So what, and why, is music? Why is the organisation of meaningless noises into arbitrary mathematical sequences more than a glorified parlour game? Why is it something we pay attention to, take seriously, even dedicate our lives to?
Writing about music is like dancing about architecture, but I’ve been to places where I’ve seen a lot of architecture worth dancing about. I’m gonna give this a bash.
Music is the freest of the artforms because it’s the most abstract. It’s not representational, it’s not solid and it’s not specific. It doesn’t smack of anything else on the planet, so it must be transcendent. You could say the same about mathematics, but maths doesn’t make you cry. Besides, it’s useful, and I’m with Chuang Tzu when he says ‘Everyone knows the usefulness of the useful but no one knows the usefulness of the useless.’
And Alan Watts when he says ‘It is in this kind of meaninglessness that we come to the profoundest meaning.’
Or David Byrne when he says ‘Stop making sense.’
I don’t feel like I’ve got to the heart of this yet. Let me try again.
Some academics think music maps the inner texture of our emotions somehow. (“Somehow” is the rub there, isn’t it?) You hear the curvature of a melody and it somehow mimics the rise and fall of elation, or the downward arc of grief. Makes sense: when Joni sings ‘The bed’s too big, the frying pan’s too wiiiiiiide’, that’s how the sobbing of the mind sounds, isn’t it? And a choppy distorted guitar doesn’t make you feel rage, it reminds you of rage because it is rage. Listening to Minor Threat’s “In My Eyes” or Hüsker Dü’s “I’ll Never Forget You” when you’re in a bad mood is like having a friend next to you saying ‘I KNOW RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT?!’
No, that’s not it.
In my college dissertation I suggested that music, especially live music, takes you back to the womb somehow. Makes sense, right? Sound enters your world long before sight. The background hum of the world outside. The sound of your mother’s voice. But especially that rhythm, that incessant 1-2, 1-2 of the heart. Is that why most songs are in 4? Is that why a lot of the percussion patterns in Fela Kuti-derived Afrobeat sound exactly like heartbeats?
And what are you doing in the womb besides listening? You’re dancing. You’re certainly not thinking. When you get out of your mind on psychedelics, jump into a swarming throng and wave your limbs to wave after wave of shattering sound, aren’t you taking yourself back to a time before you had to think about anything, judge anything, be anything – a selfless utopia where your only job is to hear, feel and move?
No, that’s not it.
Maybe I should stick to what music means to me. The way I think of it, the best musicians are like the blind leading the blind. They take that step forward, reach out, feel the tusks, ears and tail of the unfathomable elephant that is reality and report back in metaphors. And the harder the metaphors are to wrap your head around, the more they convey.
Watch a Kate Bush or Prince live show and I’m instantly face-to-face with a forbidding mystery, something that goes beyond the realm of pleasure into something more profound and emotionally complex, a joy that’s nearly pain. In this country artist and audience have discarded meaning and sense and finally started dealing with the important things. “Enjoyment” is far too tame a word; “entertainment” is contemptuous.
Music tears back the curtain. Beethoven’s Seventh and Live at Leeds evoke the drama and dynamics of the Deuteronomic history. The surface silliness of “People Take Pictures of Each Other” and “Sofa No. 2” hide the pure, abstract beauty of Platonic Form. “Funky Drummer”, “Ordinary Pain”, Afrobeat, soukous, mbaqanga are Bach if he knew how to dance, the music of the spheres, the courage to choose joy in the face of horror.
Bonus points to Talking Heads for marrying the rhythm of life to urban neurosis and alienation, creating a shamanistic genre that’s too self-conscious to commit to the trance. Plus white people can dance to it.
Meanwhile Revolver, Low and Sound of Silver sing to my inner alien, that glacial part of me that’s already transcended the petty cares of this life and started pulling at some of those cosmic threads that remain beyond the reach of homo sapiens.
Mix all these elements in with the elation of gospel, the estrangement of hip-hop and the Zen of Nick Drake and you’ve got some of my favourite parts of the elephant, the stuff I draw on when I sit down to write. What comes out has to be extreme: maybe it expresses a strong feeling, evokes absolute horror or euphoria, or is just extremely abstract. But I always abandon the thing if it can’t do more than sit there looking nice.
Composing demands that both sides of your brain pull their weight. If nothing of yourself goes into a song you’ve got no reason to write it, and if you don’t get the technical details right no-one has any reason to listen to it. So it’s important to me that my lyrical abstractions express my fury and ecstasy, but equally important that I invert some of the root notes, don’t overdo it on my beloved descending fourths and avoid perfect cadences whenever possible (some of my best friends are perfect cadences, but you have to make some effort to move with the times). The more rhythmic and harmonic surprises the better, but no weirdness for weirdness’ sake, the Beatles wouldn’t like it.
Rhythm is vital: syncopation and percussion-heavy grooves are music’s equivalent of the Tao, the movement and flow of the ideal life. But if I don’t take my pop choruses equally seriously I’ll feel the Beatles frowning at me from over my shoulder – and we can’t have that. If possible, let the Dorian hooks and conga patterns sound the way this looks. Let energetic songs sound like fire, a mixture of yellow, red and lots and lots of dark orange. Let slow jazz songs squeeze out greens and blues, and slow folk songs express the sunyata of clear water. Let all the elements combine to do … something. Lockdown’s monotonous enough without half-assed songs making it worse.
I have no idea how close I ever come to hitting these goals. But I do know that the attempt reminds me that there’s more to life than is dreamt of in the routines and mental habits that make up my everyday experience of it. Time with that unfathomable elephant is time well spent.
To sit quietly and take in the view was unusual for Alexander Seymionovitch. His tall French windows flung wide open were like an extension of his arms warmly embracing the air of a new world which at least to him seemed astonishingly peaceful. Even though his thoughts circled like a pack of Siberian wolves, he felt his heart was full to overflowing with very positive vibrations. He watched the sea’s reflection of sprinkled sunlight dance above him on the ceiling and marveled at how it dappled the walls of his palatial home in celebration of his happiness. I love her. I love her. I love her. Perhaps he was being foolish to suddenly behave like a teenager. A man in his prime, armed with infinite power and unlimited money. A man used to calling the shots. At the ripe old age of sixty Alexander had fallen in love.
He found himself under a spell, and in that sense of powerlessness, he discovered fragility and fear, but also savored a sweetness. Until now he’d been content with his life. He was fine. Just fine. He hadn’t asked for this to happen. But now that it had, he couldn’t see any other way to live.
For the last ten years Seymionovitch had been a resident of Monaco. His seaside mansion with all the trimmings was in every way the sort of residence you would expect of a Russian billionaire. But only now did he notice something that even to the poorest of paupers cost nothing, if only they had one good eye. That the Mediterranean was indeed so beautiful. So blue.
Alexander was not unattractive, but muscular. Of medium build, he kept himself in good shape, believing that physical fitness kept him mentally sharp and gave him an edge in business.
Without meaning to, his gaze could be intimidating. His brown eyes radiated intelligence. And often people speaking to him felt compelled to avert their own eyes, for fear that he could read their thoughts. When he smiled, which occurred often because he was heavily invested in appreciating the absurdity of life, he displayed deep dimples which made him irresistible to women and men alike. In business he was famed for being brilliant, charming and brutal.
But now, he heard a rustle behind him and the faint sound of footsteps running on tip toes. Without even turning around to see who it was, because he knew, Alexander beamed. Slender silky arms clasped him from behind, and a soft cheek nuzzled his neck.
“Here you are!” she exclaimed. He pulled her over to sit on his lap.
“Let me have a look at you.” His wife of one month was approaching her twenty-first birthday.
“Did you notice how blue the sea is today?”
“Of course, but what is so special about that?”
“I’ve just never taken the time to absorb the fullness of its beauty before.”
