Advent Calendar 2009: December 10th – Love Letter December 3, 2009
Posted by bazmcstay in Advent, Poetry.Tags: Literature, Poetry, Advent, Poem, Louis MacNeice, Love, Calendar, December, Mayfly, Love Letter, Unrequited
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I sometimes worry that this may be the best poem I’ve written and one I’ll not surpass. It’s very passionate, slightly tortured by a love beyond reach, a love so simple that a mere sneeze is “embarrassingly gorgeous”. The idea of unrequited love, “just out of reach” is one well expounded throughout poetry everywhere and this is just a submission of mine to the great list of love poems. The pain of the experience turns wistful as the poem ends, finding a simple moment almost unbearably beautiful. Rather than an accompanying poem, I have added my favourite quote from poetry. It is from “Mayfly” by Louis MacNeice. The mayfly, which only lives for 18 hours, must live a lifetime in that short space of time. The qoute illustrates the zest for life which we should all emulate. Thanks for reading these poetic entries, normal service will shortly resume.
Love Letter
the curious whiplash of love rips red stripes from my hide I bleed chalices for her when she touches my arm, brushes the crumbs from her lips and then smiles or when time mercifully allows just one more sentence between us before we rush apart, and as she slips away, I feel my soul weep a strange, one-sided affair as I fake joy, inside aching to turn hug into caress turn her cheek and kiss really weave fantasies in her hair where shadows fly above tiger eyes and thread to her dress streams of foolish love letter looks embarrassingly gorgeous when she sneezes into her sleeve- 8th June 2007
What of time they have They stretch out taut and thin and ringing clear; So we, whose strand of life is not much more, Let us too make our time elastic and Inconsequently dance above the dazzling wave.-“Mayfly”, Louis MacNeice
Advent Calendar 2009: December 9th – Docklands December 3, 2009
Posted by bazmcstay in Advent, Poetry.Tags: Adam Zagajewski, Advent, Calendar, Death, December, Docklands, Dublin, Renata Gorczynski, Try To Praise The Mutilated World, Urban, Wasteland
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I suppose this creates a bit of an urban wasteland scene,an early-morning walk along the docks. I suppose it’s the country boy in me that has the love-hate relationship with the city. Sometimes I love it, the warm sunny days, the mild nights and magical city lights; sometimes I hate it, the greyness or the violent colours, the dirt, the sex and lies and fakeness and manufacturedness and heavy unreality, the semi-dead life it leads and leads us into. All poetry is a vague and vain attempt to, as Adam Zagajewski says, “Praise the mutilated world” and those within it. This is what I try with all poems, and this, despite its depressed nature, is no exception. The accompanying poem is “Try To Praise The Mutilated World” by Adam Zagajewski, translated by Renata Gorczynski.
Docklands
The city wakes long before he sleeps, roused by the whir and drone of buses and an alarm-clock fanfare of foghorns. Cranky gulls croak their objections and mongrels whine for ten minutes more. No river views from this ivory tower block, just dog turds on the grey balcony, brooding cranes, hulking over mucky sites and warehouse roofs like rusty metal patchwork. These flat-pack, pop-up high-rises balance like b-movie scenery, stretch and strain, try to outreach each other, sucking at nothing, sucking in everything. Nothing like such hollow grand designs, pits and skeletons, roads, works-in-progress. All’s pulled taut tight, a world through cling-film, pushed and pulled by plastic legacies, blinding hi-viz vests and orange traffic cones. In the cotton-wool, mournful morning, the river doesn’t flow. It cuts and stains. Suits and coffees float past, heading out to sea.- 24th February 2009
Try To Praise The Mutilated World - by Adam Zagajewski, Translated by Renata Gorczynski
Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June’s long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of wine, the dew.
The nettles that methodically overgrow
the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world.
You watched the stylish yachts and ships;
one of them had a long trip ahead of it,
while salty oblivion awaited others.
You’ve seen the refugees heading nowhere,
you’ve heard the executioners sing joyfully.
You should praise the mutilated world.
Remember the moments when we were together
in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
You gathered acorns in the park in autumn
and leaves eddied over the earth’s scars.
Praise the mutilated world
and the grey feather a thrush lost,
and the gentle light that strays and vanishes
and returns.
