Although children are nice and
dear, prolonged absence from adult interaction can seriously affect your
thought processes.]Today's guest star is Carol Ann Duffy and the excerpt is from her 'Selected Poems' (Penguin, ISBN 0-14-058735-7):
LOVESICK I found an apple. A red and shining apple. I took its photograph. I hid the apple in the attic. I opened the skylight and the sun said AH! At night, I checked that it was safe, under the giggling stars, the sly moon. My cool apple. Whatever you're calling about, I am not interested. Go away. You with big teeth.
[Not very representative, I know. But it tickled me the right way.]
And here they are, all of them, whether good, whether bad, terribly bad, serious or silly, one hand spelling love and the other, hate. With slap and caress, do you get confused? Do you care? With death, and first screaming breath, of life -- I'm duality.
Umm... and yes, sometimes I do like to shock people a little with the unexpected, gross or corny. And especially with my sense of humor...
ON ORBIT KIERTORADALLA When Kun walls seinät come tunkevat crashing sun päälle... down upon you... Ja pois täytyy päästä, And you'll got to get away, pyöri ympäri ja ympäri go round ja ympäri and round and round kunnes sen saavutat, until Paon nopeudesta maan! you'll reach The Escape Velocity!
[This is ET, do you read me Earth?]
CARNIVORE LIHANSYÖJÄ Grizzle the meat, Grillaa lihat, boil a leg. keitä jalkaa. Suck the bones, Ime ytimet luun, drop them to soil. loput pudota multaan. Get to ground, Laskeudu maahan, breast to grass. rinta ruohoon... Sniff, Nuuhki, seek out the pray. etsi riistaa, Crouch low, kyyristy, feel the tension tunne jännite, and sprIIIIING! ja loIKKAAA! Got away... Pääsi irti... Well, No, another day, toinen päivä, another pray. toinen saaliinhäivä.
[Some birds eat stones to grind the seeds in their belly. They might be heavier, less flighty.]
GODDESS JUMALATAR Cool. Viileä. Serene. Tyyni. Distant and Etäinen ja detached. erillään. Tides grovel Meri madellen kumartaa under her gaze. hänen katseelleen. Powerful, Paljonvoipa, but alone. mutt' ilman seuraa. We got only Meillä on vain one moon. yksi kuu.
[Have you ever spent half a night --- gazing at the stars, wondering...? (I haven't, but see 'She' by Margaret Atwood, eg in Virago collection 'Murder in the Dark')]
FLIGHT Hammer of food, glimmer of youth in the eye, clouds in the sky are so high, high, high! I crane my neck, look up, first see sun, with tears, then a wolfpack of duck, with a hungry yowl in my ears, they announce craving for south. Beastly feast tasting in my mouth, something still rips my guts, it's not hunger, not anger. Where've you gone?
[I just ate. What about you?]
YOU! SINÄ! You HOG, Sinä SIKA, sitting like a frog istuen kuin rotta, on a pot, allasi potta, full of shit! paskaa täys! Go away! Silmistäni häivy! [De-ar, I looove you!] [Oman pesän likaajan poisto-loitsu]
THE DENTIST
Teeth aching,
face bleaching,
I climbed the stairs
to the lair of DENTIST!
Torture tools gleaming,
eyes dreaming,
it closed on me and cornered
to a corner.
I bound to a chair, with mouth gaping,
it started raping
me with the tools of the trade
on a parade,
before my eyes.
I screamed and sweated,
face red and heated,
while it,
of that hideous caste,
worked with manic haste
to brutalize me.
Finally, teeth done,
my money gone,
the monster released me.
Swearing,
never to be appearing,
again in front of Dentist,
I staggered down the stairs.
[An e-mail friend asked something on the subject of dentist-taming and these raven, Poetic lines were the result.]
THE FAMILY TREE I saw a strange dream, where I was a tree, on a large meadow. Every morning you came, climbed on top of me, sat with parted legs on my limb, leaning on my trunk, purring aloud. I swayed gently in the wind, my leaves, above you, whispering some kind things of love and life to you. Your eyes were closed, and while wind brushed your hair, I strained to hear your little song of pleasure, for just being there. Sun shined and it seemed like those mornings went on forever, but still, were suddenly over. In an instant, a thing of past. I do miss them, Fairy-Ann!