“Oh Papa, everything is beautiful here!” She called him Papa, because she said he was not only her husband and her lover, but also the father she’d never had. Alexander harbored no doubt about how much Anna adored him, but he remained mystified as to why she didn’t consider their age gap an obstacle. “I could be your grandfather,” he reminded her.
“Don’t say that!”
When they met, he didn’t even register that she was a woman. To him she was a child. One who should be left to play with children her own age. This initial meeting occurred where she was working as a waitress in a Moscow café. Seymionovitch was preoccupied, dining there with a few young executives. Although she was striking, Alexander didn’t even see her. But the younger men couldn’t take their eyes off of her, and furthermore they said as much to her. Without acknowledging the compliment, Anna took their order with a blank stare.
When one day, he sat down at a table on his own, the woman in question didn’t waste any time.
“Mr Seymionovitch,” she said, “I’m scared of your young executives.”
He looked at her with surprise. “Why would you say that?”
“Because that’s just it. They’re young.”
Alexander was bemused. “But you are young too. It’s normal. There’s no reason to be afraid.”
“I don’t like the way they look at me.”
Now Alexander appraised her for the first time. He surveyed her for a solid minute and realized that those green eyes and high cheekbones pointed to a specific and highly desirable genetic marker. Must be some Mongolian blood in the mix.
“You shouldn’t be working in a cafe if you fear the gaze of young men.”
“But I have no choice.”
“You always have a choice,” said Seymionovitch, leaving her a generous tip and the salient memory of what no one in Monaco disputed was indeed a dazzling smile.
Seymionovitch didn’t give it another thought. Beauty was beauty, and where there is such a concentration of wealth, beautiful women will always be a dime a dozen. They came, married well, and then they went away. Where? Who cares! He wasn’t looking for anything. Business was a game that took him to faraway places. And when he wasn’t traveling, he spent most of his time in Monaco, where all the other oligarchs also found it convenient to base themselves.
Anna still marveled at the fact that she was married to Alexander Seymionovitch. It was like a dream come true, and she still enjoyed recalling the moment when fate reunited them. It was springtime and he gave a large party at his Moscow mansion. An army of waiters and waitresses had been hired for the event, and she was one of them. Anna waited until he was alone to approach him. She was carrying a tray laden with glasses of Champagne, and said in a clear voice, “Mr Seymionovitch, you were right!”
Giggling, she recalled his confused expression which seemed to say: “A waitress dares address me so directly? Who are you and what do you want?”
“Remember that moment?” She asked.
“I didn’t know who you were, let alone what you were talking about. Now, Anna, tell me the truth, you were after my money, you little gold digger.”
“Not so little.” Said Anna, cupping both of her cashmere covered breasts in two exquisitely manicured hands.
Anna grew up with her mother, Irina and grandmother, Natasha. She’d never known her father. She told Seymionovitch that men were a mystery to her. She was fascinated by them, but had always feared young boys. They were so cruel, brash, and never serious. When their hands weren’t chasing her, their eyes told her it wasn’t a question of if, but when.
“You know the way someone looks at you, and you’re certain what they really want is to use up your body and take your soul away?”
“No, I don’t know. Tell me!”
Anna laughed, “It’s hard to describe.”
“What about me?” asked Alexander, “What do you feel when I look at you?”
“I feel safe. I feel that I’m at home and everything is good.”
He pushed her gently away from his chest, so that he could examine her face.
“Now, it’s your birthday soon. Your twenty-first! I would like to do something special.”
“Do you have an idea of what you would you like to do?”
“I don’t know. But not a party. I don’t like parties.”
“I already know that.”
“You know everything about me!” cried Anna, kissing him behind his ear.
“Not everything,” said Alexander, overcome by a disturbing thought. This was too much happiness. It can’t last. Spinning around, she clocked the contemplative expression before Alexander could resume his legendary poker face.
“What are you thinking?” Without answering, he held her closer, in silence, and after a while, she said, “Surprise me!”
“Yes, Baby. I will.”
“We’ve got a gig,” said Jeffrey. “Good pay. But we don’t know nothing about it.”
“Whatever,” said Sebastian, “Just pay me. Where is it?”
“Monaco.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
“In the morning?”
“Have to be there at 9.30.”
“Address?”
“At the train station there. We’re signing a confidentiality contract. None of us can ever talk about it.”
“Intriguing.”
“Our instructions are to arrive by train.”
“I wonder why.”
“I don’t even know their nationality. That would influence what songs we prepare.”
“This kind of secrecy smells Russian.”
“A driver will meet us at the station. Oh, and they want a saxophone player.”
“A bit last minute isn’t it? Maybe Rich is available. He’s a decent sax player.”
“That’s not a bad idea. Hang on…” Jeffrey makes a call.
“Hey Rich, are you around? Will you pop into the cafe? Yes, something to discuss.”
“Does Raffi know?”
“Yes, and you know Raffi. He’s already busy getting his beauty sleep.”
The following morning the band boarded a train hurtling toward Monaco. Sebastian’s red curls cascaded down the shoulders of his fancy shirt. Holding his guitar, Jeffrey stretched his skinny legs to rest on the seat facing him. Raffi’s sunglasses blended almost imperceptibly into his long dark locks, as he regarded a Cajon lodged between his feet. Next to him leaned a saxophone case steadied by Rich’s right hand.
“Well,” said Jeffrey, “People are strange. You just have to go with the flow. We don’t know what kind of crowd will be there. But we will wing it as we always do. At least we don’t have to put up with a girl singer. Sometimes people ask for a girl singer, and that’s a pain in the butt. No matter how nice a girl is, it’s going to cause more problems than it’s worth.”
“I didn’t realize how sexist you are,” said Raffi under his breath.
“No, no, no,” exclaimed Jeffrey. “Don’t get me wrong. I love women. But it’s hard to work with them.”
“I wouldn’t mind being in a girl band,” said Sebastian, which brought the house down. Even Rich, who was half asleep, shook off his snooze and smiled.
“Blindfolded?” Perplexed, the musicians stared at the demure PA, whose slicked back obsidian hair nearly distracted them from her hasty clarification that for the inconvenience, Mr Seymionovitch was happy to pay each of them the tidy sum of €5000.
“That’ll be fine,” said Jeffrey, stifling his excitement.
Ms. Abramovitch seemed relieved as she indicated for them to follow her up a grand staircase and enter into the master bedroom.
“This must be a surprise birthday party. It’s pretty quiet.”
Ms Abranovitch looked past Jeffrey and his unfiltered assumption, in anticipation of Seymionovitch’s entrance via a terrace door. His PA wasted no time introducing the motley crew of musicians to their generous patron.
“It’s my wife’s 21st birthday, and she’s asked me to surprise her,” explained Alexander.
As the musicians nodded, their eyes darted around the room. No bedroom could’ve been larger or more tastefully decorated, mixing modern paintings with antique furniture. There was an atmosphere of opulence and luxury, yet one could still call it cosy.
“Ms. Abromovitch mentioned the blindfold, did she not?”
“Yes,” answered Sebastian, who had to stop himself from asking Seymiononovitch to explain why the blindfold was required.
“It’s no problem at all,” assured Jeffrey.
“Well, just now, she is in the bath.”
“Oh, Papa! Where are you?” A youthful voice filtered in from somewhere in the next room.
“It’s a surprise!” said Alexander, “I want you to make her cry!”
“Wait. If it’s her birthday, aren’t we supposed to make her laugh?”
“But she is happier when she cries.”
“Papa! Where are you?”
“I come now Baby, I come to you!” and with that, he hurried into the other room.
“What will we sing to make her cry? It’s impossible to know what we should play.” Befuddled, the band huddled together, whispering potential strategies worthy of a football team.
“No, not yet,” said Alexander.
“But I’m bored,” said Anna. Alexander sat at the edge of the bath.
“I have a surprise for you, so soak a bit longer.” Anna was covered in soapy bubbles.
