Against my philosophy of life, Spielberg's films always seem so dead and uninteresting; watching one is like viewing coloured patterns on the screen and nothing much more. When this process is made on the semi-autobiographical book of one of my most seminal authors, the effect is quite seriously disorientating.
The main theme of the Spielberg-led story of this film is of a boy losing his parents, losing his innocence, then finding his parents again. The parental bond comes totally to the fore, and this is so, so wrong in terms of the book. The parents in the book are the typical 1930s upper middle class family where the offspring are brought up by the nanny. There is considerable distance between the parents and the offspring, that to make this bond the central part of the film is just totally out of context of the period. Spielberg just didn't get this English cultural fact.
Right at the start of the film things depart from reality - the nanny for the boy is a chinese woman. This again is just so wrong and it made me spend the first ten minutes annoyed by this fact. In the book the nanny is a Belarussian, Olga. It is important that there is a separate layer of staff coming between the Chinese and the English. A Chinese woman would never have been allowed to have such direct and important contact with an English boy. I felt annoyed as this simplifying move was clearly made to dumb-down the story for an American audience.
The secondary theme of the loss of innocence is out of place here also. The narration of the book clearly indicates that this is an adult recounting his childhood through adult eyes. There is no rite of passage or moment when the narrator loses his innocence. The entire narrative is made from the point of view of an adult, and this 'journey' does not form part of the story.
Other annoyances include the waste of a good many decent actors' parts. Miranda Richardson just drifts around the screen looking wan, Robert Stephens gets very little screen time, Leslie Phillips is there but only occasionally. Only John Malkovich and Nigel Havers have anything interesting to do, and they do it well - a surprise for Nigel Havers who has had most of his career on the small UK screen.
Spielberg of course cannot resist an occasional descent into the mawkish - the Japanese teenager in the adjoining airfield and his subsequent death being the worst example.
Christian Bale's performace I have no problem with. The talent he has shown later on in his adult career is there to be seen. One can almost imagine the lead character in American Psycho being an adult version of the boy in the internment camp.
For the things that I did enjoy - one moment gave me goosebumps, and that was the attack on the airfield by Mustangs, and the realisation of the part of the book when the boy is standing on a building and sees an American pilot wave at him as he flies past. It almost got the hallucinatory feeling that J.G. Ballard described in his book. The scene set in the abandoned stadium where the Japanese had stored all the valuable furniture and cars from the westerners was suitably surreal, as was the sequence set in this arena where the flash of the atom bomb dropped on Nagasaki is depicted. In this book this is clearly figurative rather than factual, but the hallucinatory rendering of this event and the tieing of it to the death of Miranda Richardson's character worked.
The final scene of the reunification of boy and parents, and the closing of the boy's eyes in the arms of his mother is the required happy end to the story. What I really missed from the end of this story as was described in the book was the torture and death of the young chinese youth by the four bored Japanses soldiers - an event that clearly changed the life of the real J.G.Ballard and an event that resonates through all of his writing. This is the most likely event that caused the loss of innocence in the book's author, though the actual moment when he loses innocence is probably many years later, after his children have left home. Anyway, this is the sequel of the book which I am sure will never be made into a Hollywood movie. These days it would be staggering for the BBC to make a mini-series out of it, even.
Monday 31 May 2010
Tuesday 11 May 2010
Billy
To see your face
As it tells me how many men in this place
Would be foolish not to want me.
And after we have kissed
I can smell impressive aftershave
On my lips
For hours afterwards.
As it tells me how many men in this place
Would be foolish not to want me.
And after we have kissed
I can smell impressive aftershave
On my lips
For hours afterwards.
Rest Assured
Best - Gestern. Abend verlassen.
Thinking, being, doing good.
Timeshare compartments of my body.
My telephone seems a stranger to passions
Once past through its eager ear,
Its moulded mouthpiece.
Gravel - grains on the track.
The noise that fed that dream
About the daisy chain and
Oven-ready chips. Slips into a hairline fracture.
Traps in the door to the next view.
Hidden from sullen light, but no darkness.
Greying skies like Russia or the Fens.
Pale trees and make-amends of yours.
Pastures soggy, coffee-black earth.
And the ditches and drains
Pass by the dykes of my countenance.
These words are for your reference.
Well meant, well healed.
The working day has ended.
Reeled in now, I must go out to drink
For moments lost, for times too far to think
Of. Parametric decoupling of my sensibilities.
