If like some nutter combing coast, I searched
for Stuff we'd left behind along the shore
and gathered it all up into a poem
for some other nutter to find once more
The poem might look like this: four teabags
and tin foil nicked from shelves, a pack
of CDs wedged with salty towels, one Crazy,
a heap of shells, some wood, a ruddy rack
of words that try too hard to re-
create creation, attempting to retain
moments like butterflies, whose beauty lies
in fleetingness: the transience of passing rain;
your brown eyes; iris-sparks bursting from the soil;
your hand in mine: moments that words would only spoil.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Monday, April 13, 2009
the bath cycle II
He sinks skyward, and by the sudden cold all over he knows he’s reached the clouds. He ran this bath to escape the hot brown earth, the dusty summer sun, the heat, and when he lowers himself into the bath it feels like he’s risen above this world, weightless in the water, soothed and refreshed by this cold climate, this thick new cloud-element for him to exist in. The sky, the sky: blue sometimes, gray others, polluted always. Shuddering he thinks of the sun: a blazing foghorn torch in this cityscape, just strong enough to push through the crowd of fuggy fumes, determined to drench the ground in its life-force. Climate change feels like it’s coming on fast. The paranoia’s struck, and every time he pounds the pavement he feels like pollution’s parading toxic in his lungs. Cars, fumes, flames: he fears them all, not only because of their macho machinistic power, their capability to crush human bodies into nothingness, but because of their environmental impact. He fears not the here and now, but the future, and if WallE has taught him anything, it is that eco-disaster is not so far away. He seldom goes out these days, and when he does he drops his hands in his pockets and tries to breathe in as little as possible. The bath seemed his only escape, the pure cold hope of the water rising around him, cleansing him of the fumes and the flames that he so feared.
www.adaisythroughconcrete.blogspot.com
www.adaisythroughconcrete.blogspot.com
Saturday, April 11, 2009
the bath cycle I
Skin submerged, heavier than milk. The womb of water’s supplied by two metal taps at the top, dispensing liquid that’s clearer than memory even. The poet, immersed in words all day, finally sinks herself into the liquid substance, reveling in the sheer physicality of it. Not words, but water – though she can’t escape language, even lying here in this languid state. Alliteration at its worst, a rift of rhymes drifts over her with the song-steam from the bath. Kids in the street drinking wine on the sidewalk, saving the plans that we make till it’s night time… it’s cliché but effective, a lyric that tugs along a kite of memories, swaying in the wind like she swayed in that club, the wine-mouths on the pavement, her friends leaving her on the desert streets…too much, too much. She blinks it back, and her eyelids are like the thin skin atop boiled milk, barely a defence against the rising steam of the bath, essence of the past. Her body swirls, she hesitates as she pulls herself pulsating from the womb of memories, the water womb, emerges triumphant from the sour sticky liquid that is Radox bubble bath and soothes herself back into her clothes, to her conscious self. Behind her, the water absorbs the imprint of her body and her dream-state is left to darken and brew in the bath like a warning. A sitting storm.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Detective III
Her grin used to stretch as wide
as the lake in Port meadow, used to override
the rules and flood the banks of her cheeks
with warmth. But now it was tired,
a punctured tyre of a smile, a half curl,
a quick muscle tap, like the flick of the finger
on a cigarette dropping ash, draining the dust
of the past.
Her filofax was full of ex
boyfriends' numbers, flagged up
like busstops and as on a tea-stained map
you could run the route of her life with your nail,
trace the heartbreak signs around London
to that boyfriend on Hampstead Heath - with the Mini
and the massive bank account - who was hers last year,
whose money woudn't stretch
as far as a family or kids. And so she left,
to wrinkle and stain her teeth with sour coffee
that kept her eyes awake
but couldn't resuscitate
the faint beat of her heart.
A year on yet
her pulse would pump again in a culprit's clutch,
a big-time thief who would rob her memory bank
of sadness, stand her back on her own two feet and leave
his tender fingerprints on forehead,
bring her hot tea in the mornings
and sweeten her smile to the tulips
that she blossomed now as far as her sparkling
eyes, seraphin-style.
as the lake in Port meadow, used to override
the rules and flood the banks of her cheeks
with warmth. But now it was tired,
a punctured tyre of a smile, a half curl,
a quick muscle tap, like the flick of the finger
on a cigarette dropping ash, draining the dust
of the past.
Her filofax was full of ex
boyfriends' numbers, flagged up
like busstops and as on a tea-stained map
you could run the route of her life with your nail,
trace the heartbreak signs around London
to that boyfriend on Hampstead Heath - with the Mini
and the massive bank account - who was hers last year,
whose money woudn't stretch
as far as a family or kids. And so she left,
to wrinkle and stain her teeth with sour coffee
that kept her eyes awake
but couldn't resuscitate
the faint beat of her heart.
