimae, Spiral Orb, a handful of stones, The, and eclectica. For more about her, visit her website.
Addendum by the Ed: more about Dorothee's poem, here.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Jeff Klooger
Another Day
A mist of sand sweeps off the dunes.
Outside the lonely shack with the rattler’s tail
spinning in the desert breeze and slapping a tune
on the king of hearts, a bike leans on its own. Two more
will soon arrive, and the riders, hard men
with wild, flowing hair and death-dealing eyes,
will join their friend inside. That cop looks like a man
but talks like a woman. What does that mean? He/she will die soon
just the same, punched clear across the room
by a single round straight to the chest.
His/her partner too will die. Such things are
unavoidable out here, beyond the reach
of civil laws and customs. Later the cops will get one back,
blasting a bowser and a suspect together
in a cloud of orange flame. The burning man stumbles a bit,
confused at his strange fortune, then sinks down,
a heap of blackened evidence.
The next victim sings to his own tune, relaxed
and free at last in the back of a prison bus. In no time
the bikers arrive, shattering the day with hungry bullets,
tipping the bus into an oncoming truck, the twin behemoths
waltzing across the highway in a flurry of dust
and debris. Who would have thought our hero
could survive; but he does, he did, he will,
all the way to the sweet (not bitter) end, when he and his partner
will solve the whole damn mess with a few deft moves
and a shit-load of ammunition. It’s like that here
on the mean and hilly streets.
Elsewhere in black and white, a woman imagines
she’s in the presence of God, prays and dances and writhes
on her lonely bed. She blows a kiss, peers back
at her feet, trembles and rocks, tears off her clothes,
arches her back and sighs. It only ends
when the voice stops, when the apertures
that let the men observe her torment
slide shut.
The truth is we are all voyeurs, recording
the symptoms of night’s untreatable disease.
A convoy of limousines will close the deal
and lead us at last towards tomorrow’s thrill-packed instalment,
armed with a raft of brand new hopes and dreams, some pale regrets
and a brain-pan full of old obsessions.
A mist of sand sweeps off the dunes.
Outside the lonely shack with the rattler’s tail
spinning in the desert breeze and slapping a tune
on the king of hearts, a bike leans on its own. Two more
will soon arrive, and the riders, hard men
with wild, flowing hair and death-dealing eyes,
will join their friend inside. That cop looks like a man
but talks like a woman. What does that mean? He/she will die soon
just the same, punched clear across the room
by a single round straight to the chest.
His/her partner too will die. Such things are
unavoidable out here, beyond the reach
of civil laws and customs. Later the cops will get one back,
blasting a bowser and a suspect together
in a cloud of orange flame. The burning man stumbles a bit,
confused at his strange fortune, then sinks down,
a heap of blackened evidence.
The next victim sings to his own tune, relaxed
and free at last in the back of a prison bus. In no time
the bikers arrive, shattering the day with hungry bullets,
tipping the bus into an oncoming truck, the twin behemoths
waltzing across the highway in a flurry of dust
and debris. Who would have thought our hero
could survive; but he does, he did, he will,
all the way to the sweet (not bitter) end, when he and his partner
will solve the whole damn mess with a few deft moves
and a shit-load of ammunition. It’s like that here
on the mean and hilly streets.
Elsewhere in black and white, a woman imagines
she’s in the presence of God, prays and dances and writhes
on her lonely bed. She blows a kiss, peers back
at her feet, trembles and rocks, tears off her clothes,
arches her back and sighs. It only ends
when the voice stops, when the apertures
that let the men observe her torment
slide shut.
The truth is we are all voyeurs, recording
the symptoms of night’s untreatable disease.
A convoy of limousines will close the deal
and lead us at last towards tomorrow’s thrill-packed instalment,
armed with a raft of brand new hopes and dreams, some pale regrets
and a brain-pan full of old obsessions.
commentary
This poem is one of a series of television poems. It began life as automatic writing, a real time recording of what the television shows and what this viewer thinks and feels in response to what he sees. Then some time later, when all that watching and recording is over, rewriting begins. This is not so much a case of undoing what is already there, but of taking up, extending and developing themes that are already present, whether in the images themselves or the mind of the viewer, and also making what I hope is good poetry. I am not concerned about how much is imposed by me as viewer and how much is interpretation of the material viewed. It is probable that something of both will be revealed.
I find it is best to watch with the volume down. Switching channels when bored is inevitable, even if the practice may have deleterious effects on one’s concentration span if indulged in too habitually. In English we call this practice ‘channel surfing’; the French call it ‘zapping’. The philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis has coined the term zapanthropus to designate the sort of human beings who give themselves up to and are characterised by this habit.
I wonder whether all viewers are driven to make some sort of unifying sense, even if subconsciously, of the montage of story and image that they consume and in part construct. I wonder whether viewers should attempt to do so, or whether the more liberating approach is to allow the disparate and disjointed to remain disparate and disjointed. What sort of liberation would that be, and liberation for whom? And if we do endeavour to construct a meaning for the whole, can we be sure that this meaning is ours and not imposed upon us by others who only seem disparate but in fact have the same agenda, the same world-view, the same all-pervasive sensibility?
Jeff Klooger’s poetry has been published in his native Australia and internationally. Recently his work has appeared in The Liberal (UK), The Stinging Fly (Ireland), Sketch, dotdotdash, Cordite Poetry Review and Otoliths. His other interests are music and philosophy. His book on the ideas of the Greek-French philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis was published in 2009.
I find it is best to watch with the volume down. Switching channels when bored is inevitable, even if the practice may have deleterious effects on one’s concentration span if indulged in too habitually. In English we call this practice ‘channel surfing’; the French call it ‘zapping’. The philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis has coined the term zapanthropus to designate the sort of human beings who give themselves up to and are characterised by this habit.
