Two Poems

Physics & Fables

Our love faded to
lily-stained fields.

They bloomed where nettles grew
and the blossom dirtied the mud.

We looked towards
the fasting mountain

which had not eaten its fill of love
since our departure (

whereas once it gorged itself to

frenzy on the fat of our bodies
& dovetails wrenched from
the flocks that pecked at us
on the cliffs

); we lounged amongst

its outcrops, draped
in satin & the
freezing rain,

knowing

that nothing lasts
& all lovers are alone:
they sit as creatures of circumstance
feeling nothing when
they look to the Sun
& see only colours.

Every evening we enacted tragedy

amidst smoke and snowdrops/
a string of past tenses
reduced together to
physics & fables;

we never could bear the silence

of the meadow
so we gave ourselves to the city
to ensure we'd never be alone,
but the city demanded
only quiet
so that all could hear
its roar. Sometimes

it tricked us with its

darkness, by its
engulfing of our sentences
into dissonance;

finally, we mistook

that comedy
for divinity,

we thought heaven was a bed,

the cold air purgatory
& felt no hell
at least
while it lasted.

Cities

Darkness sits upon the forest,

snow slumbers below it,

but I did not feel my way here to rest

amongst the hollows, to forget

about paths, or the pain

purchased daily through failing to create;

I came to dwell in nature's grave,

where bluebells fail to grow

where the snow is translated into rain.

The trees scale monuments of bone

about me, their branches

streaks of light, shining, aching, to go

into the orange night, the nothing glow

that makes me wander again, searching,

though aimless, to the last

cities of the wild, whose fast departure

swarmed into the world far too fast -

they fell before the roots

that plundered the soil, growing so vast

that all fictions were rendered crude.

No gods dwelt there, the muse

long ago packed her lyre, rendered mute

by the lovers she had refused.

Even the demons feared

the twisted copses, where they crawled confused

until the night song sounded, solemn and cruel.

Someone take me home, bring me clear,

these cities are empty

and though this must be the place, it's not here

where I meant to stay, it's not me

who sits among grey stones

of poets and salvation, I only

wanted the chance to be alone,

undressed before the dark

ivy wrapped underground, which, groaning

under its weight, falls from the far

reaches, away  towards

my ghostlike and awakening grasp

to a new city, waiting to be born.

 

Thoughts on 'A Poem for Dzhokhar'

Yesterday Amanda Palmer, most famous for being singer of the Dresden Dolls, wrote a poem. It was titled 'A Poem for Dzhokhar'. First of all, if you haven't read the poem, you can here. 

The poem is pretty simple, it repeats the opening 'You don't know' with each line. There are several points of view at work, such as the people of Boston inside their homes: 'you don’t know how claustrophobic your house is until you can’t leave it'. To an imagining of Dzhokhar himself: 'you don’t know how precious your iphone battery time was until you’re hiding in the bottom of the boat'.

Criticisms of the poem have ranged from the interesting, such as one early poster on her blog, who said:
 

I understand that you are trying to acknowledge his humanity, but you aren't really succeeding in that if you are inventing his feelings to fit what you see of the situation.

Whereas commentators on various news sites have said some very constructive things, such as: 'she's the WORST' and other such phrases. What has struck me though, and this is something that Amanda Palmer pointed out herself on Twitter, was that the backlash has been in response to a poem. When was the last time a poem caused such a stir? Palmer could have chosen numerous mediums to express her feelings, but she chose poetry.

Why does poetry lend itself so well to speaking about tragedy? Perhaps it's the freedom of form (or freedom to create form) that allow fragments of experience to express something meaningfully. From someone who might be a cop who 'let that guy go without shooting him dead and stuffing him in some bushes between cambridge and watertown' to the bomber who does not 'know how to mourn your dead brother'. Poetry really does let the writer get away with more than if they were writing an essay or singing a song. I suspect that because of the way poetry functions it is easy for detractors to dismiss it as just a jumble of phrases and even to be labelled as 'not really poetry', or maybe just 'shit poetry'. Yet, it still remains a poem.

