Saturday, 9 December 2017
Within comfortable range
"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum -- even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate."
Noam Chomsky, linguistics professor and political activist (1928)
Friday, 8 December 2017
Beauty on canvas
The girl with the pearl
set the world a-whirl
to then the following year
be mowed down by the Reaper
Thursday, 7 December 2017
Last one awake
Every evening
of every day
I have to be
the last one awake
Just to make sure
– everyone's safe
– none has to be
the last one awake
The first one up
to watch over
them all even
the last one to wake
The nights are short
but all worth it
there's joy to be
the last one awake
At times it hurts
to stay awake
but I'll always be
the last one awake
And if there be
once I shouldn't
then let me be
the last one to wake
Wednesday, 6 December 2017
Reality check
"I don't believe in playing down to children, either in life or in motion pictures. I didn't treat my own youngsters like fragile flowers, and I think no parent should. Children are people, and they should have to reach to learn about things, to understand things, just as adults have to reach if they want to grow in mental stature. Life is composed of lights and shadows, and we would be untruthful, insincere, and saccharine if we tried to pretend there were no shadows. Most things are good, and they are the strongest things; but there are evil things too, and you are not doing a child a favor by trying to shield him from reality."
Walt Disney, entrepreneur and animator (1901-1966)
Tuesday, 5 December 2017
Centripetal gyration
"I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world. I may not complete this last one but I will try."
Rainer Maria Rilke, poet and novelist (1875-1926)
Monday, 4 December 2017
Watching a glacier move
"It was not conscious. There was no recognition in it of one's fortune, or fate, and for that very reason even to those dazed with watching for the last shivers of consciousness on the faces of the dying, consoling.
Forgetfulness in people might wound, their ingratitude corrode, but this voice, pouring endlessly, year in, year out, would take whatever it might be; this vow; this van; this life; this procession; would wrap them all about and carry them on, as in the rough stream of a glacier the ice holds a splinter of bone, a blue petal, some oak trees, and rolls them on."
Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway (1925)
Saturday, 2 December 2017
Friday, 1 December 2017
The Hours
She had not come, she had not yet
come.
The waiting, the longing, the unmoving
in each of these
stretched-past-breaking-point hours
the hole that can't be filled
in the pit of the stomach
the hunger pushing the boundaries
of the hours, of solitude, a bit
further off
she had not yet come, not yet come
and she dug her absence with a pick axe
laboriously, apparition ploughing in
the dark
silent against a clear backdrop
She had not yet come.
Of course, one doubted she would ever
come
the hours reached cosmic dimensions
almost ridiculous in their order of
magnitude,
density and aloofness
Yet sometimes in the search one would
find
a smoking camp-fire
steaming coffee on the stove
wet trees and grass one mile away
whence no rain had fallen
a tinge of peppermint in the air
a hair hanging off a warm pillow
It was hard to make sense of the hours.
They were not pointing in any clear
direction
they dragged and eluded description
showing and veiling
the hours, the hours
both filling and containing the void
the restlessness, the fidgeting,
the looking-for-reasons
the paralysis and the purpose to get up
to brush up one's teeth and one's
knowledge
the impetus to not put commas
to par one's fingernails
They were the inherent contradiction
the dryness and luxuriance of the world
that which rendered all words empty
and gave them meaning, new meanings
sucking life out of every second
breathing her mind back into them
It was foretold she would burst like a
hurricane
and turn the whole world upside-down
leaving carcasses of animals and cars
and a foot of caking mud
a glistening sense of agony
a jungle-like silence
and sudden gusts of wind
that sent shivers up the spine
and then other hours will come
freed prisoner scratching the days
before the next meeting
off the invisible wall of his cell
other hours will grip and churn
curled up, foetus-like, in pain
seeing things that are, and aren't,
unable to differentiate
these other hours one will not court
will hammer in certain intuitions
among which holding sway over one's
mind
the certitude that one will hurt
will die from this last hurtle-down
love
because there is too little and too
much of it
giving and taking as rampaging
crusaders
ruining to build anew
burning down to fertilise the ground
these hours will make wormfood out of
you
they will sow anger in the lap of your
heart
those same hours that have levelled
mountains down to sand
won't even cock their ear
at the crushing of your skull
the hours etching their distinctive
mark
over every action and thought
even on the foam in the mug of coffee
the hours are like letting go
of that which is still yours
making a memory off a living person
off a moment that would never come to
pass
and the holding-back when she wakes up
at fucking long last
and needs time, more time
and it feels this is all you have
all you have left
the time without her
even after she had come
the waiting
the hours metronoming your heart
making you dream of Maghera cave
and the waves beating the sand
into the wind
and for some reason
you yearn for the sea
for a barefoot shoreline walk
hands folded behind your back like a
peasant
and your nose up in the briny air
you then understand that she was
picking flowers
or was it caterpillars
dancing wildly by the roadside
the reason of being behind
and your constant glancing at the gate
for she was the hours
she was the hours
and saying this I realise
she had always been
here and now and there and then
all along
I will have to wait for hours
for her to deign glance back at me
to catch a glimpse of her like a
shooting star
cowering in a corner when she flares
like the sun
elbows on the gate to the prairie when
she's the night
when she rains, looking ahead,
smiling when she appears in the doorway
when she leaves, smiling.