A year on yet
her pulse would pump again in a culprit's clutch,
a big-time thief who would rob her memory bank
of sadness, stand her back on her own two feet and leave
his tender fingerprints on forehead,
bring her hot tea in the mornings
and sweeten her smile to the tulips
that she blossomed now as far as her sparkling
eyes, seraphin-style.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
The Detective: II
He'd searched
for clues too many times
not to spot the signs.
The shimmering fishscale smile in her eyes
swooped to the surface of the iris-pond,
swirling like light on lilipads
was as clear a clue to him as any footprint
her new dress might as well have been a shred
of clothing caught on a rusty nail or hung
on the body; for her body, though unbloodied,
was the scene of the crime.
He didn't need hard evidence
to read the story right - the sight
of her soft back in bed
her shoulders turned to him
left him startled, suspicious, bereft-
enough clues to look back. So that when she left
with that other man he was already there,turning it
over in his mind, their bodies in the sack,the
broken love, the knife stuck
in the back.
for clues too many times
not to spot the signs.
The shimmering fishscale smile in her eyes
swooped to the surface of the iris-pond,
swirling like light on lilipads
was as clear a clue to him as any footprint
her new dress might as well have been a shred
of clothing caught on a rusty nail or hung
on the body; for her body, though unbloodied,
was the scene of the crime.
He didn't need hard evidence
to read the story right - the sight
of her soft back in bed
her shoulders turned to him
left him startled, suspicious, bereft-
enough clues to look back. So that when she left
with that other man he was already there,turning it
over in his mind, their bodies in the sack,the
broken love, the knife stuck
in the back.
Respect?
Our society is not a just place. We live in a hierarchy whose flexibility is superficial – a hierarchy which crushes the brightest of kids and elevates the laziest, sometimes – a hierarchy which makes numerous mistakes. We elevate some people and lower others: even a perfect meritocracy has to have a scale, yet if we think we can rank people according to any set yardstick then we are blind to the human condition. For the value of people is in their diversity; any yardstick we measure people by will shove some good, decent, hopeful people to the bottom of the pile, and put some greedy, dishonest, indifferent people at the top. Hierarchy is inaccurate; what’s more, it’s the ultimate tool of prejudice against individuals, since your place in the hierarchy is often decided by your parents’ place. Moving up or down is like swimming against the tide: nigh on impossible.
Yet even that statement does not express my meaning: it suggests that the hierarchy is inefficient, inaccurate, that the hierarchy sometimes keeps ‘the wrong people’ in the slums. It’s not that the hierarchy’s flawed process is immoral: the hierarchy itself is immoral. There are no ‘wrong people’ and ‘right people’; nobody should be in the slums, nobody should feel like they’re at the bottom of the pile, should have to feel worthless or disrespected, even if they are really stupid or lazy. Everybody should be treated like a human being. Everybody deserves respect, because everybody has feelings and hopes and dreams and emotions; nobody else has a right to crush these.
Yet my ‘respect’ is not the same as the system’s ‘respect’. When somebody like Tony Blair talks about ‘Respect’, what they mean is: you should have respect for us. You rabble, you ‘scum’ (as Sarkozy so despicably put it) should have respect for us politicians. What they mean is: you should have respect for the system that put us at the top and you at the bottom. What they’re saying is: you should believe in a system that thinks you’re worth next to nothing, that pays you next to nothing, that will deliver you next to nothing in terms of ambition or education – and you should respect and uphold this system. Essentially, the ‘Respect’ agenda equates to politicians asking poor people to agree with and partake in a system that places them at the very bottom – to agree that they should be at the bottom, to be complicit in their own poverty.
The problem with the political ‘Respect’ agenda is, that it doesn’t work both ways: the police aren’t seen to have respect for muslim and black people or protesters when they deliberately target them on the streets; the politicians don’t have respect for young, poor people as a voting demographic. Their policies appeal to middle class morality, not people in poverty. They say, if you don’t adhere to the rules, we will limit your freedom further. They don’t say, why are you acting like this? What are the problems in your life? How can we solve them? Fair enough, in a smooth-running society with limited funds and limited interest. Yet by enabling police to stop anyone they deem suspicious, and by imposing ASBOs and thereby criminalizing young people who have committed no criminal offence, politicians are intervening in people’s lives, are taking an interest, are spending funds – but in a negative way, in a way that treats people as worthless, in a way that denies them a backstory and therefore deals with them more like a number than a human being. Human beings have backstories, problems: numbers don’t. Thus politicians toting the Respect agenda – from Margaret Thatcher in the 80s to Blair in the new millennium - have effectively created a society in which young people, poor, black and asian communities are treated as potential offenders, as alien threats, as ‘them’ against the ‘us’ of society, often arrested without sufficient evidence. That’s not what I call respect.
Entre les murs: The Class: a film by Laurent Cantet, adapted from the novel. Really interesting on social class and the clash between (school) institutions and young people, and the extent to which their destinies are predetermined by their class, and by the way society treats them, dismisses them, writes them off.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hy158dWdbpw
Yet even that statement does not express my meaning: it suggests that the hierarchy is inefficient, inaccurate, that the hierarchy sometimes keeps ‘the wrong people’ in the slums. It’s not that the hierarchy’s flawed process is immoral: the hierarchy itself is immoral. There are no ‘wrong people’ and ‘right people’; nobody should be in the slums, nobody should feel like they’re at the bottom of the pile, should have to feel worthless or disrespected, even if they are really stupid or lazy. Everybody should be treated like a human being. Everybody deserves respect, because everybody has feelings and hopes and dreams and emotions; nobody else has a right to crush these.