“Shall I close my eyes?” she asked. Hearing the saxophone’s initial notes, she looked at Alexander.
“What was that?” And at that moment four blindfolded men entered her extensive bathroom. Anna nearly jumped out of her bath.
“Alex, I’m scared.”
“But Baby, they can’t see you.”
“Get them out!” Anna was crying.
Blindfolded, the band stood there, confused by the rapid conversation in Russian.
“It’s going wrong,” whispered Jeffrey to Sebastian.
“Get them out!” Not knowing what else to do the band started a song.
“Stop!” shouted Seymionovitch.
“Please wait for me in the bedroom.”
Being blindfolded meant they had to feel their way out of one unfamiliar room into another. Sebastian nearly fell over his double base as Jeffrey felt strong arms grip his shoulders and push him roughly out into the bedroom.
“Can we take our blindfolds off?” he asked. Seymionovitch snapped back at him in Russian.
Raffi whispered, “I’m not fluent but that sounded distinctly like Russian for Fuck you, Man.”
“I hope we’re still getting our 5K.”
“Don’t take the blindfolds off.” As Alexander was helping Anna out of the bath, a cloud of doves exploded into the air outside her bay windows followed by scores of red balloons, and Seymionovitch felt like someone had punched him in the stomach.
The band began to play, and Raffi sang “I’m So in Love with You,” his voice so clear, sweet and grave all at once, was carried by the acoustics in the high-ceilinged room to waft like a cloud of sound through the open French doors. At this point, Anna burst into tears.
“That’s it?” asked Jeffrey in surprise, when Ms. Abramovitch handed each of them an envelope, before ushering them out onto the driveway, where a uniformed driver was waiting to chauffeur them away.
“What the hell happened back there?” said Jeffrey.
“It’s all in here,” said Sebastian, recounting the cash in his envelope.
Rich stuffed his pay into the sax case without even checking it.
“She must be exceptionally beautiful,” said Raffi, who was the last musician to climb into the Rolls Royce Phantom, before the chauffeur shut the door behind him with that hushed thump reserved only for those who can effortlessly afford it. The Phantom then pulled away from Alexander’s sea side palace and coasted down his longest of private lanes, to turn toward the train station, after a discreet exit through the slowly closing Monegasque gates of an oligarch’s estate.
Painters talk of the temperature of paint. It’s warm. It’s cold. There are colours that complement each other, others that do not. Colour is sensory. It is non-verbal and arguably pre-verbal, and gives us a framework for how to navigate and sublimate our visual surroundings. The grass is green, the ocean is blue, the sun is yellow.
To read colour in such an abrupt manner can make it seem static, rational even. Yet an artist can use colour as a strategic or manipulative tool, intentionally misleading and seducing the viewer with the hues and saturation of an artwork. The warmth of colours can be disarming like the hazy, golden yellows of a summer at dusk, or the rosy pinks of the evening as it shutters to a close. However, with painting, as in life, all is often not exactly what it seems. Much ugliness can be hidden beneath exquisite surfaces. Yet paradox lies at the heart of most art.
Desire, Melancholy and Loss
Giorgio Morandi
In September, I found myself standing before a painting by the Italian artist Giorgio Morandi, Natura Morta con tre tazze (1943), at the Museo Novecento in Milan, experiencing this tension first hand. In this painting stands three stacked bowls and a jug that looks to have just sidled up beside them.
The lips between the two forms connect, barely. A long dark shadowy line throws itself at the edges of where they meet. Its outline highlights the chasm that opens beneath them. It’s a strikingly intimate moment. In the foreground there is a third presence, another bowl which is situated at a remove from the other two, differentiated by the vibrant red stripe that, like a belt, contains it. An outsider perhaps? The palette of the paint is neutral, and the brushstrokes minimal. The red stripe is defiant. It penetrates.
There is an undoubtable tension between these objects, like watching one of Shakespeare’s plays, yet the mystery between them is left to the viewer. As my eyes move across the surface, peeling away the narrative layers I begin to feel the discord within me dissipate. Unmoored, I felt my internal structure begin to break apart. I became every object in that painting, if only briefly – a meditation on desire, melancholy and loss
Yet transcendence is a temporary state and once again the necessary coldness of reality was upon me. This distance is now filled with longing. The tears began to gather in my eyes. I waited a little longer and moved to the next painting.
Sacred Space
Morandi is regarded as one of the greatest painters of the last century. A mythology has been built up around him and the very particular process he employed to make his paintings. He safeguarded it with a religious fervour. His studio was a sacred space where he worked exclusively with the same everyday objects that he placed, assembled, and reordered until the setting and light was just right.
They were common objects jugs, mugs, bottles, their physical volume and shape lending them certain characteristics. They acted like players on a stage, the drama slowly unfolding before him, each arrangement offering a different narrative. When observing his paintings, one notices how the external signals are combined with his internal fears to create works that are silently directing us through the painful journey of existence. They are empty vessels in an empty landscape.
Human Frailty
The pandemic has thrown into light our human frailty, our need for connection, our surroundings and lived spaces. It has brought a metaphysical awareness to the things with which we surround ourselves. The domestic is now a sacred space and the quotidian is kingmaker.
Like Morandi, this sphere of the domestic is where I choose to situate my work. I create narrative vignettes culled from personal history, literature, music and film. At times these scenes seem banal, in others absurd. They are purely imagined spaces that are vague and elusive, offering fragmentary impressions of wonder, beauty, loneliness, and dread – and the duality that exists within us all.
My painting is both a language and alchemy. It is uncontainable, and oftentimes unpredictable with each work following its own logic. I use oil paint in a manner that reflects the sensibility of the oil itself. The surfaces of the painting have a diverse, formal vocabulary. At times I apply it with a quick, gestural abandon with the material sliding across the surface. At other times the paint is applied dry or diluted, methodically building layers and light through a process of application and wiping back.
Erasure is part of everything. A private performance where the traces are left behind on the canvas – residues of hair and dirt are solidified in time compressed.
Moments Between
I aim to depict points in time where nothing much happens, and anxiety builds as our agency is suspended. Dramatic interludes are left to one side in favour of those moments between. We are deprived of that cathartic release. The scenes are at once familiar and yet there is a strangeness to them, an eeriness. The interiors are populated with objects, both uncanny and transcendent: a glove; an insect under a glass; a broken egg; a curtain shimmers; things are only half revealed.
Animals and figures sometimes appear yet they are more present in their absence. The objects seem to exist independent of our gaze. They carry on without us when left to themselves. They are ‘still lives’ in the conventional, historical sense. But now they have become autonomous figures. They too have become the players on the stage.
It is true that we cannot experience pleasure without first knowing pain; that we contain both true and false selves. One thing can be seen more clearly in relation to another. These polarities provide us with perspective and also uncertainty.
The psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott said that ‘artists are people driven by the tension between the desire to communicate and the desire to hide.’ The human condition is not a paradox to be solved but rather one to be lived. We should embrace the shadows within.
My Approach to Literary Networking after Francois Villon
Most days I’d rather be bundled
into the courthouse between
two hairy policemen,
with a highly debatable anorak
dragged over my face, and
blamed for killing Kirov –
the crowd lobbing big thick
spits and battering the van
as I’m carted off –
or be stopped at the Canadian border
travelling on a makey up Polish passport,
the remnants of a Dutch industrialist
and what I think was his second wife settled
unhappily in my glove compartment;
or attend my mother-in-law’s funeral
having been fitted with a wooden nose
because (everybody knows)
the other one fell off due to
third stage syphilis;
than ghost about the joint provoking
nods from gabardine coats
of great import and longevity,
grunts of approval
from fully clothed minor male poets.
Feature Image: Joseph Stalin and Sergei Zhadanov at the funeral of Sergei Kirov in December, 1934 (unknown author).