Wife swapping would be more fun than this.
I must go now.
I don't want to go out.
What gain, what interest
Can I get from my further humiliation?
Thinking, being, doing good.
Timeshare compartments of my body.
My telephone seems a stranger to passions
Once past through its eager ear,
Its moulded mouthpiece.
Gravel - grains on the track.
The noise that fed that dream
About the daisy chain and
Oven-ready chips. Slips into a hairline fracture.
Traps in the door to the next view.
Hidden from sullen light, but no darkness.
Greying skies like Russia or the Fens.
Pale trees and make-amends of yours.
Pastures soggy, coffee-black earth.
And the ditches and drains
Pass by the dykes of my countenance.
These words are for your reference.
Well meant, well healed.
The working day has ended.
Reeled in now, I must go out to drink
For moments lost, for times too far to think
Of. Parametric decoupling of my sensibilities.
Wife swapping would be more fun than this.
I must go now.
I don't want to go out.
What gain, what interest
Can I get from my further humiliation?
No Rheum at the Inn?
"I don't think I can quite stand it,"
He said, as he looked askance in the mirror.
Hairs in his nose protruding again - hankers
After a safe but effective method.
He then thinks of spermicidal jelly
And how the mouth yawns.
The grey marks on his collar and cuffs
Remind him of his lazy iron.
And half eaten apples rot
In terrifying unison
On the bedside cabinet.
Path to past, hashish to thrushes.
Madness, anger at his life's rushes.
He said, as he looked askance in the mirror.
Hairs in his nose protruding again - hankers
After a safe but effective method.
He then thinks of spermicidal jelly
And how the mouth yawns.
The grey marks on his collar and cuffs
Remind him of his lazy iron.
And half eaten apples rot
In terrifying unison
On the bedside cabinet.
Path to past, hashish to thrushes.
Madness, anger at his life's rushes.
Motorway Madness
Do I exchange my MG Metro
For some rusting, coughing metal
From "Fabbrica Italiano Automobile Torino?" -
FIAT as a formal command. But rather
Than blow my wanda on a Panda,
I really do feel I should go for a Lada.
Buy a Russian car? Some'd say I'd be batty.
But I like the image of the car from Togliatti.
And if Italian Communists are beyond perimeter
I could ease myself into a red Reliant Scimitar
And head for the hill in a ragtop retro.
But my aunt would rather see me in a Rover Metro.
I guess I'll keep the cash in the bank - moreover
Anything's better than being seen in a Skoda.
For some rusting, coughing metal
From "Fabbrica Italiano Automobile Torino?" -
FIAT as a formal command. But rather
Than blow my wanda on a Panda,
I really do feel I should go for a Lada.
Buy a Russian car? Some'd say I'd be batty.
But I like the image of the car from Togliatti.
And if Italian Communists are beyond perimeter
I could ease myself into a red Reliant Scimitar
And head for the hill in a ragtop retro.
But my aunt would rather see me in a Rover Metro.
I guess I'll keep the cash in the bank - moreover
Anything's better than being seen in a Skoda.
Thursday Night
Thursday night. Too tired to think.
Spilling patterns over the carpet.
Room a mess now, cold too.
Wasted and spaced without a drink.
It's already gone midnight.
Weary and uptight,
It rains on the outside.
This is the downside.
Spilling patterns over the carpet.
Room a mess now, cold too.
Wasted and spaced without a drink.
It's already gone midnight.
Weary and uptight,
It rains on the outside.
This is the downside.
Monday 10 May 2010
Cambs
We only see the city incomplete.
Snatches of architecture, a table
In a favourite cafe. Trees in the
Mist. Some half-unseen, as if a
Crowded station passes by.
The great mass of knowledge, lent
By my few friends. Usury, small
Portion of the common entirety of
This City. I cycle my streets,
Drink at my pubs. And in a
Blink, a speck in the eye, we
See something unrecognisible and
Our Mind forgets - peripheral amnesia.
In my mind's eye, a shrub, just by
The Cam, halfway between Magdalen
And that disused barge, that
Used to be a gallery.
You've been there?
Snatches of architecture, a table
In a favourite cafe. Trees in the
Mist. Some half-unseen, as if a
Crowded station passes by.
