Day: March 10, 2018

We do no wrong

Israel and Palestine.There is no
Palestine, they say, there is no Is
Rael, they say
It’s  illness,illness,illness.
We don’t want your Jews. ok?
We don’t want refugees, ok?
There was no Cat as trophe, they cry
There was no Holo Caust, they sigh
Worse things happened somewhere else
Worse things that were more intense
I do not see your world at all
I do not see what may appall
I’m innocent,I did no wrong
I never heard your Arab songs
We don’t want Europe’s trash down here
We  did not love your Al gebra
Oh,dear
We’re ill all day and weep all night
We kill the others out of spite
Or they may bite
It’s night.
Cry out.
In doubt
There is no Israel, they say
There was no Palestine they say
Psychotic
Chaotic
Dramatic
Fanatic
Goddamit

The madness of groups

11701048_588445324628683_3599472885290235311_n.jpg

Red trees made from a photo by Katherine

“Madness is something rare in individuals — but in groups, parties, peoples, and ages, it is the rule.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

“There occurs a breakdown in communication … and there is the real illness.” 

11041115_597699793703236_633064765984573221_n.jpg
Art by Katherine

By Philip Dick:

“Maybe each human being lives in a unique world, a private world different from those inhabited and experienced by all other humans. . . If reality differs from person to person, can we speak of reality singular, or shouldn’t we really be talking about plural realities? And if there are plural realities, are some more true (more real) than others? What about the world of a schizophrenic? Maybe it’s as real as our world. Maybe we cannot say that we are in touch with reality and he is not, but should instead say, His reality is so different from ours that he can’t explain his to us, and we can’t explain ours to him. The problem, then, is that if subjective worlds are experienced too differently, there occurs a breakdown in communication … and there is the real illness.”
― Philip K. Dick

Art,poetry

DSC00054https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2004/sep/20/art.poetry

 

“The poems I wrote during my residency were not an attempt to explain the paintings, their stories and hidden narratives, but more of an interpretation, a way of seeing and sometimes giving a piece a voice. But would the poem based on the painting grow from the perspective of the onlooker or from a character within the painting? Would it enter into a dialogue? “Perspective” in painting, I discovered, is related to “voice” in poetry.

Picasso’s Weeping Woman, with its haggard, fractured features and clash of colours, made me want to give that haunting face a voice. In the end I wrote in the voice of Dora Maar, the woman on whose face Weeping Woman is based:

They say that instead of a brush

he used a knife on me –

a savage geometry.

But as I say, look again,

this is the closest

anyone has got to the pain.

Green knows me –

Not the green of new shoots,

but the ghastly green of gangrene.

Yellow knows me –

Not the cheery yellow of the sun

but the sickly hues

of this war’s putrefaction.

Blue knows me

Not the boundless blues of sky or sea

but the blues of the singer’s

deepest sorrow.

Mother Dolorosa,

this grief has got to me.

Under the poise of my red hat

I hear, as if from a great

distance,

my own stifled scream.

Painting versus poetry

Photo0211.jpghttps://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/painting-vs-poetry

 

Painting vs. Poetry

Bill Knott, 1940 – 2014

Painting is a person placed
between the light and a
canvas so that their shadow
is cast on the canvas and
then the person signs their
name on it whereas poetry
is the shadow writing its
name upon the person.

Feeling is the highest art of all

How like a prison is a body lame
The mind  calls up desires and feels no shame
But bones and joints all give us  piercing pain
And  who will pay insurance or  take blame

In my prison, I massage as planned
I exercise my thighs with rubber bands
I touch my toes   and shake my own white hands
While down the channel  runs my little sand

I read King Lear and thought the king a  fool
He did not live nor die as monarchs rule
Now I’m stuck inside a structure cruel
I’m like the pin which hides inside your jewel

The body’s more important than the soul
As  feeling is the highest art of all

As high as a balloon let free in hell

Punctured by his words my spirits fell
I landed in a muddy, unfenced  drain
But as my face was blank, no-one could tell

As high as a balloon let free in hell
I tried a look of pride and deep disdain
But  ruptured by his words, my spirits fell

As stupid as a cat with a loud bell
For lack of mice, I’d cry and I’d complain
But as my voice is dim, no-one could tell

As placid as a milkshake which won’t sell
As  winsome as  a triolet on a train
Punctured by his  glance, my spirits fell

As optimistic as  the  sun in early Fall
As wise as was the jury of Dunblane
But as my voice was cracked, no-one  was thrilled

 

As sorry as a head with a migraine
As  cosy as a cat  by windows framed
Intense and metered like a villanelle
As my eyes are black, I cannot spell