Welcome to the second Cassandra Voices podcast introduced and written by Nicola Bigatti, and produced by Massimiliano Galli. This podcast was recorded in the heart of Dublin 8 in what used to be the studios of the 2014 indipendent project Radio Liberties.
This podcast continues a journey through Italian ‘Library Music,’ a vast catalogue of records composed mainly in the 1960s and 1970s by some of Italy’s finest musicians, with Rome and Milan becoming centres of excellence.
Although recording artists associated began with generic soundtrack music, this provided a springboard for an innovative music scene. From a commercial base in T.V. series and advertising jingles, musicians forged unique styles, and developed distinctive sounds such as that associated with Spaghetti Westerns, a genre known as Film Poliziesco-groove.
Ennio Morricone in 2015
Foremost among these composers was Ennio Morricone, who achieved global fame for soundtracks to films such as ‘Once Upon a Time in America’ (1984) and ‘The Good the Bad and the Ugly’ (1966). Morricone passed away in July of this year at the age of ninety-one, and this Podcast is dedicated to his memory.
This Italian Library encompassed avant-garde composition, classical harmony, psychedelia, and funk with brash horns, guitars, and futuristic synths prominent. It was a fertile ground for experimentation and creativity, strongly influenced by the social, economic and political dynamics of that epoch.
Composition occcurred under the shadow of political and social turmoil in Italy – ‘the Years of Led’ (Anni di piombo) as a succession of bombings and assassinations by extremist groups shattered an uneasy post-War consensus.
Over the treetops, along the edge of the upper lake, a merlin hunts a starling. Isolated from its flock, that starling fights to avoid the clutches of a small falcon. Fallen memories of past murmurations dance on the surface for a moment and then perish in the peaceful water below: it looks inevitable and only a matter of time, before the old wizard sinks its claws into the imperiled druid.
While the two brothers approached the water’s edge below, I dropped from one spent thermal; drifting in the sky, lazily looking to let another warm current lift me a little higher above the tree line to stalk their predestined path.
The lake stretched up the valley in a murky rectangle, darkened by peat-rich soil from the surrounding steep hills and cliffs. Although the minerals obscured its muddied depths, the lake’s surroundings reflected flawlessly on its curtained surface until a rare whisper of air turned the portrait of a fine day into a shimmering jewel, before still perfection returned once more: blue to silver to sky blue again.
Opposite the beach, through the valley, and over the mirror, a river cracked their impending trek in half. A high ridge overlooking one side of the lake followed all the way back, descending through trees, returning to the shore where the siblings stood.
Sporadic shadows of uneasiness splashed across my consciousness when sometimes the trees and dirt glistened like the vast liquid ornament, sitting ancient where only it could ever belong, in the middle of the upper glen.
Separated by six years, they stood close together now at the lake’s edge. Sailing in the void above the brothers, I watched them move together, trading gestures and pointing at the surroundings. I heard their voices bouncing back and forth and sometimes blending in unison as they overlapped and interrupted one another without hesitation; a complex, instinctive, fluttering dance; only possible with two people who have served an early life sentence in each other’s company.
Laid out before them in a glorious widescreen feast, they took a breath and surveyed the land. Paul, congratulated himself on the idea of coming to the mountains for the day, “Not a terrible way to spend a Tuesday afternoon Cormac, huh?” Trying to downplay it for as long as he could before falling short, arms outstretched, he blurted, “How impressive is this?!”
Cormac was kicking himself for not thinking to bring swimming shorts or a towel. He regarded a couple of Scandinavian backpackers. The sun turning the girls’ faces into shining beacons, their skin almost transparent, as they floated in the water. Any initial signs of shivering distress rapidly turned into cool relief. On this April day, a revitalizing dip was an enticing prospect. Best not get all wet before the hike, he thought, before responding to the brotherly bag of enthusiasm beside him, “It looks fucking magnificent, Paul, yeah.” Squinting up the valley in the distance, “I hope your itinerary for the day includes the top of that waterfall…”
Although neither of them had been here before, Paul, the eldest of three boys, assumed responsibility as rookie trail-guide for today’s excursion, perusing all of the hiking options before embarking, he of course felt obliged to select the most spectacular. “Yeah, we’ll follow the river right to the top, halfway around, I think”
Concerned Cormac might be put-off by the expedition’s wingspan, Paul added, “It’ll only take three or four hours to get the whole way round.”
“Good stuff.” Unperturbed Cormac scanned the way forward, “Which way are we doing it?” Glancing left and then right, but before Paul could answer, Cormac was already marching for the trees and the path counter clockwise around the lake. He turned his head back, “This way okay, yeah?” They moved off the beach leaving the bathers and picnickers in peace.
It felt like two lifetimes ago since I had last seen them together. The sight of the pair walking side-by-side was the harbinger of a misty solace. Still young men, one in his mid-twenties, the other in his early-thirties, they ambled between the trees in a familiar rhythm. It struck me as an extremely rare occurrence, like two celestial bodies lining up for an instant, with a third eclipsing, in the middle. Each one on their own, otherwise lonely orbit. A photon of bliss stretched out supernaturally; they carried on in concert along the path where time stood still and the planets ceased to spin; drawn together once more, not by gravity but by blood and time.
In tandem footprints left in their wake, was an unexpected gift. A whole spectrum of emotion swung heavily into my gut. Sadness to joy; plunged down into deep cold darkness before regurgitating into the light and warmth of the shallows, safe. As I watched and listened, I was drawn a bit nearer to them, getting closer to the tops of the trees and the earth below.
Sheltered in the woodland, still on the first segment of the ellipse, their voices were not completely clear; the conversation cutting in and out, almost like the leaves and branches obscured their voices as much as they shielded the light of the Spring Sun.
Cormac had just returned from Vietnam. He was paying a long overdue visit to family and friends for the next couple of months. After travelling around Southeast Asia for a spell teaching English, he’d settled down in Saigon with a local and had been working in a school there for nearly two years.
In an effort to try to reconnect with his baby brother, Paul took the day off work so they could get away from the city for a few hours and loiter in each other’s presence. He worked primarily in Dublin, where they grew up. Just after sloshing out of a long distance relationship, he felt the connection with his brother was also beginning to evaporate.
“They’ve chosen areas across the country where they’ll have a chance to thrive.” Paul had heard about a project that aimed to reintroduce wolves back into Ireland. They’d all been slaughtered centuries ago. “They’ve selected this place as one of those territories.”
“Apparently, once the Brits rid themselves of all their wolves, they decided to rid us of ours too.” Cormac stated matter-of-factly. “Thanks very much, Lads!”
“So where will the new wolves comes from? Russia or somewhere?” Cormac wondered aloud.
“Did I tell you about the wolf we saw in Colorado?” Paul inhaled and continued, “We woke up, before the alarm clock, in a motel in Pagosa Springs. We wanted to cover a lot of ground on the longest day of our road trip, so we surfaced at 5am. Ten minutes after we’d set off towards Durango, this giant wolf lumbered across the road in front of our car. Steam rising from its frame, we gave the smoldering demon a wide berth. We were still in shock about a mile down the road, when we see a deer, its demeanor faster to react, and flighty. We wondered if it detected the danger looming just up the road, in the morning gloom.”
The brothers were now halfway up the length of the lake, when on the opposite side, through the grey sessile oak trees and across the water, they spied a lone cave. In the middle of the day, that black hole stood out in its surroundings. Its main purpose, perhaps, to destroy any light that dared enter. On this brilliant day, it remained in constant shadow. Once glimpsed, it drew the eye to stare into its belly and locked their gaze.
“When he was a monk in the monastery, down at the lower lake, St. Kevin used to go up there for days on end. It’s known as St. Kevin’s Bed.” Patting himself on the back, Paul was again pleased with himself for researching the locale.
“Jesus, what was he running away from? Was the monastery not bad enough?”