The great mass of knowledge, lent
By my few friends. Usury, small
Portion of the common entirety of
This City. I cycle my streets,
Drink at my pubs. And in a
Blink, a speck in the eye, we
See something unrecognisible and
Our Mind forgets - peripheral amnesia.
In my mind's eye, a shrub, just by
The Cam, halfway between Magdalen
And that disused barge, that
Used to be a gallery.
You've been there?
Crossing the Field
All of a sudden we were volleying,
Batting, bowling, aiming and Rallying.
I turned to look at my friend
In some disbelief and worry
That I may be overcompensating,
Overacting in a hurry
And forcing the game's end.
But the food came, and more beer.
The company, alcohol and Stilton cheering
Me on. Then off we were, walking
Through fields flat and immense.
The conversation diverting, diverse.
Worries then at the current expense
Subdued by the joys of talking, talking.
A junction. the line of conversation stalls.
Disorientation, skipping through fields.
Lagoons of doubts, drones of engines.
Back to the path as it greys, rains.
Home in the car and a breakdown.
Coffee and conviviality with Viv and velvet.
The rest of the day in tiredness.
Damp walk home, food and the down
Train to London, home of the restless.
Looking back, then being glad we met.
I, as ever, the fool
Asking more questions
Than getting answers.
Mixed feelings
But positive about the chances.
The fool dances.
Batting, bowling, aiming and Rallying.
I turned to look at my friend
In some disbelief and worry
That I may be overcompensating,
Overacting in a hurry
And forcing the game's end.
But the food came, and more beer.
The company, alcohol and Stilton cheering
Me on. Then off we were, walking
Through fields flat and immense.
The conversation diverting, diverse.
Worries then at the current expense
Subdued by the joys of talking, talking.
A junction. the line of conversation stalls.
Disorientation, skipping through fields.
Lagoons of doubts, drones of engines.
Back to the path as it greys, rains.
Home in the car and a breakdown.
Coffee and conviviality with Viv and velvet.
The rest of the day in tiredness.
Damp walk home, food and the down
Train to London, home of the restless.
Looking back, then being glad we met.
I, as ever, the fool
Asking more questions
Than getting answers.
Mixed feelings
But positive about the chances.
The fool dances.
Sunday 9 May 2010
Consummate Durables
More books for breakfast.
Sometimes I wonder if I,
As in my times past,
Will ever have the time to buy
Enough time to scan these words,
These shards of thoughts,
Ideas, quests that have been fought
For, for me to stack and waste.
My only contact with these books, my dust.
What of my plastic coated aluminium disks?
I never seem to have the time to study,
Examine or even risk
Disliking them. Somebody
Should stop me buying CDs.
I should apportion cash to needs
And stop these dirty transactions and deeds.
I must now amortize my waste
Before my mind and chattels turn to dust.
Sometimes I wonder if I,
As in my times past,
Will ever have the time to buy
Enough time to scan these words,
These shards of thoughts,
Ideas, quests that have been fought
For, for me to stack and waste.
My only contact with these books, my dust.
What of my plastic coated aluminium disks?
I never seem to have the time to study,
Examine or even risk
Disliking them. Somebody
Should stop me buying CDs.
I should apportion cash to needs
And stop these dirty transactions and deeds.
I must now amortize my waste
Before my mind and chattels turn to dust.
Saturday 8 May 2010
Meditation on a Cambridge Past
I fell asleep at three this afternoon
And woke at seven. It was dusk
At seven, in this late August in my room,
In this late year, ninety-three.
And I felt a feint unease
At the thought of summer
Suddenly coming to an end;
The morning nip, the browning trees.
The night before briefly reeled
Before my eyes. Dancing, sweating
To music of twenty years ago. High-heeled
Boots, collars, nylon, dacron, polyester -
The camp burlesque of "Year-yester,"
Boogie nights, nineteen-seventy-three.
Cambridge, I believe you are
My first real home. The first place
I have throughly inhabited, more
Than anywhere in years past.
I've become comfortable with your face,
As one does of routine beauty.
I kick against your perpendicular,
Renaissance, Gothic less now, now I
Am older. In the present, in particular
An aspect of your past days
To me acts as an indicator of the malaise
Of this society, England in
The inevitable 20C fin de siecle.
My vital lifetime lies herein.
It's almost as if I am sixty not twenty
Years back. Europe, cradle of all we have
As we dizzily spin into the next millenium,
My Europe is in war again. Plenty
Of times this century, peace's tedium
Has been shattered by Europe's clamour.