Advent Calendar 2009: December 8th – Rainfall, Mount Street, 21st February 2007 December 3, 2009
Posted by bazmcstay in Advent, Poetry.Tags: Advent, Calendar, Canal, December, Derek Mahon, Dublin, Everything Is Going To Be All Right, Light, Mount Street, Rain
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This poem is about how the most beautiful moments can ambush us and affirm us when we least expect it. The interaction of water in light, the musical quality of rain springing off leaves and pavements, the primitive feeling of being caught in a downpour – those factors combined struck me one evening walking home. Beauty can come in so many different forms and when they do, it does make you think that everything is going to be ok. The accompanying poem is “Everything Is Going To Be All Right” by Derek Mahon.
Rainfall, Mount Street, 21st February 2007
Anoint me with down-drip-droppy Ringing rain! Humming a tune, the water whistles and sings On my jacket and the pavement. An electric field of orange-white firefly flecks Flock around the streetlamps. Crossing Mount Street Bridge, the lock brims full And flashes with foam. Scrags of oily hair dampen and cling for life To my sopping, bare head As the twilight heavens pour down a riverfull of raindrops And drench me. God, you always pick the best moments, Don’t you?- 21st February 2007
Everything Is Going To Be All Right – by Derek Mahon
How should I not be glad to contemplate
the clouds clearing beyond the dormer window
and a high tide reflected on the ceiling?
There will be dying, there will be dying,
but there is no need to go into that.
The poems flow from the hand unbidden
and the hidden source is the watchful heart.
The sun rises in spite of everything
and the far cities are beautiful and bright.
I lie here in a riot of sunlight
watching the day break and the clouds flying.
Everything is going to be all right.
Advent Calendar 2009: December 7th – Death December 3, 2009
Posted by bazmcstay in Advent, Poetry.Tags: Advent, Blackberry Picking, Calendar, Childhood, Death, December, Innocence, Literature, Poem, Poetry, Seamus Heaney
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Something I admire so much in the likes of Heaney is the conversion of personal experiences as a child into a meaningul, profound meditation on a greater subject. Childhood ends in that moment when you realise death exists. I hope the cinematic nature of the poem works and that it manages to zoom out and in effectively. That one word death reminds itself to us so often, and I wanted to know where it first announced itself. I think I make it really work, for once, in this poem. The accompanying poem is “Blackberry-Picking” by Séamus Heaney.
Death
when the cat killed rabbits, slit them from bobtail to brow, mum scooped them onto a coal shovel and catapulted them onto the compost heap. once upon a time though, bunny is still busy breathing, too scared to stop, flopped on the carpet, wanting out of Mister McGregor’s garden. the front door open, a morose evening breeze, dripping with the last of daylight, crawls into the house and sets the scene with creepy cinematics: hacking crows stagger and perch, the sun is trampled by horse chestnuts, the lawn drowns in piranhic midge swarms. trapped in celluloid, popcorn-muncher and actor, a wide-eyed boy, brown hair etc., watches himself discover the murder scene uncensored, un-PG. he stares unsurely rudely, big blues trying to patch over the unsightly tear in bunny’s fur coat, focused on its own rolling tiger’s eye beads, scattered across the sunny porch, runaway marbles knocked ringing away. he hunkers down, strokes the sinking head as he would that damn cat daily in return for grins and capricious purrs. no magic springs from that fat index finger – what did he think it might do? what was the alternative remedy? eyes die open, bunny breath exhausts, limp, lost to the next touch – the boy knows that this is the first time. now a pause see this pathetic pieta in June’s garden of Golgotha carved in falling dew and violet dusk. snap out of it into the obvious action: a garden trowel digs the grave, a sycamore twig is the headstone. no onion sobs for bunny as he slides from the coal shovel underground, - no place like home – a motherless child, paws under his head, foetal, sleeping, really sleeping – not like some tv princess or knight – daring you to drop the soil across him. seemed a good idea but really, only messy – what if he wakes, screams the criss-crossed blackbird to the boy he stands firm, chief mourner crying meaningful tears by the flowerbed planted with lily, bamboo and sycamore twig. that twig rotted, mulch to the earth it stabbed, bleeding into these future screenshots where the boy inhabits late nights and remembers: street-lamps pissing rain or woollen early grey light simplify memories such as this into one word and that word is death.- 16th May 2009
Blackberry-Picking – by Séamus Heaney
Late August, given heavy rain and sunFor a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer’s blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full,
Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard’s.