Yet my ‘respect’ is not the same as the system’s ‘respect’. When somebody like Tony Blair talks about ‘Respect’, what they mean is: you should have respect for us. You rabble, you ‘scum’ (as Sarkozy so despicably put it) should have respect for us politicians. What they mean is: you should have respect for the system that put us at the top and you at the bottom. What they’re saying is: you should believe in a system that thinks you’re worth next to nothing, that pays you next to nothing, that will deliver you next to nothing in terms of ambition or education – and you should respect and uphold this system. Essentially, the ‘Respect’ agenda equates to politicians asking poor people to agree with and partake in a system that places them at the very bottom – to agree that they should be at the bottom, to be complicit in their own poverty.
The problem with the political ‘Respect’ agenda is, that it doesn’t work both ways: the police aren’t seen to have respect for muslim and black people or protesters when they deliberately target them on the streets; the politicians don’t have respect for young, poor people as a voting demographic. Their policies appeal to middle class morality, not people in poverty. They say, if you don’t adhere to the rules, we will limit your freedom further. They don’t say, why are you acting like this? What are the problems in your life? How can we solve them? Fair enough, in a smooth-running society with limited funds and limited interest. Yet by enabling police to stop anyone they deem suspicious, and by imposing ASBOs and thereby criminalizing young people who have committed no criminal offence, politicians are intervening in people’s lives, are taking an interest, are spending funds – but in a negative way, in a way that treats people as worthless, in a way that denies them a backstory and therefore deals with them more like a number than a human being. Human beings have backstories, problems: numbers don’t. Thus politicians toting the Respect agenda – from Margaret Thatcher in the 80s to Blair in the new millennium - have effectively created a society in which young people, poor, black and asian communities are treated as potential offenders, as alien threats, as ‘them’ against the ‘us’ of society, often arrested without sufficient evidence. That’s not what I call respect.
Entre les murs: The Class: a film by Laurent Cantet, adapted from the novel. Really interesting on social class and the clash between (school) institutions and young people, and the extent to which their destinies are predetermined by their class, and by the way society treats them, dismisses them, writes them off.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hy158dWdbpw
Sunday, January 4, 2009
masks of mascara
Women who use makeup are literally self effacing, scrubbing off their real identity only to paint on a new appearance using mascara, black slightly smudged eyeliner, concealer, foundation, blusher, lipstick and blonde hair dye. Women at work literally constrict and limit themselves, deforming and reshaping their real bodies in cinched clothing, high heels and tight skirts.
So what? you say. The make-up's empowering. It's a way for women to assert their feminine identity at work, express themselves regardless of society's and men's desires, and paint themselves purple.
If only.The fact is, women change their appearance to be clones of the same blonde, busty woman with pink cheeks and thick black eyelashes. The way that all women strive for this particular Barbie look indicates the existence of a prototype of feminine beauty, heralded by the ironically misogynistic women's mags. A so-called 'enhancement' of women's appearance is a way for them to feel powerful at work, and a way for them to bridge the gender gap, some say. Yet the disparity between expectations of women's and men's appearance in a professional context indicates an aesthetic gap that still points to the pay gap - 12.8% - between men and women in full-time work. Women use make-up to make them feel confident and strong, rather than relying on inner confidence and strength, and in doing so they perpetuate the idea that a woman still needs to appeal to a male sexual appetite in order to succeed in the workplace.
Maybe makeup enables a woman to feel confident and strong at work- or maybe women's use of makeup is a denial of their identity, their make-up. Maybe the slap is a signal that, even at work, women are still just eye candy.
So what? you say. The make-up's empowering. It's a way for women to assert their feminine identity at work, express themselves regardless of society's and men's desires, and paint themselves purple.
If only.The fact is, women change their appearance to be clones of the same blonde, busty woman with pink cheeks and thick black eyelashes. The way that all women strive for this particular Barbie look indicates the existence of a prototype of feminine beauty, heralded by the ironically misogynistic women's mags. A so-called 'enhancement' of women's appearance is a way for them to feel powerful at work, and a way for them to bridge the gender gap, some say. Yet the disparity between expectations of women's and men's appearance in a professional context indicates an aesthetic gap that still points to the pay gap - 12.8% - between men and women in full-time work. Women use make-up to make them feel confident and strong, rather than relying on inner confidence and strength, and in doing so they perpetuate the idea that a woman still needs to appeal to a male sexual appetite in order to succeed in the workplace.
Maybe makeup enables a woman to feel confident and strong at work- or maybe women's use of makeup is a denial of their identity, their make-up. Maybe the slap is a signal that, even at work, women are still just eye candy.
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