“It’s the whole religious seclusion thing.” Paul started to ramble, “Like, didn’t Jesus spend some time in the desert on his own, sacrificing and praying and what-not…”
Neither of them had a considerable handle on religious history.
“I think that was Lent,” recalled Cormac, “Forty days and forty nights.”
“Sometimes I feel I’m doing my own forsaken religious sacrifice, but not by choice.” Realizing he was feeling sorry for himself, Paul swerved back onto his tour guide script, “There’s not supposed to be much room inside, not big enough to stand in.”
“Some of the most beautiful temples in Vietnam are in very unapproachable locations. Both Buddhist and Catholics have solitude in common. The whole way of life seems extremely bleak to me. I get that retreat is beneficial to a certain degree when life gets a bit too noisy and there’s no access to a volume button but to spend your time cramped in a damp cave for days on end could be taking it a step too far, no?” The Cu Chi tunnels popped into Cormac’s head. Just north of Ho Chi Minh City, he’d crawled through them, and saw the booby traps. In that light, he reassessed St. Kevin’s cell on his bleakness scale. “I’m not sure if I understand all that monk stuff. The never-ending stillness is hard for me to grasp.”
“At least the monks, whether Irish or Vietnamese, had their own pack to fall back to, even in all of these beguiling solitudes. I heard about a group of people in Japan, the Hikikomori, they completely isolate themselves from everything because I think they feel like they don’t belong in modern Japanese society. These people are living solitary lives whilst being suffocated by their own flock living all around them in massive Japanese metropolises. Locking themselves away in their tiny rooms – a refuge within four walls; the only place they are not totally lost. Now to me…That sounds bleak”
“We should try and get up here again before I fly back,” inhaling the earth around him, Cormac’s content demeanor reinforced his suggestion, “Bring the folks with us next time. They’d love it.”
“I was telling Dad that we were coming up, and he said he used to do drills in this valley when he was in the army. He mentioned a famous soldier, I can’t remember his name, he swam across the water under the cover of darkness and crawled up to the cave where he evaded capture. Perhaps the wolves should have tried something similar.”
They rambled on in silence for a time, breaking from their shelter of trees to approach the stony plateau of the Glenealo river; gushing towards them, in abrupt steps, from small bubbling rapids higher up, to man-sized waterfalls on the way down, until finally at the mouth, it all blurred into the stillness of the upper lake.
Before their ascent, they stopped at some old scattered ruins on the land between the lake and the falling river: an abandoned miner’s village from a time long forgotten. Paul stopped in the shell of one of the houses and started plastering sun cream onto the back of his neck. Cormac, although having fair hair, had no interest in sun protection, his nose already beginning to turn pink; another freckle materializing every few minutes, one after the other around his eyes and forehead; he was wandering around the broken house feeling the stone: Artefacts of an era he endeavored to visualize, but couldn’t quite render, no matter how hard he squinted in his mind.
Hanging drone-like, overhead, I could see them working hard as they began the steepest uphill section of the hike. As I meandered closer, through the air above, I could see the river was stuck in the same exact frame of motion. From far away, the cloud of motionless foam and spray deceived the beholder into thinking it alive. No sound emanated; stuck in one, ongoing split-second, the constant cacophony of slapping water with subtle gurgles was lost for the moment. Walking slower now, those two young men zigzagged up their hill, taking little notice as they followed the water’s previous beginnings. The ancient determination of the river to flow downhill was quenched somehow by a moment in time when only the brothers continued to move. I drifted down a bit closer.
They talked about other people instead of their own lives. Paul spoke of an old school friend, who was back home after finding out his mother had been in a car crash.
“I didn’t bump into him but he was over last week. His mother is in a very bad way. It was some guy driving a flatbed truck in front of her. Something fell off the back, on to the top of her car. One of those nightmare freak accidents. They reckon she’ll never fully recover. He only stayed a couple of days with her and then scurried off back to California with his mam a complete vegetable.”
“What the fuck is that about?” Cormac was wrestling with the thought of one of their parents getting sick while he was over on the other side of the world.
“I’m not sure what his work situation is over there, but you’d think he’d be able to take a bit longer off. Anyway, I’m shocked that you’re confused by this. I haven’t seen you in two years. Barely heard a peep since the funeral. Like a magician, now you see him, now you don’t … have a fucking clue where he is.”
Both of them were moving with deliberation up the slope where the trail was at its most arduous.
Cormac batted away his brother’s unexpected jab by continuing as if he hadn’t heard, “I ran into Sarah in town a few weeks ago and she’s convinced that he’s on heroin, hiding somewhere outside of Los Angeles. I wasn’t sure, like, he’s always been a bit of a dozy cunt. Looking back, didn’t he always seem to have problems with people? There was always some trouble stalking him from the near distance.”
Cormac hesitated before speaking, “I know this sounds awful,” he knew he wouldn’t be able to recapture the words once spoken, “But wasn’t he an altar boy for a few years?”
Paul’s body felt a little heavier. The day turned a shade darker although not even a wispy cloud existed to tarnish the sky’s fine blue covering. His first thought was, not a chance, but once sparked, the idea continued to crackle, like kindling in his mind.
Cormac continued, “It’s not out of the question that something could have happened. You hear all the stories, and it’s not farfetched. If something despicable happened, maybe it messed with him. Maybe that shit stuck to him like one of those nasty parasites. You know, one of those monstrous things that you don’t even realize you’re hosting. It just feeds on you and makes you sicker and sicker.”
The upper lake prospers on secrets and rumors. Shadow and light dance over the surface; old whispers long spoken and nearly forgotten, ready to plummet to the bottom at any moment. Some rumors remain, and with them an unbreakable tension.
Paul, stopped to take a breather, “You would think, in that situation, you’d say something immediately. But I appreciate it’s hard to put yourself into a specific circumstance like that”
“The act of crying out for help can be almost impossible sometimes…But fuckin hell, that’s a terrifying thought.” Cormac was trying to think of the exact reason why he was living half way around the world. He thought about the snippy comment Paul made about not seeing him since their brother’s funeral. Cormac didn’t think he harbored any guilt, leaving when he did, but thought he heard some resentment in Paul’s voice. Excess thoughts were flapping around in his head. “It would make sense that somebody, weakened by an experience like that or under the constant reminder of trauma would turn to drugs or run away from that completely, to another country.”
“Do you think you needed to leave here when you did?”
“I wasn’t talking about that. You know, I didn’t run away. There was nothing here for me at the time and I needed something fresh … Something just for me … to be on my own for once. But, yeah, I think he could have thought the exact same thing when he went to America.”
At the top of the route, they collected some water from the rocky froth. A dent in the stream was left unfilled where they had dipped their flasks. Each guzzled while surveying the terrain, trying to distinguish each trail, locate where they had come from and understand exactly how they had arrived to this absolute extremity.
“Certainly easier than staying to fight it and causing a fuss.” Paul probed, “Say, if we got stranded up here, would you want a rescue helicopter coming up to get us?”
Not lingering at the top, they crossed a bridge over the river and kept moving along the ridge back in the direction of the beach that had been their starting point.
“Definitely not an ideal situation, it would be on the news and everything, but yeah, I’d want it to come and get us”
“Sometimes it’s easier to stay silent. Don’t trouble anyone else with your bullshit. It would be too mortifying.” Paul seemed at ease with his position on this topic, but perhaps was testing his youngest brother, playing Devil’s advocate. “You’d never live the embarrassment down, having the helicopter sent up and everything. I think I’d just hole up somewhere and wait for the storm to pass.”
Cormac was baffled, “Why would you do that? It sounds unnecessarily risky to me. I’d say it would get really cold. You’d rather risk death than feel slightly unpleasant … Feel like a bit of a knob?”
“Nah, it’s Ireland, a bit of rain on a hill. Find some shelter easy enough; keep the head down until sunrise.”