We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn’t fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they’d keep, knew they would not.
Advent Calendar 2009: December 6th – Huntsman December 3, 2009
Posted by bazmcstay in Advent, Poetry.Tags: Advent, Calendar, Coleridge, December, Hedonism, Kubla Khan, Literature, Lust, Orgy, Poem, Poetry, Sex, Violence
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There is a bit of a structure to this poem, which I hope builds, through the language and rhythm to the frenzy the poem ends up in. The huntsman is an animalistic figure, strong and confident, full of cash and bloodthirst. These are the people who go out and pick up girls (“birds”) and satisfy a lust for sex with such ease. It’s almost ritualistic, like some sort of pagan orgy and that notion of sex-meets-violence is something I enjoy using now and again. The hedonism of the poem reminds me a little of the sizzling, sexual language in Kubla Khan which creates a “savage place” full of life and lust. The accompanying poem, therefore, is “Kubla Khan” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
Huntsman
Huntsman, you bastard, you stalk my prey and prayers on wild nights, wild nights spent frivolous and free. Sink coins down new-sunken wells, toss and backflip and wet. Draw rich bucketfuls and drink your fill to piss it right back up and mark this unfound territory of beasts. Lurch, splash and track your readymade targets in sound and overbearing heat, slash through leaves of stars and take your pick, and aim and shoot and kill. The fresh carcass slumps, leaks slick puddles of life. Your zinc smile sparks, slits this nightdress of dark and pounding winds and rips the clouds in two. Riot in blood and gusts with loud cries of lust, and push and shove and broken colour and glass, and reap and repent and restart, break bones, eat, swallow and burst.- 28th May 2009
Kubla Khan – by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
In Xanadu did Kubla KhanA stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round :
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery. But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover !
A savage place ! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover !
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced :
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail :
And ‘mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean :
And ‘mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war ! The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves ;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves. It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice ! A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw :
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ‘twould win me, That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome ! those caves of ice !
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !
His flashing eyes, his floating hair !
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
Advent Calendar 2009: December 5th – December 3, 2009
Posted by bazmcstay in Advent, Poetry.Tags: Advent, Archibald MacLeish, Ars Poetica, Calendar, December, Hearing, Poem, Poetry, Senses, Sight, Smell, Taste, Touch
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Constructed around the basic foundation of our interactivity with the world – the five senses - this poem is really about how the poet senses the world. The eye is placed first in all these section, and gets the final say too – the poet doesn’t live the life through the lens, but acts as the lense himself. Archibald McLeish says “A poem should be equal to / Not true…A poem should not mean / but be” – it’s reveals nothing more than its own creation itself and this poem is about appreciating both the gift of the world, and the gift of poetry and the world it creates. The accompanying poem is “Ars Poetica” by Archibald MacLeish.
Common Sense
Give thanks for your life which is more than that which amiably meets the eye, than the not-too-tight, not-too-limp handshake, than a little half full glass of frothy mouthfuls, than mere buzzwords, cliché or simple hearsay, than the mask of dress-sense, make-up, perfume, a life lived not brilliantly but beautifully with wide eyes, not tarnished but touched by depression, not tasteful but toasted for its freckles, not plagued but placated by plagal cadence, not sowing but smelling the roses. Look through broken glass. Feel rain soak jeans. Eat too many cookies. Hear familiar words wrong. Smell burning and laugh. Give thanks for your life lived not through but as the lens.- 28th January 2009
A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit,
Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb,
Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown –
A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds.
*
A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs,
Leaving, as the moon releases
Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,
Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,
Memory by memory the mind –
A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs.
*
A poem should be equal to
Not true.
For all the history of grief
An empty doorway and a maple leaf.
For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea –
A poem should not mean
But be.
