24 May 2007

'Group Portrait' accepted by The Frogmore Papers.

23 May 2007



One month in Mlada

22 May 2007

Wilco, A Ghost is Born


The sound of Neil Young on vinyl mixed with Can mixed with Spirit of Eden.

Piano-led.

Disembodied but pure.

The ghost of Jeff Tweedy, living on after him:

I lay it down
a ghost is born
a ghost is born

I'm a cherry ghost

*

Just another rash of kid-smoke

*

When the devil came
he was not red
he was chrome
and he said
'Come with me'


Almost almost every line has the purity of poetry.

12 May 2007

The Kama Sutra, 300 AD

Now, a girl always shows her love by outward signs and actions such as the following: under some pretext or other she shows her limbs to him, delights to be in his company for a long time, does not want to go from the place where he is, under some pretext or other she makes him look at different things, narrates to him tales and stories very slowly so that she may continue conversing with him for a long time.

*

She should also be beautiful, of a good disposition, with lucky marks on her body, and with good hair, nails, teeth, ears, eyes and breasts, neither more nor less than they ought to be.

*


The following women are not to be enjoyed:

A woman who is a female friend
One who has played with you in the dust, that is, in childhood

*


On Kissing

A wager may be laid as to which will get hold of the lips of the other first. If the woman loses, she should pretend to cry, should keep her lover off by shaking her hands and turn away from him and dispute with him, saying 'let another wager be laid'. If she loses this a second time, she should appear deeply distressed, and when her lover is off his guard or asleep, she should get hold of his lower lip, and hold it in her teeth, so that it should not slip away; and then she should laugh, make a loud noise, deride him, dance about, and say whatever she likes in a joking way, moving her eyebrows, and rolling her eyes. Such are the wagers and quarrels as far as kissing is concerned.

*


The marks of the nails should not be made on married women, but particular kinds of marks may be made on their private parts for the remembrance and increase of love.

Even when a stranger sees at a distance a young woman with the marks of nails on her breast, he is filled with love and rspect fro her.

[He should say] I shall impress marks of my teeth and nails on your lips and breasts, and then make similar marks on my own body, and shall tell my friends that you did them. What will you say then?


*

... so much concerning eunuchs disguised as females.

*

Betel nuts and betel leaves.

*


Flowers with marks made by the man's teeth and nails.

*

A man may resort to the wife of another, for the purpose of saving his own life, when he perceives that his love for her proceeds from one degree of intensity to another.

1 love of the eye

2 attraction of the mind

3 constant reflection

4 destruction of sleep

5 emaciation of the body

6 turning away from objects of enjoyment

7 removal of shame

8 madness

9 fainting

10 death

*

The superintendants of cowpens enjoy the women in the cowpens

*

The Palace:

She should show her the bower of the coral creeper, the garden house with its floor inlaid with precious stones, the bower of grapes, the building on the water, the secret passages in the walls of the palace, the pictures, the sporting animals, the machines, the birds and the cages of the lions and tigers.

*

A courtesan should:

sit on his lap and fall asleep there

abstain from sorcery

*

When the man sets out on a journey, she should make him swear that he will return quickly and should wear no ornaments except those that are lucky.

*

The Means of Getting Rid of a Lover

(22) looking with side glances at her attendants and clapping her hands when he says anything.

*

On Kissing

(2) when a woman in a lonely place bends down, as if to pick up something and pierces, as it were, a man sitting or standing, with her breasts, and the man in return takes hold of them, it is called a "piercing embrace."

*

Skills of a woman -

(12) Playing on musical glasses filled with water

(16) Binding of turbans and chaplets, and making crests and topknots of flowers.

*

Or because of the uncertainty of life, he may practise [the 64 arts] at times when they are enjoined to be practised.

10 May 2007

Two from The Fall:

Reformation!
Scenario

08 May 2007

Five Czech Paintings (writing exercise, unedited)

Marietta, Ettere Tito 1887


She has that Russian half-moon beneath the nail face,
perfectly unflawed, undetailed
like a ph strip dipped into the air
to reveal her age.

And glimpsed along this canal's walls
toes past the edge of this slab
for boarding the boats, she looks back
aware she's being looked at, but from the wrong direction.

Czech headscarf, her neckerchief suspended like that
somehow natural, a counterbalance to her posture
like those hands on her knees.
Impressionist since evanescent, I've no way
to get to her, separated by water,
have but this painting
till I turn.

High waist, golden dress like a cockerel
hands on knees revealing her bust,
creating a triangle with her back and taut legs.
A strong body, planted feet, only
her head, alert, thrust into the light half
of this picture, filled with its water and trees.

No signature. Ultra-realist of Tess of the D'Urbevilles cover.



Smoker Vaclav Brozik 1893


Your portraitist soothed by shade
planted his subjects at study,
and you at ease
in cock-at-ease finery
material that will not crease
chair curved as a manger's oak it is a picture of
your casement ease, daylight
no breeze, high up like a pinhole exposure
you may be lit, you survey an inner
Dick Turpin boots,
lit but not looking, the shutters place
you as Czech
a man of action, unacting
cousin to the Laughing Cavalier
folded parchment, volumes, a cross
or unlit candle on your desk.
Your pipe is unlit.
The chair is a balance, an eggcup's
half dome atop an inverted half dome,
signature bottom left: Vaclav Brozik.