Amongst the Cambridge I know now,
Touristed, jail-bait-thronged, no glamour,
Ghosts of nineteen-thirty-three speak
In what we laughingly now call innocence.
Speak to me now ghosts. I'm tired of our
Cynicism of your patronage of communism.
Tell me of the facist atrocities in Spain.
Illustrate to me Picasso's canvases of pain.
Tell me now, who is the despised hero?
Tell me of your thoughts on the appeasement
Of the Czechs; the Jews and Queers and
Intellects under Stalin, Hitler. Sarajevo,
What of it? Tell me soldiers, tell me Owen,
Butterworth and Brooke of the games at hand
From the time you died with Ferdinand.
Tell me all you ghosts of this horrific century,
Tell me what is wrong with us? Bosnia
Exhibits it's demon's wares on our TV screen.
Papers sell and the publishers get rich.
In Cambridge, the tourist trade is seen
As a necessary evil, for local prosperity.
Moral bankruptcy, forgetting our legacy.
Where is the Cambridge of thirty-three?
Are we now really so wise, so superior, so happy
That we cannot be idealistic, innocent again?
Men from this town fought and died in Spain.
Now Cambridge men drink, play laser-quest,
Trampoline onto velcro walls in velcro vests.
I'm angry and upset, that in this media
Saturated world, Bosnia is not cause for avid
Action, what-must-be-done; now tedium
Is our collective response. War in the Balkans
Makes us middle-classed think more of
Emma Thompson, blue stockings. And how to avoid
The queue at Branagh's "Much Ado."
Mostar has fallen. Barbarity. But who
Cares now? The IRA bomb the past away.
Great architecture of our civilisations blasted
Into obscure dust. Twyford Down, for example.
Even British Rail is being dissected, drowned
In the loch of noble privitisation. For the first
Time in my life, I really feel that society
Has run it's course, as it embraces all pretence
Of knowing where it's going and what it's doing.
I was frisked last night, This never
Happens at a socially unacceptable queer event.
On gay nights, the bouncers are there to keep
The violence out. So this is my life. Society
Accepts hate and despises love. My
Hands sweat. I exhale. I cry quietly.
And woke at seven. It was dusk
At seven, in this late August in my room,
In this late year, ninety-three.
And I felt a feint unease
At the thought of summer
Suddenly coming to an end;
The morning nip, the browning trees.
The night before briefly reeled
Before my eyes. Dancing, sweating
To music of twenty years ago. High-heeled
Boots, collars, nylon, dacron, polyester -
The camp burlesque of "Year-yester,"
Boogie nights, nineteen-seventy-three.
Cambridge, I believe you are
My first real home. The first place
I have throughly inhabited, more
Than anywhere in years past.
I've become comfortable with your face,
As one does of routine beauty.
I kick against your perpendicular,
Renaissance, Gothic less now, now I
Am older. In the present, in particular
An aspect of your past days
To me acts as an indicator of the malaise
Of this society, England in
The inevitable 20C fin de siecle.
My vital lifetime lies herein.
It's almost as if I am sixty not twenty
Years back. Europe, cradle of all we have
As we dizzily spin into the next millenium,
My Europe is in war again. Plenty
Of times this century, peace's tedium
Has been shattered by Europe's clamour.
Amongst the Cambridge I know now,
Touristed, jail-bait-thronged, no glamour,
Ghosts of nineteen-thirty-three speak
In what we laughingly now call innocence.
Speak to me now ghosts. I'm tired of our
Cynicism of your patronage of communism.
Tell me of the facist atrocities in Spain.
Illustrate to me Picasso's canvases of pain.
Tell me now, who is the despised hero?
Tell me of your thoughts on the appeasement
Of the Czechs; the Jews and Queers and
Intellects under Stalin, Hitler. Sarajevo,
What of it? Tell me soldiers, tell me Owen,
Butterworth and Brooke of the games at hand
From the time you died with Ferdinand.
Tell me all you ghosts of this horrific century,
Tell me what is wrong with us? Bosnia
Exhibits it's demon's wares on our TV screen.
Papers sell and the publishers get rich.
In Cambridge, the tourist trade is seen
As a necessary evil, for local prosperity.
Moral bankruptcy, forgetting our legacy.
Where is the Cambridge of thirty-three?
Are we now really so wise, so superior, so happy
That we cannot be idealistic, innocent again?