[I remember dreams so rarely, that I got to record them somehow...]
THE TEMPEST The lightning crackles the sky and its voice, overpowering, deads us momentarily to everything else. Our eyes blind, senses shut down, we grope in a kind of a daze. Alone, wondering in the afterimage of the light about the intensity of things beyond us. Wind blows open the door and furious rain beats at the blindened face. You got to seize the force and apply all your core on the crucial moment. And it's yours. The sound of the crashing, heavenly, forcible voices, rambling slowly away into the distance, gets you back, awakens the unbrilliancy. Your face is wet and you shiver.
[We all have at some time felt enormous exhilaration, immortality, unvulnerability and of being capable of anything. We've also lost moments to irresolution and plain dumbness and known it afterwards.]
REMEMBRANCE You're an old ache which location I don't remember... I've forgotten your smile, which made my head swim, but the ache is still there. You. You were part of my life so long, now all I can remember, is the memory of it. But the ache is still there.
[Well, I'm feeling pathetically blue... <evil grin>]
WINTER I'm feeling like, like a wet rag, not a type of droll doll, but one in the coldness of night, middle of winter. Dark window, through which I climbed, staring at me. I have a feeling, of frozing, drowsing, face frosting, getting brittle, finally getting rid of the riddle. Wind cleans me of me feet, solid frozen rag, rigid kite off to sky, high in hail and sleet. I see Master Frost has arrived and coated the land with snow bland, where I may not anymore land.
[ E-mail friend of mine mentioned using wet towels for humidizer and I thought about one being outside my window (news had just announced coldness record of the century in the north, below -50C, BHHRRR!)]
SO SORRY She started to cry. After a while the tears stopped, she dried them onto my shirt and blew her nose on it too. "Sorry." "No need to be sorry, they are just tears; salt water. World is full of it." She didn't give an explanation and I didn't need one. Sometimes you just feel like it. And sometimes it's just because you laugh so hard it hurts. Does there need to be a reason?
[My, my, but I'm myself in a dry mood today.]
INTO MEETING THE PARTING (Ms Smiley, expected) (Mr Sour-Puss, rejected) That seed you sowed into my peat, Upon the nail I sit, first it grew slow then with speed, like hell it'll dig into prick, until it's like a blow of need, almost halving my dick. All aglow I'm when about you to meet. I'm so, so sick of you In a daze I see your face, that I'll do any trick your grace and gentle gaze. to get myself rid World is a haze, as we embrace. of you. MATING (pronounced 'meeting') With hate, I note you're late. I want you mate, but dear, you're not here. Then you come, slam-bang goes the door, and clothes are flung to floor. Passion engulfs us like icy sleet, as we meet, already in heat. I lick your cunt, then we start to runt, your back against the wall, straight in the hall. I grab your buttocks, lift you on my chest, you grip my hair, and I bend to your breast, freckled and fair. I bowl backwards when you scissor my back, but I don't care. We fall flat on the floor, tomorrow I might be sore, but now see only your face, my little ace. You're on top of me grinding with force, mouth open, breathing hard. Sweat rains from you brow, tasting salty, I raise my head, eyes a-glaze, to tongue your throat and you keen with pleasure. My throat hoarse, intense the rhythm, with slick fingers I take your thighs and spread them wider, making us a love-dais, splendent with sweat, buckling higher and higher. Your face is red as burning, my head feels like exploding, our fiery breathing is as one and then, the world vanishes. There's no pleasure like pain, intensity as forgetting, as that little death together. When we come again dimly aware, world seems as new, like we're born again. For animals it may just be instinct and reward of earth, for us, it's rebirth.
[The Meeting Suite]
HEARTBURN There's a burn in my heart, it refuses to fade away. I beat my breast, run wild and shout at sky. It refuses to die! I'm aflame because of you!
[Please, stop it.]
MAD HATTER Pick up the baby, kiss away the drool. The cry disappears. Oh, what silence. Paddle the poop and slip --- on the puddle. Are you sure you don't want to burp and gurgle too?