“You’re downplaying a potentially disastrous situation where the mountain is the local priest and you have found yourself as the quiet altar boy. Family would be worrying about us, the car would be down at the entrance and we’d never have mentioned a plan of camping overnight…”
“I’d be okay”
“… Never mind in a few years it wouldn’t just be the weather you’d worry about. What about the wolves? What would you do when the howling begins in the middle of the night? You can hear them getting closer, crying up into the abyss, as they relay the exact position of their prey.”
“Maybe I’d shelter in St. Kevin’s bed, like that jammy soldier. It’s probably better in there if there was a big storm out here. Nice and cozy.”
I watched them consider the precarious situation as they tip-toed along the wooden sleepers on the trail high above the lake. Their thoughts becoming less complicated as they were forced to concentrate on each perilous step. Both of their voices were weakening. Cormac’s face was twisted in confusion. Paul’s expression was hard to see. Blurring. I had to go closer to watch, within a stone’s throw overhead.
Beneath them but above the waterline, lurked that cave. What in the world could even be inside that hole? Stones? Moss? Spiders? Some campfire remnants or an abandoned bird’s nest? What about the scrawlings of an ancient druid? Or is there something else living in there – a dying wolf maybe; another artefact, black as the darkness itself.
How deep is it really … If you were to properly investigate? I heard them saying that it’s very small but what if there was a crack in the corner and just enough room to squeeze in? If I had a light, I’d just take a fleeting peep.
I’d keep scraping and scratching at the dirt and keep going further into danger. Are there more ruins in this cave like the fading memories in my mind?
They reached a viewing platform perched all the way out on the edge of the high ridge. A perfect predatory vantage. They peered down at the lake and I followed their gaze. The water’s presence was at first reassuring, but I sensed it knew every thought in every crease of my mind. The shadows growing and retreating on the surface, thoughts and memories. Beware the underwater cliffs.
They discovered a spot to sit, looking down at where they began. An apple each was a welcome boost before finishing the last section of the trail. Crunching into the delicious fruit, they marveled at the fantasy backdrop, in which the lower lake and monastic ruins shimmered behind the beach. There was magic in this land: a mystical ether passed down by the druids before they were swallowed by the island’s monasteries.
“Those monks did have to put up with some amount of shit…And never mind the bloodthirsty Viking skirmishes. No wonder St. Kevin tried to break it up with the odd cave getaway”
“Yeah, it might have been a relief for him at times. Things appear to make more sense up here. The energy is different.” Considering the setting before him, Paul couldn’t resist embellishing – “Or maybe an evil wizard was pursuing the Saint, and instead of endangering the Sanctuary he built, St. Kevin would fall back away, lead the wizard into a snare, out here in the wilderness.”
The light lunch was long finished but they lingered, looking at the lake; pure beauty reflected.
For Paul, the day had many purposes. The main one was to spend some quality time with Cormac, before he headed back to the other side of the world. He missed his company, his mannerisms, and the scrunched-up expressions on his sun burnt face. He said to Cormac before he left the first time, to come back before making any big permanent decisions. Paul had been away for a stint on the continent, and it’s only when he came back, he realized how much he loved his home.
The other main purpose was to sell Ireland to him; give him an image to look back on and to remember fondly. A picture to clutch onto, that would not fade as quick as a few drunken nights out, down the local. He was desperate not to lose the only brother he had left.
Like boys, they skipped and swirled their way down to the bottom of the valley on wooden steps fashioned from recycled railroad ties which had been built into the slope.
Though Cormac’s only long-term plans involved making a life in Vietnam, he didn’t have the heart to break it to Paul just yet, because he needed to keep that connection. Thinking about the stones in the miner’s village, he didn’t want their relationship to exist on old memories, and promised himself that he’d make more of an effort with both Paul and his parents.
“Mac Tíre,’meaning wolf in the Irish tongue, translates as “Son of the country.” Sometimes, through no choice of their own, the sons of this country may feel they no longer belong to its soil. Ireland’s children have always had to keep moving, be on the go. They’ve thrived and prospered in other parts of the world. Our generation have been culled like the wolves before us. Leaving for better opportunities elsewhere or all too often, leaving this world forever.
So do I keep scratching and scraping at the dirt until I find something? What happens if something finds me first?
As they neared the beach, the terrain levelled out. I watched them ghosting through the trees close to lake level. Cormac stopped dead in his tracks, making Paul echo his sudden movements. Paul’s whole body was almost invisible now. It was a silvery liquid form, impossible to recognize anymore.
I drifted in closer, my toes nearly touching the soil. I strained to hear Cormac, his voice a faint whisper. “You nearly flattened it.” He paused, pointing around the base of a towering Scots pine tree. Then he looked up the trunk and spotted an old woodpecker hole. “It won’t survive.”
The baby starling lay waiting to be trampled on the forest floor between them. Very still, it was a ball of fuzz in an alien world, pink and exposed. Two varieties of feathers scattered around the baby signaled a frantic scrap. Its brooding mother attempting to lead the predator away from the nest. Cormac picked up the starling and stood at the base of the tree. Handing the pre-fledgling druid to Paul, Cormac freed his hands so he could climb on his brother’s back. Using the tree for balance, he managed to clamber up and stand steady on Paul’s shoulders.
I blinked my eyes until they hurt. I saw the foggy outline of Paul, hunched with the weight of his brother. Raising his arms he passed the bird up to Cormac, who took the starling into his tender hands, and steadied himself again, before reaching up to the nest to place the hatchling back into its home.
The beach was busier than before. The unexpected spring heat drawing opportunist paddlers to haunt the cooling shallows. I could just make them out in the crowd. Yes, there they were, together. The fine grains of sand barely reacting to their footsteps.
I touched the earth for the first time and they began to rise. Each soul on the beach lifting into the air around me in a slow steam. The sand was warm between my toes. Standing alone, the world started spinning again, with everyone who was left on its surface still hanging on to their delicate existence.
Above the lake, my brothers took towards their final tranquil passage. I was left alone on the earth, without them, no longer in the middle. I watched them leave: diving upwards, soaring over the valley back towards the source of the river. Both shapes dancing together. Two birds nearby, entangled in furious battle, threatened their cosmic journey. The brothers glanced a glint of magic upon the mid-air tussle. The merlin opened its talons and took off into the horizon. As my brothers vanished over the river, the valley held its breath while the liberated starling flew towards the tree line where her hatchlings nested in the old woodpecker cave.
And under the water, memories swim in a frenzy, not on the lakebed, but bubbling, murmuring just below the surface.
Une Charogne (1859) is among the most important poems of the 19th century, containing all of its author’s ground-breaking aesthetic. Our own aesthetically challenged century could learn a lot from it, in terms of the aesthetic of rupture, spleen and discord.
It is Baudelaire’s response, in a sense, to the early Romantics, such as John Keats for example, and particularly concerning notions of beauty. Baudelaire, like Mary Shelley and Shakespeare before her, found more engagement in what could be described as the dark horror of existence, which had always existed in literature, particularly in writers such as Dante Alighieri, in whose work Dame Francis Yates saw the keys, or genesis, of the Gothic novel: in particular in the last Canto of the Inferno when Count Ugolino is forced by starvation to eat his sons locked away in a tower. However, Baudelaire’s genius was to take such an aesthetic into the everyday. In this this way he was a true revolutionary and visionary.
Count Ugolino and his sons in their cell, as painted by William Blake circa 1826.
Une Charogne is the perfect example of his aesthetic. The poet starts off describing a carcass which he has seen rotting on his way home, and which he associates with a former love which he felt for his girlfriend. The reader, however, is only made aware of this in the very last verse of the poem. The remarkable contrast of topics is so unexpected that even one-hundred-and-sixty-years on the poem continues to shock.
The poem, typically, follows the genre of memento mori, Baudelaire’s originality lies, however, in applying what were rather banal motifs associated with death – such as skulls placed alongside everyday fare like fruit and flowers – and then to insert affairs of the flesh, and, of course, the heart.