Men from this town fought and died in Spain.
Now Cambridge men drink, play laser-quest,
Trampoline onto velcro walls in velcro vests.
I'm angry and upset, that in this media
Saturated world, Bosnia is not cause for avid
Action, what-must-be-done; now tedium
Is our collective response. War in the Balkans
Makes us middle-classed think more of
Emma Thompson, blue stockings. And how to avoid
The queue at Branagh's "Much Ado."
Mostar has fallen. Barbarity. But who
Cares now? The IRA bomb the past away.
Great architecture of our civilisations blasted
Into obscure dust. Twyford Down, for example.
Even British Rail is being dissected, drowned
In the loch of noble privitisation. For the first
Time in my life, I really feel that society
Has run it's course, as it embraces all pretence
Of knowing where it's going and what it's doing.
I was frisked last night, This never
Happens at a socially unacceptable queer event.
On gay nights, the bouncers are there to keep
The violence out. So this is my life. Society
Accepts hate and despises love. My
Hands sweat. I exhale. I cry quietly.
Thursday 6 May 2010
Thought on falling asleep.
Between the paper clips and discarded cups of tea,
In the moment caught between the pain and memory,
After the curtains' close on the dreary day,
Behind that screen, erected to try and make it go away,
Before me, now, in this reflective twilight, sits
A man, who impresses me yet, all the more
Because we, who from him benefit,
Can now more clearly understand the score -
The how, the what, the ways and wherefore
We do this; all preconceived thoughts made forlorn
And small. I find a word I kick against
Time to time. This word invokes defence
So strong - reactionary. In the mess of my room
I berate myself for hating this thought, this dove
That you have freed in me in this gloom.
This answer, bird and revelation? This love.
Cambridge, 31st May 1993 - to Billy Scott
In the moment caught between the pain and memory,
After the curtains' close on the dreary day,
Behind that screen, erected to try and make it go away,
Before me, now, in this reflective twilight, sits
A man, who impresses me yet, all the more
Because we, who from him benefit,
Can now more clearly understand the score -
The how, the what, the ways and wherefore
We do this; all preconceived thoughts made forlorn
And small. I find a word I kick against
Time to time. This word invokes defence
So strong - reactionary. In the mess of my room
I berate myself for hating this thought, this dove
That you have freed in me in this gloom.
This answer, bird and revelation? This love.
Cambridge, 31st May 1993 - to Billy Scott
Dream Man
In the darkened spheres of eyes,
In the doughnuts of the corpuscles of blood
Exists a space that is beyond time
And the temporal word.
A man walks down the street in early May,
In his head Chopin can be heard to play.
He's fighting his way to school
Through a muddied pool of thought.
The events in his life have all but superseded
The child. The recollections of a 'fifties house
Send shards of shattered past to the gutter.
The yellow lines blur his line of sight.
Aghast from spirits drunk in false glee,
Reeling against the tumult of the skies,
The man falls over, falls again.
His mother's arms waste sickly as he slides.
Home again for half-past-six and news
Of rain or murder or tales of whose is whose.
Flesh yields to fork, flesh fields of pain.
The whole damn business repeated once again.
Who is this man? more than half his life already lived.
A dream I had, I guess.
Cambridge, May 1993
In the doughnuts of the corpuscles of blood
Exists a space that is beyond time
And the temporal word.
A man walks down the street in early May,
In his head Chopin can be heard to play.
He's fighting his way to school
Through a muddied pool of thought.
The events in his life have all but superseded
The child. The recollections of a 'fifties house
Send shards of shattered past to the gutter.
The yellow lines blur his line of sight.
Aghast from spirits drunk in false glee,
Reeling against the tumult of the skies,
The man falls over, falls again.
His mother's arms waste sickly as he slides.
Home again for half-past-six and news
Of rain or murder or tales of whose is whose.
Flesh yields to fork, flesh fields of pain.
The whole damn business repeated once again.
Who is this man? more than half his life already lived.
A dream I had, I guess.
Cambridge, May 1993
Overexpressif. Undemanding.
Overexpressif. Undemanding.
Through the fields we gaily tread.
Over five bar, under hedges,
Toying with same fears and dread.
To the castle, on the hilltop,
Faster, faster still we walk.
To the gate and onward, onward.
Ladies' gentlemanly talk.
Forest hills and streams sublime,
Gleaming glades and celandine,
Striding forward, hills of chalk.