Thursday, 30 November 2017
Coffee
She lifts the cup – the bland china
clank still
above the morning murmur of the hurried
customers –
to her lips only for her pen to be
stilled
by the surprising absence of content –
it's like finding out one's cigarette's
out
even though they're designed to burn
out –
running out of coffee remains uncanny –
the story stalled until the next gulp –
time measured in punctincting china –
halted mid-air staring at the
blackbrown ring –
granular negative of a near-perfect
eclipse –
blended shadows of distilled words,
bitter if left to sit on out for too
long –
in one movement she stands up, pushes
back
the stool and lays down the cup –
the day stretches outside the bay
window
people after cars after people after
cars –
queueing up again – keeping watch on
her things
– her things – in a haloed blur on
the table –
the pockmarked, unnerved, unsmoothed
wood –
the tinnital wave of the conversation
floating
like bobbing flotsam in the middle of
the café,
she feels aloof, stranded, a standstill
runaway,
an exile without a justification, a
fraud almost
though she has money, a job, club cards
–
been mocked for the black hair on her
brown arms –
more disturbing to her is the pulp of
her skin
loosening so visibly when she drinks
water –
as anyone she is the sum of her
memories,
slave to them – ditching one means
losing a finger –
– her things – her coffee –
essential and trivial –
the café, the people, the cars, the
china
keep her head down and blank and
running,
the noise motions her in the here and
the now –
the threads adjusted, the cup filled,
the ink stayed –
disambiguates the scars from the words
–
while the bland china still clink –
while she lifts the cup.
Thursday, 2 November 2017
(p)leisure
"The only thing one can give an artist is leisure in which to work. To give an artist leisure is actually to take part in his creation."
Ezra Pound, poet (1885-1972)
There are many shades to be found in this quote when one scratches the varnish, but I'll be discussing only one right now that's the most obvious to me (quick aside: I like the idea that what's obvious at one point in time, in your life, may be different at another further down the line.)
I initially wanted to say in the title to this quote that "leisure equaled time". I realised quickly this wasn't true, and not what Pound meant. Time is part of the concept of leisure, but so is to be free of any constraint. Providing an artist with a smooth relationship when they're in an artistic process is to take part in the process itself. Without an understanding partner, no success is possible for no anchor in the real is possible. Pound didn't specify the context, so if the artist isn't in any relationship then it's much easier in one sense, but they'll need an equally understanding society to give them free reins.
Leisure is a broad term that in our modern society can encompass many things, from being free from financial constraints to some form of emotional distance -- yet with a maintenance of the strong bond -- from one's partner. Giving space, time; providing a poised, safe environment; taking care of the world around while something else is being created...all of these require dedication, respect and trust, from either society or the artist's partner. Its process is egocentric, yet humanistic in nature. This process has to be recognised as "work", just as Pound envisioned it. Leisure isn't just "free time" or spending endless hours looking out the window or staring at a blank canvas, even though a measure of maturation process has to be suffered.
Last, of all: leisure is really "the only thing" the artist needs to be given. The rest they'll take care of. Hence the title.
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