Advent Calendar 2009: December 4th – Why I Write December 3, 2009
Posted by bazmcstay in Advent, Poetry.Tags: Advent, Calendar, December, Emotion, Literature, Poems, Poetry, Writing
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The next 6 days I will be out of the country and travelling a bit so writing expansive posts may be difficult. So, I have decided I will post six poems of mine each day along with a paragraph or two about the poem and my poetic life and outlook. I will also include in each post one of my favourite poems by a different poet. Hopefully you will enjoy these poems and they may give you an insight into me and a different side of my written life. Firstly though, today’s post will be a general treatise about Why I Write.
I’ve been trying to figure out exactly what it is that keeps me coming back to write poetry. Tonight I think I may have hit on something. It’s interesting for me to examine the progression of my poetic style and subject matter as the past three or four years have gone by. What started out as tentative and somewhat juvenile attempts at a difficult artform have gradually matured as I have developed an understanding of the intricacies of poetic composition. Occasionally I have stumbled on a decent poem; occasionally I still mess things up completely; no one is perfect.
But I have become fascinated by the increasingly insular nature of that which I write; gradually my poetry has focused in on my self. Of course I wrote about myself in the early days too – all poets do! However, I am discovering a larger force of my emotions coming through my writing; I am more visible, audible, tangible in the words I string together. This seems to indicate to me that as I write more poems, I become more aware of and more acquainted with myself; I delve farther into myself and I allow myself to reveal more of my interior.
Not only that, but I also believe that the reason I continue writing and feel such a fervour (desperation?) to do so is because I am not yet satisfied that I have encapsulated my emotions adequately in words: I have not demonstrated my anger and frustration – those two words alone simply cannot embody the whole of their signified; I have not yet captured my sadness and happiness – the gulf of feeling between those two experiences is infinite beyond words; I have not yet conveyed my cynicism and adoration – those deserving of such attitudes have not yet felt their full poetic emphasis.
Poetry is an extraordinary thing: I can feel very pleased with a composition one day and completely despise it the next. There is always that feeling of imperfection hanging over the poetry I write – I pour out these words which never fully frame that untouchable frame of mind I am in. No one writes perfect poetry, I have already said as much, and it is because of this that I am always engaged by the poetic.
Maybe one day I will be able to say “Yes, this is perfect. This puts exactly into words the exact emotions, the exact sensation, the exact concept I want to write.” If the day comes when I can be sure that the reader, through reading my poetry, will undergo the precise experience I actually want them to undergo, then perhaps I will stop. Probably not, because I am almost certain that that day will not arrive. But I think it is the possibility of that day which keeps me coming back for more.
Advent Calendar 2009: December 3rd – Love, Don’t Hate December 3, 2009
Posted by bazmcstay in Advent.Tags: Abuse, Advent, Calendar, Community, Dailybooth, Hate, Haters, Homophobia, Internet, Love, Malice, Racism, Twitter, Violence, Vitriol, Xenophobia, Youtube
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NOTE: This entry is based on a response I posted on the Dailybooth site of a person who follows my bloggery. Dailybooth is a very simple site based on the notion that you post a photo of yourself every day which describes your feelings, encapsulates events in your life and so on. This guy had posted a picture of himself holding a sign with my username on it saying “Thanks” because I had subscribed to his Dailybooth. Which was lovely. Underneath this, someone had placed the following comment:
your face reads “i know i’m being a faggot, but girls will like me if i do this, so the risks outweigh the women”
you’re wrong though, sorry.
faggot
This practice is known as “hating” and is most well-known for its prevalence on Youtube, where viewers post streams of vitriol directed at Youtubers, at the subjects of their videos or at each other. The content of these posts range from the violent to the racist, the homophobic to xenophonic and everything in between. The thread on this particular Dailybooth continued for some 52 comments before I noticed, mainly between the offending poster and a couple of friends of the boy who had made the original photo post. The basic thrust of the “hater’s” “argument” as his posts demonstrated was that this guy had wasted his time being nice to people he hadn’t met, that he shouldn’t be pretending friendship with online acquaintances and that people like him (the nice ones) made him feel sick. Just a stellar guy, by the sound of his manifesto.
Anyway, I got very annoyed by such ignorance, aggression and downright bile being unnecessarily meted out on a guy who I don’t know personally but who Twitter and Dailybooth had brought into my circle of online contacts and who had been polite enough to bother to thank me for following his photo trail. So, I responded with a lengthy post which forms the basis of this entry. It is written as an address to this particular hater but could be generic to many more.