Facing gusts and zephyrs westward,
Mending hearts and sacrament.
How jolly we, how far to go
To say that this is all I know,
Forgive, forget and then forgo
The pleasure, the pleasure.
Cambridge, November 1992
Through the fields we gaily tread.
Over five bar, under hedges,
Toying with same fears and dread.
To the castle, on the hilltop,
Faster, faster still we walk.
To the gate and onward, onward.
Ladies' gentlemanly talk.
Forest hills and streams sublime,
Gleaming glades and celandine,
Striding forward, hills of chalk.
Facing gusts and zephyrs westward,
Mending hearts and sacrament.
How jolly we, how far to go
To say that this is all I know,
Forgive, forget and then forgo
The pleasure, the pleasure.
Cambridge, November 1992
Wednesday 5 May 2010
Cambridge Pink
There's mud on my boots. Yet
I know I have not really lived today.
The dusk gave me regret;
The shafts of pink assumed the task of that
Which modifies and ridicules the grey.
Time passes like the stream.
The chasms seem to loom up all around.
I felt the fear of dreams
And all the things that that cause me to react
Against the popular consent. Profound
Are thoughts which give us pause
And now illuminate my Cambridge skies.
The bare trees stand, perhaps, despite the fact
That wind and rain and grey can be the cause
For choking in the throat, and tears in eyes.
Cambridge, Late November 1992
I know I have not really lived today.
The dusk gave me regret;
The shafts of pink assumed the task of that
Which modifies and ridicules the grey.
Time passes like the stream.
The chasms seem to loom up all around.
I felt the fear of dreams
And all the things that that cause me to react
Against the popular consent. Profound
Are thoughts which give us pause
And now illuminate my Cambridge skies.
The bare trees stand, perhaps, despite the fact
That wind and rain and grey can be the cause
For choking in the throat, and tears in eyes.
Cambridge, Late November 1992
Inland on a Sunday
Through my window coldly falls
Sunday afternoon's dreary pall.
Who said that it had to be
As grey as stone, bark of tree
As gaunt as flesh
Without life?
The curtain's mesh
Means all that I
Can see, the street, the cars
The wan people, wrapped in lonely clothes
Blown by winds they don't request
Sourced in seas they have not missed.
And here I
Peer from the gods.
My mind's eye
Records the tides
Of this far ocean, swelling now
Without a why, nor where nor how.
White horses leap, and so subside.
The horses race, and now I ride.
Cambridge, November 1992
Sunday afternoon's dreary pall.
Who said that it had to be
As grey as stone, bark of tree
As gaunt as flesh
Without life?
The curtain's mesh
Means all that I
Can see, the street, the cars
The wan people, wrapped in lonely clothes
Blown by winds they don't request
Sourced in seas they have not missed.
And here I
Peer from the gods.
My mind's eye
Records the tides
Of this far ocean, swelling now
Without a why, nor where nor how.
White horses leap, and so subside.
The horses race, and now I ride.
Cambridge, November 1992
On Returning to Cambridge, September 1992
The landing gear jerks as it hits the ground.
The coach wheels pound the M25.
Why does it feel so good
To be alive?
All my journeys lead here: home I am bound.
There where all my stories are told,
And so tongue-tied I speak of these.
I wish I could speak Welsh.
My simple pleasures transcribed to banalities.
My mind sending me signals. I have to laugh.
The sun warms my room, and I see
Through net curtains a scene,
A past spring, a well of
Knowledge. How far have I come
To return from where I am?
My face is wet, and I feel ecstasy.
The trees drip and wash away my vanity.
Water-logged, the Green forgives
And I forget, and that is good.
Tempting clouds gather above.
I trip and slip in the puddles.
The light from in me dances.
I feel I've beaten the odds,
Confounded the chances.
[Written on returning from three months in the USA. The Green here is Jesus Green.]
The coach wheels pound the M25.
Why does it feel so good
To be alive?
All my journeys lead here: home I am bound.
There where all my stories are told,
And so tongue-tied I speak of these.
I wish I could speak Welsh.
My simple pleasures transcribed to banalities.
My mind sending me signals. I have to laugh.
The sun warms my room, and I see
Through net curtains a scene,
A past spring, a well of
Knowledge. How far have I come
To return from where I am?
My face is wet, and I feel ecstasy.
The trees drip and wash away my vanity.
