Thursday, December 31, 2009

note from a far country


Postcards and emails from friends land softly on my mailbox like long travelled dry leaves. Letters from a far country.

I'm in a familiar snow country now, at last, painstakingly tracing the smallest footsteps, shadows, patterns on the snow.

Birdwatching, birdlistening. Amidst the silence.







Kagamiike, Togakushi
Nagano
30 December 2009

Friday, December 25, 2009

away



"Once I wanted to prove the world was sick. Now I want to prove it healthy. The detection of sickness means that death has established itself as an element of the timetable; it has come within the range of the measurable. Where there is no time there is no sickness."


Roy Fisher, from "City" in The Dow Low Drop: New and Collected Poems (Newcastle: Bloodaxe, 1996), p. 27.



So do I, so do I. That's why this winter vacation, after having cursorily dispatched the season's greetings, I made a vow of (temporary) timelessness. No emails, phone calls, and let alone facebooks, twitters & other such follies: dear friends & colleagues and, above all, dearest arse-lickers planning to pester me with selfish requests, I'll be incommunicado till further notice.

Not away from the world, but more fully immersed in it, hopefully, among the snow and the trees, in the shadows, away from the crude light that separates and divides everything into watertight compartments, into senseless schedules.

Away to think, to see, to hear - not to escape.

Voilá!



Thursday, December 17, 2009

nightwalking



'The nightwalker, on a terrace in the garden, unaccompanied, hardly aware of it, half hopes to overhear - that haunting thing. Something that hovers, maybe hovers only just beyond the rim. A thing that he has not thought of yet, that no one ever heard.'


David Gascoyne, 'Night Thoughts', in
Selected Poems (Enitharmon: London, 1994), p. 230.


The workload verges on madness at this time of the year - I seldom leave the office before midnight. Never in a hurry, I live up to the (bad) reputation of being a 'my pace' person, existing in the interstices, oblivious to the stringent routines of clock time and of other people.

Walking the deserted streets after the last train has this eerie but strangely appeasing effect. In limbo, when real silence and the nothingness of the world dawn on you and everything falls into place. You fear nothing, can fear nothing, because all the chitter-chatter of the day and its petty concerns weigh nothing, nothing against the immensity of this silence, against this indifference of the stars.

Of the silence that most fear and muffle with all sorts of noise and errands, I have made a home. Between worlds, nor day nor night, nowhere - everywhere. A most uncomfortable place to be, but a home. Where you can hear your own footsteps on the ground, your own small, very small heartbeat - and the earth's. Incommensurable.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

lest one forgets...

It happens more often than you'd like to, especially in places where people have been moulded into a mask of phoneyness that becomes their very face.

Where you'd hope to see candour, feelings, flesh & blood, you quickly realise you're just seeing dried-out, amorphous things through a carefully crafted veil of ice. Translucent, but beyond reach.

What they don't realise is that some keen observers can actually see through the 'mystery' pose - and the sight is seldom pretty.

Nothing, nothing is more disappointing than banality and narrow-mindedness disguised as aloofness.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

the free man




Has just arrived from the other side of the world (thanks, Papa!), and I can hardly wait to bury myself in it.

An eye-opener, a friend tells me, reminding us how far, far removed from any form of freedom we are - and how sadly repressed. Too high a price for 'civilization'?...



From the blurb (original Portuguese version here):

Men are what they are by their nature. While one might say this is too vague a definition, it actually contains a precise, raw and true meaning. Nature is, as the English term indicates, drive, impulse, compulsion and the omnipotence of desire, what stems from that which is before reflection and judgement, what is and exists as necessity - to breathe, to eat, to have sex, and sometimes to be aggressive. Always, everywhere, all this is necessary as the condition of life, and all this is desired, and it is desired because it is good, because it quenches necessity, and quenching necessity gives pleasure. And what the Bororo teach us is precisely this: the more man is capable of overcoming nature, the more he is capable of recognizing himself as part of it.


Filipe Verde, O Homem Livre: Mito, Moral e Carácter numa Sociedade Ameríndia (Coimbra: Angelus Novus, 2009). [The Free Man: Myth, Morals and Character in an Amerindian Society; my translation]

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

sweetness, sweetness...

to all the phoneys, sweet talkers who pamper you
when they need you
and constantly pester you with requests
but deep down don't really give a damn
and are never there for you
when you need them
(and in fact don't even know you)
and all of a sudden are full of fake wounded feelings
when you tell them to buzz off
and have the nerve to call you 'bitchy' and 'difficult' -
here's a little song, in dedication - and in response...
Enjoy!