Only readers who have experienced real heartbreak themselves, what the Ancient Greeks described as the Orphic mysteries, will have any real appreciation of the fantastical act of catharsis that is taking place, how the poet wonderfully evokes his former passion for a beloved, and then inverts Love with its counterpart Hate; thus upturning the apple cart of feelings for the beloved which have been transformed into their opposite; diabolical hatred and disgust; perhaps more so for himself, for being duped by such feelings in the first place!
As indicated, anyone who has been in Love and who has then lost – inevitably harbouring a sense of betrayal – will recognise, and feel, the powerful emotions driving the poem forward. The poet’s dedication and craft at the description of the whole process continue to inspire awe.
Three Studies for a Portrait of Henrietta Moraes, by Francis Bacon,1963.
Francis Bacon Interviews
Regarding my transversion, I was helped enormously by using the interviews conducted by David Sylvester with the twentieth century British painter Francis Bacon. Bacon was a keen reader of Baudelaire, and one who followed the French poet’s dramatic overhaul of the Romantic spirit. One only has to consider Bacon’s entire corpus of imagery, the violent palette of colour, the decomposing matter of flesh, and the ‘smoky bacon’ of decomposing Love!
I find that this unique aesthetic contradicts directly the flimsy narrative of many contemporary literary journals which are marred by politically correct censorship; the overwhelming and ever-present narrative of all-inclusivity and sensitivity to Others that has now reached idiotic proportions.
What do I mean by that? Take for example the narrative of Une Charogne below. Anybody reading the poem with a half a brain will understand there is a very definite mask wearing taking place on the part of the poet. The diabolical humour is just that, a very nasty joke. But one which is very human.
When one has been jilted the immediate response is to seek revenge. Exact some hate! This is simply being human, and to deny the presence of this impulse is simply perverse. All is fair in love and war. A person who has betrayed you with another having vowed to love you forever is now in the arms of another.
Portrait of Charles Baudelaire by Gustave Courbet (1848).
Fail Again
There is, I would say, no greater pain on this Earth than the agony of abandonment. It is the hardest possible task for any human being to accept graciously that loss, and then to move on. It reflects the instruction of Samuel Beckett in Worstward-Ho: ‘Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.’
Life onwards will be mere monochrome. A travesty in a sense. This is the exact sentiment that lies behind Baudelaire’s Une Charogne. The poet is damned, damned by the Other. And so he will exact his revenge. The poet finds it in the poem, alone, in its very composition.
I would liken this Art to extracting puss. It is an act of catharsis. Again, a very Greek notion. Francis Bacon was also a great fan of the Ancient Greeks, like Baudelaire before him.
I have made the point repeatedly: if there is not a little poison in the well there is no sweetness to the water. I have met all too many high-minded moralists who plead constantly for whatever Other is currently in fashion.
These latter-day saints among the chattering classes are hypocrites, who sanctimoniously bottle up their resentments. I have been a witness to a deformed humanity spurting out in the most toxic manner imaginable. Believe me, it is not a pretty sight! — Hypocrite lecteur, — mon semblable, — mon frère! (— Hypocritish reader, — my fellow, — my brother!)
The French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan.
Broken Word
On the philosophical plane the poet has completely sublimated Friedrich Hegel’s (1871-1831) dialectic of the Master and Servant. To speak in the terms of Baudelaire’s countryman Jacques Lacan (1901-1981) – of a different generation but observing an unaltered humanity – he is killing symbolically the Other in the world of the Real. This for Lacan, as for the poet, is entirely symbolic.
Baudrillard – perhaps the most Baudelairean of late twentieth century French thinkers – was to make of this his unique discourse point. He believed that we had lost our capacity for creating metaphor, so enamoured were we by the hyperreal; that is to say the literality of living we now observe in a mediated age where news is constant, and so ever-present. The Hegelian Now repeated ad infinitum is a poet’s nightmare. This explains why we are living in a period of atrocious, purely confessional poetry. The so- called ‘Spoken Word’ where the Now is Ever Present!
I AM
The spoken word speaks – BEING poetry itself! Such is the utter fallacy.
This is the poetry of idiots.
If you do not kill your enemy symbolically, you will never kill him. Such is the Real. Not reality, but the symbolically Real, which for a poet IS the only reality.
Have you ever considered where Populist monsters spring from?
Take a leaf out of Baudelaire’s black book, write your words in Hate, as much as Love. Be the totality that is You. And you will be a better artist, and Human, for it.
XXIX.- UNE CHAROGNE
Rappelez -vous l’objet que nous vîmes, mon âme, Ce beau matin d’été si doux : Au detour d’un sentier une charogne infâme Sur un lit semé de cailloux,
Les jambes en l’air, comme une femme lubrique, Brûlante et suant les poisons, Ouvrant d’une façon nonchalante et cynique Son ventre plein d’exhalaisons.
Le soleil rayonnait sur cette pourriture, Comme afin de la cuire à point, Et de rendre au centuple à la grande Nature Tout ce qu’ensemble elle avait joint ;
Et le ciel regardait la carcasse superbe Comme une fleur s’épanouir. La puanteur était si forte, que sur l’herbe Vous crûtes vous évanouir.
Les mouches bourdonnaient sur se ventre putride, D’où sortaient de noirs bataillons Des larves, qui coulaient comme un épais liquide Le long de ce vivants haillons.
Tout cela descendait, montait comme un vague, Ou s’élançait en pétillant; On eût dit que le corps, enflé d’un souffle vague, Vivait en se multipliant.
Et ce monde rendait une étrange musique, Comme l’eau courante et le vent, Ou le grain qu’un vanneur d’un mouvement rythmique Agite et tourne dans son van.
Les formes s’effaçaient et n’étaient plus qu’un rêve, Une ébauche lente à venir, Sur la toile oubliée, et que l’artiste achève Seulement par le souvenir.
Derrière les rochers une chienne inquiète Nous regardait d’un oeil fâché, Épiant le moment de reprendre au squelette Le morceau qu’elle avait lâché.
Et pourtant vous serez semblabe à cette ordure, A cette horrible infection, Etoile de mes yeux, soleil de ma nature, Vous, mon ange et ma passion !
Oui ! telle vous serez, ô la reine des graces, Après les derniers sacrements, Quand vous irez, sous l’herbe et les floraisons grasses, Moisir parmi les ossements.
Alors, ô ma beauté ! dites à la vermine Qui vous mangera de baisers, Que j’ai gardé la forme et l’essence divine Des mes amours décomposés !
XXXIX. – The Exquisite Cadaver
Remember the ideal object which you discovered~
That beautiful summer morning, Dear soul:
By way of the path where you found that exquisite
Cadaver lying on a bed of pebbles,
Her legs in the air, like some old tart,
Burning and stewing in poisons,
Her belly slit, almost nonchalantly,
Pouring forth all manner of noxious gasses.
The sun burns down on the decomposing
Body, as if searing a steak,
Rendering back a hundred- fold to Mother Nature,
What she herself had first conjoined.
And the sky looks upon the superb carcass
As it would upon a flower of Evil,
The rigor mortis encroaching to such a point
That the very earth around it has been scorched.
Great Blue Bottles swarm in convoys,
Buzzing out of the gaping cave, Cyclopean…
While a treacle of feasting larvae thickly drip,
Making of the stain a macabre Persian carpet.
The process of decomposition rose before me,
Falling in waves, and which I perceived in a kind of
Pointillism, so that, wave-borne,
The corpse seemed to come alive and multiply before me!
This alternate universe was announced in atonal chords,
And hit me with all the fever of a jungle humidity,
Or, like the sporadic grains, scattered by a winnower,
Whose rhythmic movements spun me in a dervish.
The effaced shapes and forms were as if but a dream
From a preliminary sketch, slow to arrive,
And which the artist, not being able to rely on memory,
Had then to resort to the magnetism of specific photographs.