[Although children are nice and
dear, prolonged absence from adult interaction can seriously affect your
thought processes.]
THE MOTHER INSTINCT ÄIDINVAISTO When I see you threatened, Sua kun suojelen, I grow teeth saan hampaat meter long, metrin pitkät, growl like a murisen kuin pack of hungy wolves, nälästä hullu susilauma, see RED puna peittää silmät and CHARGE! ja sokeasti hyökkään! The threat is a spreading Uhka takana hajoaa red mist hurmeen punaksi in our wake poistuessamme as we part hännät heiluen, from the enemy wake yhdessä. on our way away, tails wagging comradely.
[I have these irrational protective instincts. Probably results of an earlier life as a guarddog... <a friendly growl>]
INSIDE I watched prosecutor to florish his hand and say aloud: "I call forth -- Primodial Rage!" (How theaterical. Downright hysteric. Put it in cage!) First agressively: "Why did you do it?" Another placidly: "I saw red; wet, dripping red." "Before or after?" "Oh, we met. In anger. All I remember." Angry and frustrated: "Why?!?" Eager, but withdrawn: "Meeting? Anger? Forgetfulness?" "Because." It was stuffy inside, so I went out. Sky was so bright tears run down by my mouth.
[Oo-er... A mystery!]
APPLE BLOSSOMS OMENANKUKAT The soft breath Kesätuulen of summer kevyt henkäys, caresses my cheek, silittää poskeain, I smell the tuoksun sweet fragrance omenoiden makean of apple blossoms. haistaa mä voin. That brings me Se tullessaan memories of home, muiston tuo kotoa, lazy sounds of wind Tuulen laiskan suhinan, amongst the tree tops, latvoissa metsän, bright blue sky kirkas sinitaivas dappled with utupilvin fluffy clouds, pilkutettu, and sun bathing us aurinko kun kylvettää with its grace. meitä loistollaan. The silken touch of Aamuruohon kostea damp morning grass kosketus tickles my toes, varpaitani kutittaa and I laugh. ja nauran! You're beside me Sinä vierelläni, and I'm happy. olet onni.
[Now, stretch out, take a deep breath and relax. Sleep and have pleasant dreams...]
SMOKING RUBBER HAISEVA KUMI I release the clutch, Kytkimen kun räjäytän, burning rubber palava kumi leaves just guts jättää jäljen of smoke savuavan. as I speed away Pois kun kiihdytän with and out hope pyörälläin, on my bike, toivein tai ilman, it's like se on kuin, hey, hey, hey! heh, he, hei! I take a hike, Matkaan lähden, speedy dash, kiireisellä kiihkeellä wherever I like, minne vain haluan, when I crash kun törmään läpi äänivallin, through the sound barrier, lailla valtavan hallin, like an air carrier, tuuli nappaa, wind snaps off pääni pois. my head. En ole kuollut, still I'm not dead vaan lentoon menossa! but on the fly! Huudan, I cry, Olen lentoon menossa! I'm on the fly!
[Haven't got a bike, but speed got still its attraction...]
KNOWING YOU The spikes of solitude prevent me from approach, I want to break them off, so we can both smell the sap of loneliness draining away... The bricks of wall around the heart crumble, crumble down. Wind blows up the dust and it stings my eyes. When tears clear, there's the open breast with heart exposed. Let's exercise that muscle chaste, 'less that stress, would give mouth a bitter taste.
[Some of us seem to have trouble letting other people get close. Mighty Spiky!]
CANINE DREAMS
Lonely Wolf,
striding across
unbroken snow,
suddenly starts
capering around,
jumping high and
crouching low.
Grinning and growling
towards its tail,
now high in the air.
Suddenly,
with bristling hair.
On brink of the open,
I've been seen,
Shadow up in a tree.
I give a wolfish Grin.
After a Jowly-Howly together,
we part
on our ways.
At times in sleep,
Moonshine above,
I talk Canine,
the Tongue of Teeth.
[And not only in sleep. Haven't you seen me grinning at you across the trolley-car?]