Since this episode began to unravel on my Twitter feed, one word that has been used a lot is 'empathy'. In a situation such as the Bostom bombings, with the inevitable obsession as to who did it and why, empathy is very easily obscured in the pathological search for The Truth. We get this in the media, with its virtual updates streaming information to us, who are desperately hungry to know something about what is going on. The moment I heard about the bombings, I had the exact same response.
  
However, it's different now, because the bombers have been named, their faces broadcast to the world, and they have been hunted and killed or captured. How are we supposed to feel about this? Are we supposed to be happy? I don't feel particularly happy. There are still hundreds of people hurt, three innocent people dead as well as the two guilty ones, nothing can change that. We just know that some kind of justice has been done according to some plan or design as to what justice is.

I think this is why we need empathy, because it's our only human connection to what has happened. It is easy to hate Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev because of our empathy towards the thousands of people in Boston who will forever be scarred by the bombings. Yet, that same empathy may just also stretch to remembering that they were people too. There are poems written about The Holocaust that depict the Nazis in the camps going back to their wives and children with love. Such expressions do not lessen the horror of the camps and the evil of the people who sent so many to their deaths. Instead, they serve to remind us something that reaches far further into us than a dichotomy of good and evil: that evil has a human face, and it is the same as that of a good man or woman.

 

A template letter to your ex

In the spirit of public service, I thought that I would provide you all with a letter that may prove handy in case you wanted to get in touch with your ex-partner. There are lots of blanks, but I have offered what I consider to be the most likely options:

Dear <insert name of boyfriend/girlfriend/mistress/gimp>

It's been almost a(n) <decade/year/month/day/hour> since we broke up. And although I am <sorry/happy/annoyed/perplexed> at things ending the way that they did, I thought it was time that I should get in contact with you.

The last time I saw you was <at a mutual friend's party/across the street and I pretended not to see you/looking through your bathroom window/you looking through MY bathroom window>, and I regret not being able to really <talk to/confront/throw pot plants at) you then.

So what are you up to? I'm not doing too badly, I'm <working in a comfortable job, but not really pursuing my actual ambitions/a billionaire space sex cowboy/drunk>. I saw your post on Facebook with your latest <drawing/short film/fetish shoot> and think it's <great/inspiring/confusing/drink enducing> what you're doing.

To be honest, since we broke up I have <n't had much luck in finding anyone/had sex with every good looking person I know/gotten romantically involved with a lorry driver named Trevor>. So I guess that right now I < am dying from sexual frustration/probably have an STD/am now called Cynthia and take a lot of amphetamines>. The other day I found out from <your Facebook status, pictures and posts/our mutual friend/hacking your email account/speaking with the spirits of the netherworld> that you <are still single/in a relationship/in several relationships/are a lorry driver called Trevor>. I just wanted to say that I am <happy for you no matter what/very depressed/very drunk, so really it doesn't matter>.

If you are free in the next <month/week/year> then it would be great to meet up and <talk and stuff/have sex/listen to you talk about your life so I don't feel too bad about whining about how shit mine is in comparison/throw aloe vera at each other>. I am <generally/always> <free/drunk and horny/at the garden centre>, so let me know what's good for you.

Really, all I wanted to do was let you know that I <don't even think of you that often, I just feel kind of both happy and sad whenever you come to mind/fucked your brother>.

Best wishes,
<name>

A Home of One's Own

First things first, I would like to direct any attention away from me and towards my good friend Ivan's new blog beyondtheironpeak, in which he discusses the various crazies in his head. 

Now, the notion of a living space is one that I have previously touched upon, although that post dealt with the degrading drudgery that is house hunting. This entry is to do with a very personal dream of mine: the dream to live alone. Okay, 'dream' may be too strong a word: a really big fucking desire to live alone puts it more succintly. 

For someone in their early 20s, or actually near-approaching mid-twenties, which is really terrifying, there are several states in which one can live:

1) Living with parents (very likely)
2) Living in a house-share with strangers around your age (pretty damn likely)
3) Living in a tiny flat with a live-in landlady who doesn't let you have guests but does let you listen to her have sex with her partner on Friday and Saturday nights (more likely than you would want to admit)
4) Living with friends (sadly not as likely as it really should be)
5) Living with a partner (come on, who even HAS long-term relationships any more?)
6) Living by yourself (pretty damn impossible).