Behind the rocks an unnerved dog
Looked at us both with a ravenous eye,
Trying to deduce the auspicious minute
When he could rip apart some rotting flesh from the bones.
And yet, You now would appear to be not so dissimilar to this horror,
This putrid infection,
At one time Star de mes yeux,
You my one time, all consuming passion!
Yes! After the last rites have long ago been pronounced upon us,
O You, my once graceful Queen,
When will you now, in your own time,
Wallow with these bones upon the grass?
So, my great Beauty! Whisper then to the vermin
How you will cherish their kisses,
While I guard for eternity this sublime image,
Of all of our decomposing Love.
Feature Image: Charles Baudelaire by Étienne Carjat, 1863
Okay to buy your grandchild an ice-cream.
Illegal for them to lick it.
Fine to bake granny
a gleaming fruit cake,
as long as you only email her
a high resolution photo of it.
Okay to give your son or daughter
a bright new football.
Illegal for them to kick it.
Permissible to purchase for yourself
a new set of golf sticks or a tennis racket.
Illegal to hit anything with them
outside the confines of your own
downstairs bathroom.
You can’t have a friend around for a meal
unless both of you have been
fitted with gum shields.
And should you go for a socially distanced walk
with a lover
butt-plugs are now mandatory.
Every living room is its own flat-pack factory
singing the happy song of us,
hammering together our coffins.
I, smudge in the eyescape of others,
As my trowel lodges in mulch,
Palm-sore, snuggle the quiet bulbs
Into the trickling earth which inhumes us,
While these, artfully coned, only swoon
To consecrate a humble bloom.
The sun paints everslant shadows all day
In this great sphere of transition
Centring nowhere, where I witness
Clattering jackdaws, black hands at edges of vision;
A pigeon diving to the ancient oak
Descants over a cloudsong.
I work head down and I do not care
About the crunching crowds along
The path, children puddle-jumping,
All actions an acting in the long
Blind sleep of self, beneath the bronze Scots pines,
Aplomb, adamantine
Sentinels, setiferous fists raised to the hollow blue,
Heedless of a conscious cry.
Hedges patrol, keep watch on me,
Vain and stretched in fisheye,
Where the early frost becomes a forest of drops
On the blinkless, lashy grass.
I would like to share with you a little journey through my current thoughts – a small piece of my ever-shifting consciousness.
Through my life’s journey I have come to realise that the source of my anxiety always stems from not knowing something. What I am, who I am, where I am and where I am going. Every bit of my identity that can be described with human language is a construct. I am here typing these words, my inner being looking out through the eyes of my head onto the screen. I am on a planet floating through the universe, and sometimes when I’m lucky I am able to know that I know very little.
Where does the mystery begin? Where does it end? I could say I know everything about an apple. I’m familiar with it. But it is also a sacred object, with an unimaginable design. It is a mysterious expression of cosmic creativity, made from the building blocks of the universe. The same cosmic code that constitutes you and me. Every time I start to think about anything, no matter how mundane, the deeper I go with it, I always reach the same place. Behind everything there’s a gigantic world of not knowing. Everything we know is just the tip of an iceberg.
I equally don’t know why I chose music over everything else. It just attracted me like a magnet. I never get tired of it. Recently I began to understand the magic of words a little better and I’m dabbling in poetry, which for the first time I am enjoying immensely. I am convinced that language (including this text) is utterly confusing and misleading. I believe poetry is the only true language as it simulates accurately the workings of the subconscious mind, and therefore it feels more true than the forest of symbols we usually operate within.
I have released one album of music so far called “The Essential John Moods”. I have written and recorded two more since then, but I feel I’m only now approaching deeper layers of songwriting. I am also certain that I’ll never get anywhere. At least nowhere close to a destination. I think of my life and my relationship with music as a creative odyssey.
Growing up middle class in Germany in the 1980s, the son of a judge and a Polish Homeopath, I have been slowly simmering in the soup of late twentieth century post-spiritual materialism like many my peers. My parents were a little into church, a little into Yoga, a little into science, but generally as confused in life as anyone else. Death was rarely mentioned, and if it was its presence was so heavy that one could almost feel the temperature drop in the room. There was no lightness to death, and I learned to regard it as something foreign; always avoiding the topic in conversation.
My parents were, and are, lovely people, but back then they just didn’t know what to teach me about life’s purpose. They wanted me to have good grades and do well in life, but spiritually they were just beginning their own journeys, and their messages were mixed or confused. I literally had no idea why I ought to do anything in life. For a while I moved through it cluelessly or mechanically. Definitely the relative wealth of my upbringing (never a lot of money but never existential scarcity) made it possible for me to float and feel depressed.
It was only through my own confrontation with this question of death in a non-intellectual, more holistic way and a great deal of suffering that I grew more in touch with the finite beauty of life and realized that the absence of death was like a severed limb, an absence ultimately rendering life meaningless.
And these were just my personal experiences. But of course I am just a part of the human family and this eventually led me to think about the state of consciousness of the world I grew up in, and live in today. So what is the consciousness of our current time? How are the majority of people dealing with the problem of not knowing? And why do we seem largely incapable of admitting how little we really know about life?
I always found it impressive to hear highly intelligent people such as Fritjof Capra, Albert Einstein, and Werner Heisenberg utter humble statements, outlining the limits of their knowledge. There is so much fear hidden behind human surety. When we can’t admit what we don’t know, we will never truly be able to accept the great unknown and flourish in it. Instead we will try to conquer it, label and name things and in the process pretend that we have already mastered it.
Never in human history has it been easier to look away from the sacred and the mysterious. Our bodies know it more than our intellects. Everything is always in flux and the creative expression of cosmic intelligence flows through us all. But it’s easy to be comfortable and distracted these days, as we are supplied with a constant steam of digital bread and circus by large corporations… Netflix, Facebook, endless TV shows, swipe right, double click to like. It has many shapes and names. It’s a complex web of distractions set up to turn us into mindless pleasure seekers and to direct our gaze away from the mystery.
So the question that I, along with many of my contemporaries, now ask ourselves, is how do we get away from a world where we dominate nature through a fear that expresses itself in short-term greed, selfishness, and which is devoid of a deeper meaning?
My personal and practical answers are: look at death; look at nature; listen to the silence; look at the limits of knowledge; try to find poetry and wonder again. Psychedelics are a wonderful pathway to the mystery. Spending more time wandering in the wild is always good. Look at what indigenous peoples have done for thousands of years sustainably, gently taking and giving back to nature. We need better ideas than those ascendant today. We require subversive joy in the face of immanent death and demise.
Thank you very much for reading, and I wish you a wonderful life!
Here’s a poem I recently wrote:
The Unspeakable
You’re a being of light and time now the universe is opening its mind to let you in to the other side where the streets are empty no cars nothing left behind let’s take a ride morning’s broken it was a long night we’re standing in the doorway of an old beginning in a new design and a new god to pray to in a branded shrine praying to the mundane but keep finding the divine even with a blind eye you can see how it all combines where beauty and disaster intertwine how a storm sometimes can help your mind to communicate with the undefined the things you can never say even if you tried what’s rotten and raw what’s deep and macabre what’s infinite slow the words that don’t grow what you cannot let go the places inside unspeakable things unspeakable mind how it grinds and grinds the unstoppable device even if you slow the ride it’ll rapidly unwind the machinery of time when you’re the sensitive kind likely to get undermined it just hurts sometimes to see humankind scared and unaligned afraid of the breathing of the night a world of wrongs turned into a world of rights an animal so lost in sight confusing darkness with the light but maybe it will all clear up in time and the storm will pass us by another animal assigned to read the signs while the sun still shines on more disaster, more design more unspeakable words of an unspeakable mind a being of pure light you’ll be. An old beginning in a new design.