FRIEND I need you to needle me. You keep me sharp. But don't puncture my heart, that would get me just hard. Hardness then, that's brittle, it needs just a slight knock to become a cripple, for life. Prick gently, with that witchly smile of yours. So we both can laugh. -- Vom Pire
[Wooden spike -- OK, mallet -- OK. Get ready, Swing!]
PASSION I want to make love to you, through the darkness of night, till dawning of light. With gentle nibling of ears, laughter at early fears, together with passion.
[A cowardly unsent letter.]
FART CART See! The Gas Man! There's a lot he can do with his fan... Flying through the air, wildly streaming hair almost touching the burning flare, coming from his rear! Flying with flatulation to his congregation amid applause, that's the Gas Man.
['Dumb & Dumber' had at least a few moments of mirth...]
SURPRISE YLLÄRI First curious, Ensin utelias, then surprised sitten hämillään, I am when shot to face. kun naamaan mua ammutaan. Blood gushes out in spurts Veri roiskuu ulos tyrskien, as I lay down kun vajoan and crumple, mä maahan, like a pile of clothes, Oon kuin vanhoja vaatteita old and discarded. hylätty säkki vain. Torpidly still, Tukkoisen tyyni, sometimes twitching, silloin tällöin tärähdellen, still ditching, yhä tyrkkien, kicking life out, elämän potkin mä ulos, to make room tehdäkseni tilaa, for death. kuolemalle. Tomorrow, Huomenna, maggots and worms toukat ja madot, feast in my body. ruumiissani juhlivat. Only puddle of blood Vain lammikko verta remains, jäljellä on, colored like rust, väriltään kuin ruoste, while my corpse kun ruumiistani becomes dust. tulee multaa. My questions, Kysymykseni, all scattered by gust, tuuleen temmatut, are gone. ovat poissa. I'm undone. Kuten myös.
[Synthesis: When all your questions are answered, death does not come as a surprise. I'm most curious myself, MEOOOUW!]
IN AND OUT SISSEE JA ULOS It goes in, Tunkee sissää, it goes out. ja männöö ulos. Slick and hard. Liukkas ja kova. Wet with the Kuolast spit of märk. mouth. My... Hammasharjani... ...toothbrush. [Ha, fooled you!] [Hämäsinkö?]
BEAST Said Beast to the People: Come, come, little morsels of meat, soon shall I eat. If your feet may be fleet as you proceed with speed, I might not get to do my deed. Though, should you not heed my creed, you'll be mine, eight out of nine, as with last of you, I shall dine. Tremble, Oh children, for I'm here. Helter-skelter, down we tumble, to the tune and ramble of the poem about the Fall of Barbarity. Civilization, my brothers and sisters, is always a gamble.
[Inspiration: Homecoming (vol 1-2) by Orson Scott Card]
FLEETING THOUGHT It was here! Just a minute ago.
[And now gone. Bye!]
I have done some computer related 'advocacy' poems too:
GGI KICK I'm unhappy with the whole puzzle jigsaw, 'cos I saw, Linux without GGI is doomed for Hangman's Jig, to be butchered like pig, struck through with knife, out of life. At least left marginal and miserable. My brew, that's true, but it's real sick, even if you're not a tick, on a Linux without GGI. I want more. Let events do the dance, libGGI being the lance, while KGI is the core. Then I'm not sore, anymore.
[I think GGI would be nice, although not as passionately as above would suggest. ;-)]
THE EVSTACK DUCK An event is falling, gently landing on a pool, by event-page it's bound, into water cool, then rushed down beside the river ground. It's tumbling in rapids, the chosen tool, of GGI cool, project of no fool. Testified by an owl, it's landed amongst the fowl, metamorphosed. Did rapids not know nor care or bear a thought of what their lot had in process got done to the victim event. None, none who would see it now, would see it for what it was. They'd vow, call high and low to prove their cause, of not seen it before, of course. We need a lowly event to be like just another seed, so it can be pecked by ordinary geese not knowing nor caring whether these seeds... Are what they are, or something completely on a lease. Thus lightly nibbling, have I told the tale of an event in a hale of a mixed sort of siblings, brought amongst the silly birds of the user land appl-cable, reasonably able, application lords.