Water-logged, the Green forgives
And I forget, and that is good.
Tempting clouds gather above.
I trip and slip in the puddles.
The light from in me dances.
I feel I've beaten the odds,
Confounded the chances.
[Written on returning from three months in the USA. The Green here is Jesus Green.]
Tuesday 4 May 2010
"The seventh wave shall come to take us all."
"The seventh wave shall come to take us all."
Believing in talking about doing good,
When good is as is a brick wall.
This brick wall doesn't exist
Unsupported.
Changes in the colours of the hair
Compared to l'annee derniere.
Simple now. Only foxes and hounds to face.
Smattering of enchantments,
That's all it takes.
Confluence of wasted harmony.
Bisection of the life before.
We wait on this beach, oil bedecked,
Smiling at passing liners, not waving.
Only as sensible as our trousers.
These trousers don't collapse
When supported.
Stages in development, whilst growing.
Yesterdays coming into being.
But now, with all these cries for money to face,
Scattering of structure,
Why do we accept
Half baked excuses, insults
Of what has been done before?
Failing this we rewind
And repeat the whole damn thing
Again.
Cambridge, late spring 1991
[Looking back at the Gulf War, and the waste of young lives]
Believing in talking about doing good,
When good is as is a brick wall.
This brick wall doesn't exist
Unsupported.
Changes in the colours of the hair
Compared to l'annee derniere.
Simple now. Only foxes and hounds to face.
Smattering of enchantments,
That's all it takes.
Confluence of wasted harmony.
Bisection of the life before.
We wait on this beach, oil bedecked,
Smiling at passing liners, not waving.
Only as sensible as our trousers.
These trousers don't collapse
When supported.
Stages in development, whilst growing.
Yesterdays coming into being.
But now, with all these cries for money to face,
Scattering of structure,
Why do we accept
Half baked excuses, insults
Of what has been done before?
Failing this we rewind
And repeat the whole damn thing
Again.
Cambridge, late spring 1991
[Looking back at the Gulf War, and the waste of young lives]
Monday 3 May 2010
In black and black
In black and black
My face turned away
In disbelief and strange calm,
Forgetting not that unique way
He slowly crossed his arms.
Some comments made
In unwanted pause
Means nothing, but cannot
Be divorced from concern.
How little it takes
To have what little you have
Taken away.
Cambridge, Easter 1991
My face turned away
In disbelief and strange calm,
Forgetting not that unique way
He slowly crossed his arms.
Some comments made
In unwanted pause
Means nothing, but cannot
Be divorced from concern.
How little it takes
To have what little you have
Taken away.
Cambridge, Easter 1991
Hear the breath of the earth.
Hear the breath of the earth.
Will I cry, laugh or sing?
Will I be alone or part of one
Whole? I cannot know. I fall,
And as I fall, and call, I think.
I think of ascent. To float, to
Feel the brave tug of surface tension.
To hear the rush of free air -
The wind in the tall trees,
The cry of an owl. To be born,
Again. To know gravity, without
The contamination of buoyancy.
Leeds, late 1989
Will I cry, laugh or sing?
Will I be alone or part of one
Whole? I cannot know. I fall,
And as I fall, and call, I think.
I think of ascent. To float, to
Feel the brave tug of surface tension.
To hear the rush of free air -
The wind in the tall trees,
The cry of an owl. To be born,
Again. To know gravity, without
The contamination of buoyancy.
Leeds, late 1989
Sunday 2 May 2010
Torn away from these lonely landscapes
Torn away from these lonely landscapes
We must all find what is ours
And see what is others'.
Fighting for some borderline,
Some territorial sublime.
I've seen fire on a winter's night
And ice on an aeroplane,
But through all of this, something must remain.
Desolation - a rose on a gravel slope,
No light, no time, no single hope.
I've seen this on a wild dance,
An aimless journey, aimed by chance.
Yet something still remains,
Stays the same.
Desperation halts the march,
The dart for an opening.
A quiet field or a groaning city
Gives small solace away.
But still something stays.
I can't go on, can't go on.
Give me another song, a day,
A route to get away
For my time is no longer today.
Birmingham, spring 1989
We must all find what is ours
And see what is others'.
Fighting for some borderline,
Some territorial sublime.
I've seen fire on a winter's night
And ice on an aeroplane,
But through all of this, something must remain.
Desolation - a rose on a gravel slope,
No light, no time, no single hope.