————————————
I don’t know if you’ve seen any of these extremist Christian groups in America who picket funerals of soldiers, decrying homosexuality, saying that the US is living in sin and doomed, that the death of every soldier is a blessing and so on. What they do is irreproachable – not only do they harass people trying to live the life they’ve been given in whatever way they wish, but they also bring incredible pain to them in the process. Now, it’s a hyperbolic example, but what so-called “haters” on the internet are doing is similar.
I’m continually amazed and dismayed by people on the Internet who, rather than accepting that there are “alternative” people to how they think life should be lived, spend their time actually TELLING those people that they don’t like what they do. Is that very different to homophobes shouting abuse at gay people (and by the way, using the word faggot is simply childish and offensive)? I’m glad you’ve found something you care about so much and which merited your video response – certainly, if I ever find something on Dailybooth or Youtube or anywhere else that doesn’t amuse / inform / affirm me sufficiently in future, I won’t do as I’ve done in the past and simply ignore it but I’ll spend time responding to it in order to put down that person purely because I’m in a spiteful mood. Which begs the question: Which of us is the one wasting our time?
Oh, and where I come from, it isn’t exactly common practice to tell someone “I don’t like you”, especially if they’re someone you don’t know first-hand, which is essentially what you are doing. Some people think telling some in a brief message that they appreciate what they’ve done for them is enough; others, like this chap, think it is nicer still to draw them a sign, send them a card or even give them a present. Whatever interests someone has and whatever way they wish to express an emotion, be it gratitude or anything else, it isn’t for you to condemn that.
You could do worse than growing up a bit: You might not think social networking / making videos on Youtube or whatever is worthwhile. I make videos for fun, some people like them, they pass some time and that should not be an issue for you. You might like rugby – great, so do I, but if I didn’t, I wouldn’t stand at the side of the pitch calling you a tool, spanner, dickhead, wanker, etc. for doing something you enjoy. Whatever people do, be it soccer or stamp-collecting, acting or art, tae-kwon-do or tiddlywinks, each to their own – at this stage of your life buddy, and everyone else’s, you should accept people and whatever it is they want to do. This isn’t some school where everyone is trying to conform to one set of expectations, so get over it.
FINALLY, in response to your follow-up post: “all that concerned me is that you’re looking for acceptance from those who are going to fall short of giving you that connection; since most of all of them are here for superficial reasons, and aren’t going to fulfil you and your genuine compassion for people.”
You weren’t in the least bit concerned for this boy (people who are concerned don’t use the word “faggot”) and you also seem completely blind to the potential of the internet to imbue confidence, strike up relationships and expand horizons. You might think it’s daft that these communities exist (why you’re on Dailybooth in that case is a mystery to me) but others find them very useful professionally, artistically, emotionally and even personally – many people find long-time friends, even partners, make social connections which they could never possibly have or, and surely this is worthwhile, HAVE FUN.
And finally finally, if you’re going to criticise someone about something, A – do it to their face, not secretly through a computer screen, B – do it constructively rather than destructively, and C - concern yourself with something slightly more important than a photo or video which irks you on a harmless website. If the best use of YOUR time is to despise other people for their enjoyment of an unprecedented resource which has blessed our generation, if the way you spend your day is sowing discord in a vibrant, funny, creative and largely supportive community, if the only emotion you can raise in the face of a pleasantry directed between two COMPLETE STRANGERS is malice, then it might be time for some serious personal appraisal.
If someone wants to be nice, it is not your duty or anyone else’s to say “people shouldn’t be so nice”. It’s your duty to let them do whatever the hell they feel like unless that is something which is rude or upsetting. Like what you did. That’s why I am taking the time to post this. I’m not about to enter a debate with you because the reality is your position is indefensible and there is no debate to be had. You lost it at “faggot”.
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So, sorry if you were expecting jolly posts all Advent but this is a subject that I felt deserved some attention. It’s very easy to allow hate to prosper in the melée of the Internet. But we must attempt to stamp out that vice wherever it may be found. While we must certainly love one another as we would be loved and to treat one another as we would be treated, we also face a moral imperative to enforce those mantras to the best of our ability. We’re not all superheroes who can save the world; but we are all people who can spread a bit of love and put an end to hate.
