Tuesday 6 July 2010

Dando




If dancing thrice around the split shield wasn't

enough, the bronze razor sharp the trident cracked,

where the legion whores picked across the dead, as

absent wives dreamed and sensed the worst.

Where glory tore through the heavens with the stab

of a torn standard, and Peresphone pretended to be free,

climbing out of a fissure in the earth, for another spring

of dance and glutinous, temporary glee.















Sunday 4 July 2010

New Model Faith



The world turns

the gods smile and giggle

[cheap strong cider hard times

on Mount Olympus]

nicely numbed to the realty

of rule by death cult.


How did the world get this way?

Why did it turn to the glories of blood

to self-sacrifice

to the bitterness of a barbed crown

in place of one soothed with velvet and gold?

Why worship distress over comfort,

pain over pleasure and then-

there-

find Joy?


Needing to work to find divine acceptance

to suffer, is to take you closer to God.

Is that really salvation

or did we take a wrong turn as we strolled

the banks of Axios

and lost sight of Chiron in the cooling woods

as he disapeared amongst the damp birch

for the last time

Gone Fishing....caught some trout

To forge an ingot true of supercillious intent, to raise a spear high and cry, Behold Me, Gods! For I am never to be yours!

The standard bloody and torn but the spirit smirks and giggles spouting the glories of.....gobblydegook.

Has it been so long? February but a distant frosted fist of wintery concrete slab rain stained torpor. Life passes in a skewered vision of tormented artistic cynicism- to be misunderstood, misrepresented and undersold- the true spectre of the Human Condition. The shadow alive with its own independent action and yet it does not escape you, oh no, it sticks around to see how it goes, not even your shadow wants to escape...

And why should it indeed as we hurtle relentlessly to our doom. Does not the bible speak of oceans turned black and a third of them aflame in End Times! Oh come The War of Angels, release us from our boredom! But not of course before I see the wonders of a re-bulit New Orleans, recreated in all its corporate splendour, the annoying traces of poverty and undesirable hovels hoovered away by neoliberal self-serving fervour and, who are we to complain, so long as cut price airlines continue to keep their fares low. We live not so much in a civilisation as a mobilisation- we have oil to thank for our freakish globalised stature, and we will have oil to thank for our demise. Now there, there is a neat symmetry. Who said there is No God.

Culture in various shades, geists and glowerings pervade the sight, sounds and hide of the errant scarecrow. American History X makes an impression- 1998, how did we ever miss that one? A rounded tale that shows the complex origines of racism and the power-delusions of neo-Nazism. The simple message is: hate not only doesn't pay, but no one who fills their intellect and senses with hate gains anything whatsoever from it; in such individualistic consumer orientated times, that alone should be a lesson in life to adhere to. So Choose Love.


Green Zone tries to admirably expose the Iraqi debacle and although true in mission, misfires somewhat, but still noble in its effort. The new Brett Easton Ellis book tittilates and inspires in equal measure, Jay McInerney with the Last Batchelor remains consistent in his Fitzgeraldian tribute ways and Helen Walsh's novel Brass-set in noughties Liverpool and a wonderfully twisted tale of substance abuse, big city youthful excess and rampant, proud Total self-absorption- is a wonderful unexpected discovery and possibly, the closest, most unlikely British version of Bright Lights Big City we have produced...bravo!