Okay, it's not THAT impossible. Bypassing the hyperbole, the main obstacle to having a place to myself is cost. That is, I can't afford it. I suppose it's my fault for working in Cambridge, which happens to have the highest average rent outside of London. 

So, removing the cost barrier, why would I choose to live alone rather than live with friends or a partner? Well, because I'm a romantic of course. I have this image, which has undoubtedly been influenced by so many novels, films and biographies of poets in the 1920s, of a small apartment, with a kitchen, bedroom and bathroom, books crammed into every cranny and a delicious turntable and stereo in the corner with stacks of vinyls and CDs. Probably a cat as well, to act solely as a lap warmer. That is my vision of paradise. On no account does this perfect space include a damp problem, bad central heating, shit estate agents, uncaring landlords and a mounting sense of despair and loneliness. 

Yes, I prefer not to involve reality in this dream. Reality would dictate that living alone in perfect contentment is really just as much a raging fantasy as living with someone else in the same state. But dreams are infectious, and the image of the artist being locked in their private world with no distractions is very contagious. The main problem is that it's bulllshit. All of these novels with these sorts of people always involve them somehow acquiring lovers. I should try locking myself in my bedroom and writing poetry all day, I'm sure that hundreds of Parisians will flock to the landing in an instant.

Okay, so maybe this doesn't sound so great after all, but what is the alternative? Spend most of my 20s living with strangers before moving in with a partner? Maybe that is the only choice. Yet it hardly seems like something that can be depended upon. Romance or not, living alone affords the virtue of space, of being fully in one's own skin. 

Also, you get to walk around naked.

An Interesting First Date

Before I start on my latest post, I would like to draw any attention I may receive to my Twitter feed, which can be found here.

I would also like to take this opportunity to mention my friend Mark's blog site. It looks a lot more professional than mine, and actually updates regularly. Check it out!

Anyway.

I don't think it's much of a confession these days to say I use online dating. Really it's not much of an anything. Fortunately that's not what this post is about, but I suppose that it is the context. 

I first began online dating in the summer of last year, based on the glowing reports I received from an acquaintance of mine, who had carved himself out a niche as a very successful libertine. Driven by both the desire to meet new people with the possibility of sparking something and a mounting, crushing loneliness, I made a profile.

And then nothing happened and I gave up.

But 6 months later I started again! Quite quickly I began messaging someone who appealed to me on various levels: 1) she looked quite gothic in her picture; 2) she said she was taking a masters in classics; 3) actually...it was mainly those two things. Her responding to my message also helped move things along.

By the second message, I had already accidentally asked her if she was into S&M. Okay, semi-accidentally. She happened to mention a book in passing that was vaguely to do with the subject and I brought it up. It turned out that she was into S&M.

We decided to meet. I chose one of my favourite cafes that happened to be within decent cycling distance of work. She was sat in plain sight of the entrace, wearing a purple jumper. She definitely came across as nervous, she had long black hair that she would retreat into at certain moments in the conversation. 

I began by making a comment about the weather (it was fucking cold) - it seemed like the first point of bonding for fellow Englishpeople. Thankfully, this was not the sort of date where small talk needed to be made. Within what seemed a short amount of time, she told me that she was in an open relationship. My reaction wasn't great, I remember making some audibly English sounds, most likely in the 'oh' or 'ah' category. It was more surprise than anything else, because I just had not gleaned that from her profile. 

Once that was in the open, we discussed classics, our backgrounds, and then sex.

It was my fault really, I was the one who brought it up. What was great about this girl was that she was really sexually liberated and completely honest about it. The problem was that I was honest about it too. Now, I wield the truth as an ogre might wield the leg of a horse: with reckless, joyful and yet thoroughly gross abandon. The point came that she asked me how many sexual partners I had, and I answered truthfully that I had been with two people. 

Now what was funny about this, and the reason why I felt I had to write about it, was her reaction. She diminished into her hair with what looked to me like shock, as it became increasingly obvious that I was hilariously out of my depth. The funniest moment was when she asked me how I had only been with two people when I had just been talking about the other dates I'd been on. I said, 'Oh, we only went on two dates, we didn't have sex.' She looked quite aghast, just at how weird it must have sounded to her.