I wonder whether all viewers are driven to make some sort of unifying sense, even if subconsciously, of the montage of story and image that they consume and in part construct. I wonder whether viewers should attempt to do so, or whether the more liberating approach is to allow the disparate and disjointed to remain disparate and disjointed. What sort of liberation would that be, and liberation for whom? And if we do endeavour to construct a meaning for the whole, can we be sure that this meaning is ours and not imposed upon us by others who only seem disparate but in fact have the same agenda, the same world-view, the same all-pervasive sensibility?
Jeff Klooger’s poetry has been published in his native Australia and internationally. Recently his work has appeared in The Liberal (UK), The Stinging Fly (Ireland), Sketch, dotdotdash, Cordite Poetry Review and Otoliths. His other interests are music and philosophy. His book on the ideas of the Greek-French philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis was published in 2009.
Frederick Jackson
Las Hormigas
They pour though this tiny hole
No larger than a pinhead
Down the tile grouting
And out across the countertop they flow
A tidy stream of living dots …
***
“WHAT DO ANTS HAVE TO DO WITH ART?!!!”
Yells dragon lady, top heavy
With bust, bangles, hairdo and makeup
Nearly knocking me out of my chair
And wrecking me for a week
***
Now I see this line of tourists
Filing down Matamoros Street
The block is short, the sidewalk narrow
And hewing to the wall they seem
The Word made Flesh, the providential
A… r…
n… t…
s…
w…
e…
r…
To the Lady’s question
They pour though this tiny hole
No larger than a pinhead
Down the tile grouting
And out across the countertop they flow
A tidy stream of living dots …
***
“WHAT DO ANTS HAVE TO DO WITH ART?!!!”
Yells dragon lady, top heavy
With bust, bangles, hairdo and makeup
Nearly knocking me out of my chair
And wrecking me for a week
***
Now I see this line of tourists
Filing down Matamoros Street
The block is short, the sidewalk narrow
And hewing to the wall they seem
The Word made Flesh, the providential
A… r…
n… t…
s…
w…
e…
r…
To the Lady’s question
commentary
"Las Hormigas" developed in stages exactly as indicated by the hiatuses in the poem. First a fascination with the ants themselves, then the unhappy meeting with the dizzy matron-of-the arts in which I foolishly mentioned my latest endeavor, and then finally the surprise message from the beyond. It is interesting that had not this all occurred, I probably would not have in the end been able to follow through on the original impulse to write a poem just about the ants.
Frederick Jackson was born in San Francisco and grew up in and around New York City. In his early 20s while studying for a degree in physics and working summers as a merchant seaman, he discovered a passion for poetry. A volume, The Stem of One Colossal Flower, self-published in 1966, sold in several bookstores in Greenwich Village. One poem appeared in the poetry quarterly Athanor (New York, Spring, 1967). The author went on to receive a PhD in physical oceanography and had a several decades long career in science. After an early retirement in 1995 he returned to writing poetry. His collected work can be found here. He currently lives in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
Frederick Jackson was born in San Francisco and grew up in and around New York City. In his early 20s while studying for a degree in physics and working summers as a merchant seaman, he discovered a passion for poetry. A volume, The Stem of One Colossal Flower, self-published in 1966, sold in several bookstores in Greenwich Village. One poem appeared in the poetry quarterly Athanor (New York, Spring, 1967). The author went on to receive a PhD in physical oceanography and had a several decades long career in science. After an early retirement in 1995 he returned to writing poetry. His collected work can be found here. He currently lives in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
Kyle Hemmings
The Colonel's Younger Lover
Among other things, all her lovers are stale, imitations of imitations. They hold umbrellas over Paris & have no sense of blue fifth jazz. When it rains, it doesn't necessarily pour a healthy broth. All wars are on hold. At the window, she is cabbage-patch sad and confides in toy dogs. Memory is a polka of exhausted I-told-you-so's. In the distance, there are insipid pinwheels that upon squinting turn out to be the neighbors. She turns. The maroon dress, one-piece and bought at a bargain, falls to the floor. Today, she gets naked for no one. The windows stay neutral like Switzerland. She's a demure alp of fog, a slip of misplaced vanity. At the knock on the door, everything will be alphabet clear, reassembled with the old stiches. The corners of the room recede in their erogenous dust. Sure.
Among other things, all her lovers are stale, imitations of imitations. They hold umbrellas over Paris & have no sense of blue fifth jazz. When it rains, it doesn't necessarily pour a healthy broth. All wars are on hold. At the window, she is cabbage-patch sad and confides in toy dogs. Memory is a polka of exhausted I-told-you-so's. In the distance, there are insipid pinwheels that upon squinting turn out to be the neighbors. She turns. The maroon dress, one-piece and bought at a bargain, falls to the floor. Today, she gets naked for no one. The windows stay neutral like Switzerland. She's a demure alp of fog, a slip of misplaced vanity. At the knock on the door, everything will be alphabet clear, reassembled with the old stiches. The corners of the room recede in their erogenous dust. Sure.
commentary
The piece came about while thinking of two books I reread recently - The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles, and A Moveable Feast by Hemingway. I tried to work with this tension, the feeling of nothing coming out right, of being trapped in a vapid boring existence but still searching for that elusive blue fifth note of jazz, of life itself. And of course, I thought of Paris because everyone thinks of Paris when they think of love and rain. Or maybe not. At the poem's end, logic and routine take over, everything will become crystal clear and distant and that last word for me was a kind of echoing doubt that everything will fall into place.
Kyle Hemmings lives and works and dies in increments in New Jersey.
Kyle Hemmings lives and works and dies in increments in New Jersey.
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