I've seen this on a wild dance,
An aimless journey, aimed by chance.
Yet something still remains,
Stays the same.
Desperation halts the march,
The dart for an opening.
A quiet field or a groaning city
Gives small solace away.
But still something stays.
I can't go on, can't go on.
Give me another song, a day,
A route to get away
For my time is no longer today.
Birmingham, spring 1989
For the first and last time
For the first and last time
Life seems angelic, pure, unknowing.
Foreseen, all the pasts of this stinking flesh.
Passed by the contents of the gutter,
Crying
Utter tears of pity, then self-pity.
Urine-stinking bus home, urban lights wink,
But not at me.
Faces in the window, discussions, discursions,
Games, fallacies, want to turn and face them.
Time to get out of the bus.
Eyes meet. Messages between strangers.
Do I give compassion, do I patronise?
Mock?
I cry on my bed.
I cry until all gravity is cried out.
The night again, my only mistress.
Black lady in a shimmering, shrouded dress.
The lady who waits.
Birmingham, summer 1989.
[This one's about a bad journey home from the centre of Manchester one
night in 1988 - The contents of the gutter was a psychiatric patient
begging for money - The strangers on the bus were a crabby old queen and
two rent boys he'd picked up. I was very drunk and on my own.]
Life seems angelic, pure, unknowing.
Foreseen, all the pasts of this stinking flesh.
Passed by the contents of the gutter,
Crying
Utter tears of pity, then self-pity.
Urine-stinking bus home, urban lights wink,
But not at me.
Faces in the window, discussions, discursions,
Games, fallacies, want to turn and face them.
Time to get out of the bus.
Eyes meet. Messages between strangers.
Do I give compassion, do I patronise?
Mock?
I cry on my bed.
I cry until all gravity is cried out.
The night again, my only mistress.
Black lady in a shimmering, shrouded dress.
The lady who waits.
Birmingham, summer 1989.
[This one's about a bad journey home from the centre of Manchester one
night in 1988 - The contents of the gutter was a psychiatric patient
begging for money - The strangers on the bus were a crabby old queen and
two rent boys he'd picked up. I was very drunk and on my own.]
Oh, blood of my blood - the forgotten aeons.
Oh, blood of my blood - the forgotten aeons.
The faceless boundaries of my mind.
Lips like forests, violets, lilacs on an autumn mist.
A time for sweet wine, flagons of beer, cans of lager.
Fevered sweat on my brow, blood on paper,
Tang of graphite in my mouth and in my body.
Cell mates, torn from limb to precious limb.
Lifeless analogies, contend, contention, contribution.
All the follies of the pasts, sweep away like lost leaves.
New ventures come my way,
More poetry it seems.
Such delight, such utter brutality.
Loneliness on a summer night.
Flight of moth 'round lamp,
Spinning towards infinity, immortality, intangibility.
The rush of images, two sides of brain part.
Lush hillsides and grey valleys of yesteryear.
Spilt redness on sunny, snowly slope.
Eyes meet again, in painful stare;
Pricks in the back garden - night.
Oh, the endless oppressive night.
My dreams, eidolons of my fantasies,
Perversions of my interiors,
Contusions from my realities.
Specific credit where specific credit due.
Dry now, my belly draws in.
The aftermath of the shimmer-storm.
Birmingham, summer 1989
The faceless boundaries of my mind.
Lips like forests, violets, lilacs on an autumn mist.
A time for sweet wine, flagons of beer, cans of lager.
Fevered sweat on my brow, blood on paper,
Tang of graphite in my mouth and in my body.
Cell mates, torn from limb to precious limb.
Lifeless analogies, contend, contention, contribution.
All the follies of the pasts, sweep away like lost leaves.
New ventures come my way,
More poetry it seems.
Such delight, such utter brutality.
Loneliness on a summer night.
Flight of moth 'round lamp,
Spinning towards infinity, immortality, intangibility.
The rush of images, two sides of brain part.
Lush hillsides and grey valleys of yesteryear.
Spilt redness on sunny, snowly slope.
Eyes meet again, in painful stare;
Pricks in the back garden - night.
Oh, the endless oppressive night.
My dreams, eidolons of my fantasies,
Perversions of my interiors,
Contusions from my realities.
Specific credit where specific credit due.
Dry now, my belly draws in.
The aftermath of the shimmer-storm.
Birmingham, summer 1989
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