[Uhh... This could definitely be better, but as Linux has penguin logo, ugly-duckling was the first metafora to spring into my mind...]
That which in me appears as sophistication is just simplicity which hasn't yet attained the level of sophistication where it would appear as simplicity. Children have that but it doesn't have selfconciousness which we acquire as adults. Therefore we have to struggle to get back that in its mature form.
'Sophisticated' people seem to know lot of things. But they have just defined, wordified and categorized them beforehand, shut down all the possibilities and alternatives within. They do not know them. This requires openmindedness of seeing things for the first time, like a child who accepts things and people as they are. Appearances deceive, are on some level meant to deceive and on some other level, not to. Things have two sides, irritatingly beautiful and fascinating ugly one, and everything between. You just have to see and encompass them all, cultivating that which is good and goodhumouredly accepting what is bad, because they define each other. There wouldn't be one without another.
To me poems are a literary shorthand which can express subjective objects more `precisely' in a few words than a few thousand other words would. Words are associated in the mind into other words, meanings, sights, sounds, smells and so on depending on which situations we have learned them and heard others to use them. These associations may or may not be relative to the subject or object that the word is associated to in the language used.
Poems rely on things that the used words and their `associates' evoke in the reader and listeners when words are read in accordance to a certain rhythm and in certain order. The rhythm will provide additional punctuation and lessen or intensify the meaning of some words and the order of words will give them a changing context for association.
Because association depends on our cultural environment, upbringing, experiences, age, sex, on the learning process of our native tongue and the language used in the poem, associations may differ from one individual to another. Therefore poems aren't generally sufficiently precise for objective, scientific use. However, subjective subjects like emotions which differ between people and don't lend themselves well into quantization, can be expressed quite well poetically. All our `knowledge' is based on our experiences (well, genes might have some effect on this too), so `objectively' precise definition might still be subjectively interpreted less correctly than more `generic' one.
The expression of poem doesn't have to be exact because reader will relate it into his own experiences and it will get more 'precise' and meaningful definition this way. It shouldn't matter whether one interprets a poem `right' or `wrong' though. What is relevant is whether the poem has relevance to the reader or not!
Other aspects of poems are metaphors. Poems might use the subject symbolically. For example my above Carnivore poem might be about hunt for a thought or a solution to a problem or other primitive instincts beside eating/hunting. Most of what I discussed above about association applies also to metaphors. Metaphors are just a more abstract and conscious form of association.
To me the only wrong interpretation of a poem is the one that you'll think as the only, correct one. Poems aren't intended to be exact or objective. They are subjective, both to the poem writer and reader, and intended to be interpreted in more than one way, preferably simultaneously.
The used metaphors(s) might fit into contexts that writer hasn't thought of. And although writer might have written poem only on one level reader might perceive other levels that had hidden in the writer's subconscious or vice versa. Reader might also give thought whether poem means same for the writer as for the reader and whether writer did it consciously (on purpose) or not.
In most languages there are lots of words which mean almost the same, but still have differences, are used in different contexts or have different associations. The meaning of word can also change according to which word(s) they are related to (e.g. idioms) or according to the intended reader (for example slang words). So, the better knowledge of the language use, culture and word etymologies the writer and reader have, the better they can fine-tune to the poem. One should make an effort to remain understandable though. Simple and terse is beautiful (as one so aptly put it: "I don't have the time to write you a short letter, so I'll content with a long one.")...
When writing a poem I prefer to concentrate on getting certain rhythm and use of selected `strong' words. By `strong' I mean words that have strong or many associations. Sudden change in context which give new meaning to the earlier words make poem more interesting. 'Meanings' for poem should be puzzled out later though, because that way you won't limit your associating while writing.
P.s. Although some languages use gender in third person (he/she/it) and substantives, my mother tongue, Finnish, doesn't. Think about it.
Eero Tamminen, whip (fib, glib, sip, on trip) of witticisms.
Text on this page may not be copied or (re)printed without explicit permission from the author. Copyright © 1996-2000 by Eero Tamminen.