Portrait of a Lady with a Greyhound 1895-7 Vaclav Brozik


Direct gaze, your eyes shaded by your hat,
your talon grip on your umbrella infirm,
the naked ungloved other hand hideous somehow.
Your sallow, prominent skull conjures
spots on the lung, this black fur lined gown
too Russian, too adorned, like the gimleted collar
of your greyhound. The wall behind you
is a featureless sea-stone, your posture too erect.
Meant to spell rich it begs for you to dress down,
leave your seat, your pillars and get some fresh air.

The paws would skitter over this reflective wood floor
black,
a crepe-paper like texture, those seeds of a tree
the red cloth over the chair behind you throws
you forward
the dog's concave inner thigh
empty your hands!

That this frame behind you seems featureless
as cloud-filled sky. The artificial crepusculates
your dress will harden and crack
like stale marzipan, the handle of your umbrella
turn to dust, the greyhound's skull hollow
its fur retreat up its long wrists, the gimlets
hard as its thorax, the woman's skeleton propped
to one side, the world, clouded, behind them both
the gloves unravel like a spool of burning cotton.
The wooden floor slick as to give no purchase.

In your chair, dressed, you are your own lighthouse stair,
the bear-fur sash running up your marzipan gown,
one hand bared, holding its glove, like England
bidding adieu, a station parting,
one glimpse of shining black shoe
though you are indoors.
both you and this greyhound are mute,
with nothing to say. Except
look at me. You do not anticipate censure,
or pity, or my hand to assist you
to climb down the floors of yourself, uncurl
this dress from around your body, step
you out of your shoes and into a fountained
dusky armour.
That umbrella guard might graze the finish of the wood.
That shimmer of your gown deflects my gaze,
like a sickly sweet wrapper. The weight
of keeping up this show leaves you wan, unsunned.

There is nothing natural about your shape.
No pleasing curve, no lithe uplift.
These chair arms were not painted by you,
this hat not decorated or turned by your gloved
and ungloved fingers, this chair not assembled,
this collar not gimleted, this bear not skinned,
the dress not sewn, this painting not brushed,
what are you? Who are you? You are marble.



Recruits 1888 Vojtech Bartonek


Cases in hand mirroring the ladies' baskets,
coats, shoes the match of these cold cobbles
the six move through the market helmeted,
asong, only the stallholders, lit by this vision,
in focus out of the misty light.
The women's dresses, bound at the back,
seem cumbersome as an old lady's shawl.
The men are efficient, adroit, in three-piece suits,
their hats in three categories (none are plumed):
green the ghost-lit civvy, his bag briefcase grey.
On the floor are things to be carried: vegetables
and flowers, filling baskets, the women headscarved
their stalls beneath umbrellas. But one girl's
head is uncovered and has caught the attention of the gent.
In a world of rainwater and lifting, these men
are equal to the task.
Prague's streets fade out of focus around them,
they pass through, lighting up the villagers they touch
- touch with song, with address, with costume, with camarederie.
These recruits are the only men, but for one overalled artisan.
These are young men.
The signature is lost in the cobbles.
A Czech version of Les Parapluies.
The civvy is arm in arm with the general,
mocking courtship; yet the general has his grip
on two recruits' arms. They roll down the street
like rain.
The movement of The Boating Party by Renoir.
The other man is behind the canvass.
All of life is here - seasons, food, courtship, song.
The general's hat is red. One man, the civvy, seems cowed, reluctant.
The most gregarious are perhaps drunk, at this early hour.



The Despair of Orpheus 1942 Josef Sima


Yet this is a woman, naked, bent like the red-blown tree.
He plays, the trees bend to his shape.
The hills allow perspective, an 'in'
to the source. The scene well-lit. The landscape curved.
Natural, there are no features but posture.
Orpheus seems absent from the picture.
He has no instrument.
The riverside is where his decapitated body
was torn to shreds.
Here, this stone in the cool water
resembles a Herm, a head.
This flowing orange hair becomes
blood, Orpheus unable to sing again.
The gulf between the foreground
and the cold, though sunlit, distance.
The still water.
Orpheus props a hand on the ground.
The herm is like the first of five
puffs of cloud, a train's departure.

This one red-leaved tree is in proportion
with his other hand if he had thrust
his head through the landscape to see.

Or, this woman mourns Orpheus.
Natural, unadorned, above all rooted.
Despair is contemplation.

04 May 2007

Dream



With restless class. Italians. One puts up hand: 'We don't want to be in the same teams again.' Outside of class we have moved to a new hotel. I am living with Artef. 'What do you want to do?' I ask. One student makes a long, irritating sound. I don't acknowledge it. I pull my chair towards him and set it down less decisively than I had hoped.

A revving is heard and we go to the window. A fleet of motorcycles is riding down the road with a blip of blue lights which flash on - flash off. The Italian girls let out a 'te-te-te-te-te' sound, unusual, related to 'Chinito Chinito' perhaps.

When I turn back to the classroom, a Gosie-like girl is sat on the desk beside the boy who was making a noise. This is the last thing I need. They don't move.

'I'll see what I can do,' I say with an eye to letting them go. 'Stay here.' I cross the road and half of them follow me. 'Go back!' I say. One of the girls, a little like Monica (?) refuses, 'How old are you?' I ask. 'Fourteen' she says and throws her swimming goggles to the pavement with a crack. 'Exactly. I have no choice.'