The only way I can describe it is the awkward meeting of two vastly different worlds. My one being the one where sex is serious, where the concept vastly outweighs the act because there is so much built up around it in terms of culture and gender politics. Her world seemed to be one where sex simply is. It is something enjoyable, obtainable and ultimately freeing. 

We make our own prisons and our own means for liberation. Something like sex can be both of those things. I am reminded of the question that everyone associates with philosophy from the age of 5: "If a tree falls in the wood and no one is around to hear it, does it blah blah blah?" I suppose my version of this is: "If someone is sexually liberated, but does not really have sex, can he or she still be said to be liberated?" I would like to think yes, because there is more to freedom than what the body performs, but then action defines being, it carries out freedom.

After leaving the cafe, we walked around some parks and streets, discussing pretty much this. When we parted, she said she was glad that she had met me. A few days later she emailed me to say that we were probably too different, I think she was right. To use another ancient metaphor, stepping out of the dark cave too quickly leads to being blinded by the Sun. I translate this as: things come in time, just step slowly.

Dating Empty Rooms

I decide to wear a shirt, but no jacket, with dark jeans. I need to appear smooth, suave and yet casual and easygoing, with a touch of the urbane. 

I aim to arrive at the agreed destination around 5 minutes before the time. Sadly, I yet again overestimate my ability to navigate an area that I have spent the last 4 years living in. 

I arrive five minutes late and am standing outside the house, wondering if the person sitting in the white van opposite me is going to get out to greet me or kidnap me and sell me to a Texan oil baron.

The van drives away, leaving me to study the outside of the house. I have seen so many now that I am beginning to wonder if the door is just a portal into the same two-up two-down Victorian terrace that hasn't updated its interior since 1975.

I hear her arriving, clip board already in hand. She is the fountain of knowledge as long as its printed on that piece of paper.

We exchange hellos. She obviously spent a lot less time on her outfit than I did. I find it amusing that the coat I'm wearing has a badge with 'Gobshite' written on it.

She takes me inside. The living room is immediately next to the door, the furniture is sad and old. What is even sadder is that the place is supposed to be unfurnished. "Oh that's nice" I say in a moment of awkward weakness.

She takes me up into the bedroom, which presents its bed the way that a cat might present a dead animal on your doorstep. It wants to be proud of it, but it can't hide the fact that it's a single bed and still charging £550 a month in rent. Once again I comment on how nice it is.

There are no housemates, although the lady assures me that there are. I can see evidence of some presence from the faint noises of televisions and the smell of something evil in a pot, but I know that is all I will ever sense of them.

We step outside the house and stand under the lamp light. I look her in the eye and say that I very much enjoyed seeing the house and that I will definitely consider it. I even promise that I will call. 

Neither of us seem convinced.

The Twentysomething's Prayer

Oh Lord, who lies somewhere  

(who probably isn't there), 

Save us.

Save us from alarm clocks 

that enact tragedy

and march us into our showers with megaphones made for camps. 

Save us from the ghosts of housemates

who are announced only by the opening and closing of doors,

whose T.V. peace is disturbed by our loud weird taste in music,
who keep us awkward when they argue with their partner about when to do the laundry, where to go on holiday and why he posted naked pictures of himself on the Internet.

Save us from the estate agents 

who never call us back,

who sit in plastic offices in polyester suits with polystyrene coffee cups plotting the downfall of the young.

Save us from the T.V. nobody truly watches but somehow manages to be passively seen in a half-glimpsed haze by millions.

Save us from the pictures of everyone
who is having a better time than us.  

Save us from the sex 
which we make to mean nothing
and which personally I think isn't really for me.  

And save us

finally

from ourselves.

For we know not what we do,

we don't know where we're going,

don't know who we'll live with next year.

We can't be sure we'll ever fuck again,

fall in love again,

write draw read scrawl scribble scrape again.

We don't know what we're having for dinner tonight. 

   

For confused is your name,

and you can keep your Kingdom

and the Power

and the Glory,

as long as in return

we gain the knowledge

that we will never stay the same

and also never change.     

Chris James Hall October 29 2012