The thought-provoking periodical for thinking idiots
WRINGER REGULAR:
Poetry Edge
Poetry, huh? What is it good for?
What's a poetry page doing in a sensible magazine like this one? Well, y'know, yeahno! We like it, that's why, especially if it's got a bit of edge. If any of our readers really don't like poetry and are about to skip this section, try reading the first entry on the page. It's called Poetry and it's about... do I really need to tell you?
poetry
Poetry, that disposable array that might
just kick you in or spit you out;
those singy-songy versus razors' edgy swords,
that bite the very edge of sense
then carve a scar that on the travelled road,
have no place if we took the lesser one.
Contain your dead men's shoes,
your curlews, your pirouettes
and fear to speak routinely, as if
bayoneted on its sharpened blade,
and hoping (if well played) we may
escape the carving of its sharpened
tongue and wit, its lah-di-dah that
made you sit and listen to the crooked
slur, your ruddy cheek. The poem pulls the lint
or linnet from your throat, that clown who
binds your laces while you gloat and read your
own obituary. Poetry, that temporary
briefcase, a murmur in the baggage
handler's heart. Poetry, that incidental
pact of idle gospels that were never asked or ever asked for art.
commentary: poetry
When modernist poetry first appeared in the early 20th century, it was fresh, vibrant, exciting and different. Many of its contemporaries (poets and critics) saw it as a step too far.
Gone were the exactitudes of scansion and rhyme, in came elision and catalexis (1). Gone were the romantics and lyricism of naturalism and epic histories, in came allusion, fragmentation, mixed registers and languages. It was all so very refreshing to begin with. Post-modern poets took it further still, embracing complexity, contradiction, ambiguity, and diversity. The punk poets arrived and took it all apart and put it back together (badly, but that was part of the point).
So where are we now? Well, sorry to disappoint but it's all back to rules and regulations and conversational poetry that repeatedly references the same concrete descriptions that by now are simply as cliched as old men's shoes. This poem has a bit of a go at the re-establishment and asks for poets who bleed poetry from the lacerations of experience. Whilst doing so, it makes use of all the silly tricks and techniques taught on any one of thousands of creative writing courses, just to show how silly and irritating they are. Slant rhymes aplenty, this poem isn't happy with poetry.
And stop using that stupid poetry voice, for crying out loud!
commentary: draw the face to kiss the lips
Sometimes an event is so memorable it actually causes pangs (you know, those real, physical pains, usually but not exclusively in the stomach).
The poet is the one to kiss the lips, it appears inadvertently and after a great deal of procrastination, of the one who creates the 'perfect' work of art.
The thing is, the work of art isn't the thing that is loved, it is the artist. No, the work of art isn't alive; it gets no kisses, no soft, warm breath because it's inorganic, inanimate, stupid (no, not you, the artwork, stupid).
This is exactly the kind of poem that poetry, above, is talking about. I bet you read it with a silly poetry voice in your head, even if you don't read it out loud, which is what you should do with all poetry, as your head will do things to it that you learned in school. And, unless you were very, very lucky, your English teacher didn't really 'understand' poetry.
Now, read the last poem in this issue and have a bit of a larf (at dead people).
draw the face to kiss the lips
Not yet perfect, he cannot break his gaze from me;
she drags the pencil’s brightly coloured thread,
But he does not kiss her lips, berry red.
She strokes his tension into graduated lines,
the sensual act of drawing going to our heads.
Yet he does not kiss her lips, berry red.
His belting heart, their unfilled sheet, their eyes obsessed
with mine, daring the unexpected and unsaid.
Still he does not kiss her lips, berry red.
Their proximity aches,
both poised to act,
his eyes close,
at last, he brings his lips
like decoys to her cheek,
sketchy,
reckless,
meets her lips instead.
And when the lips are drawn, berry red,
I expect no kisses,
no soft, warm breath.
endgame
In the end,
the start, so tender, lies.
In the last assay, they
say last lines:
kiss the days you crave
sayonara, wave,
engender ash.
The dust we scatter
in the final tally
kisses chalk to the paved lines:
the serious games
we play make dust.
And when the
dusting
day is through,
you knew.
commentary: endgame
There is a very simple premise at work here. In between the references to childhood games, birth and death, is the absolute truth that when life begins, we know where it will end.
One of those poems that stops you going about your ordinariness for a minute. Don't worry, you'll go back to it very quickly once you go to another page.
And take that smile off your face.
Notes
1 Elision / ɪˈlɪʒ(ə)n/ noun
i the omission of a sound or syllable when speaking (as in I'm, let's).
"the shortening of words by elision"
ii the process of joining together or merging things, especially abstract ideas. e.g. "unease at the elision of so many vital questions"
Catalexis /ˌkatəˈlɛktɪk/ noun
i. (of a metrical line of verse) lacking one syllable in the last foot.
ii a line lacking a syllable in the last foot.