Bigmouth Strikes Again


Sweetness, sweetness I was only joking
When I said I’d like to smash every tooth
In your head

Oh ... sweetness, sweetness, I was only joking
When I said by rights you should be
Bludgeoned in your bed

And now I know how Joan of Arc felt
Now I know how Joan of Arc felt, oh
As the flames rose to a Roman nose
And her walkman started to melt
Oh ...

Bigmouth, la ... bigmouth, la ...
Bigmouth strikes again
I’ve got no right to take my place
In the human race

Oh, bigmouth, ha ha ... bigmouth, la
Bigmouth strikes again
I’ve got no right to take my place
In the human race

And now I know how Joan of Arc felt
Now I know how Joan of Arc felt, oh
As the flames rose to a Roman nose
And her hearing aid started to melt
Eek!

Oh, bigmouth, la ... bigmouth, la ...
Bigmouth strikes again
I’ve got no right to take my place
With the human race
Oh ...

Bigmouth, oh ... bigmouth, la ...
Bigmouth strikes again
I’ve got no right to take my place
In the human race

And now I know how Joan of Arc felt
Now I know how Joan of Arc felt, oh
As the flames rose to a Roman nose
And her hearing aid started to melt
Oh !

Oh, bigmouth, oh ... bigmouth, la ...
Bigmouth strikes again
I’ve got no right to take my place
In the human race
Oh ...

Bigmouth, oh ... bigmouth, la ...
Bigmouth strikes again
I’ve got no right to take my place
In the human race
Oh ...

Bigmouth...

Goodbye, and thank you! Goodbye!


The Smiths / Morrissey & Marr

Monday, December 7, 2009

variations on koi, ki & kôyô...









Wakabacho, Tokyo
6 December 2009

a little paradise on my doorstep (late autumn version)

This year, with all the hustle and bustle of work, work, work, I've almost criminally lost my beloved momiji at their most beautiful. I still managed to capture them today, flaming crimson in the late afternoon sun, preparing for death. Resplendent, in extremis.










Wakabacho, Tokyo
6 December 2009

Friday, December 4, 2009

that smile, once again



You disappeared in the four lines
that preceded this one;
or else your smile left, for you
always lived in your smile,
green rain on the leaves, your smile,
a flutter of wings at the wrist, your smile,
and that taste, that burning of light
on the lips, when the lips are
the murmur of sun in the streets, your smile.


Eugénio de Andrade, Close to Speech, trans. Alexis Levitin (Lancaster, CA: Red Dancefloor, 2000).



Photos: Erika K


Wednesday, December 2, 2009

I've seen this happen in other people's lives...

Another all-time fave, with same implicit dedication.
Yes, it's now happening in mine too.





That joke isn't funny anymore

Park the car at the side of the road
You should know
Time's tide will smother you
And I will too...
When you laugh about people who feel so
Very lonely
Their only desire is to die
Well, I'm afraid
It doesn't make me smile
I wish I could laugh...

But that joke isn't funny anymore
It's too close to home
And it's too near the bone
It's too close to home
And it's too near the bone
More than you'll ever know ...

Kick them when they fall down
Kick them when they fall down
You kick them when they fall down
Kick them when they fall down
You kick them when they fall down
Kick them when they fall down
You kick them when they fall down
Kick them when they fall down...

It was dark as I drove the point home
And on cold leather seats
Well, it suddenly struck me
I just might die with a smile on my
Face after all

I've seen this happen in other people's
Lives
And now it's happening in mine...

I've seen this happen in other people's
Lives
And now it's happening in mine...

I've seen this happen in other people's
Lives
And now it's happening in mine...

I've seen this happen in other people's
Lives
And now it's happening in mine

I've seen this happen in other people's
Lives
And now it's happening in mine...
Happening in mine
Happening in mine
Happening in mine
Happening in mine...

I've seen this happen in other people's
Lives
And now, now, now it's happening in mine
(I've seen this happen)
Happening in mine
Now, now...


The Smiths / Morrissey & Marr