The Exorcism; an explanation

Immediately on publication of the previous entry I felt the need to justify some of the poems. Since none of them were written in my home country, I think they still count as travel writing, to some degree anyway.


Amnesia

Amnesia is a poem I found in one of my notebooks. I scribbled pieces of it down when I was, let's say, not exactly self-aware. I found the rest in the form of a note which a friend had left during that time.


Notebooks

Frank O'Hara is my hero.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2003/jul/12/featuresreviews.guardianreview10


Go-hyaku-en Dama

I think it's quite obvious. But I just hope that it's not as overly sentimental as it could be.

The Exorcism

I have been meaning to update the blog for a few weeks now, but it's been a rather taxing month. I have a few ideas floating around but finding time, love, or patience to write has been difficult to say the very least.

As I am bashing out the next entry or two, I've decided to fill the gap with some poetry I wrote last year. It's kind of an experiment... I'd love to hear what you think of it.

Amnesia 

Room full of galactic spirals

Spread like butter on pages

All lined up. 

Bound in a book

By these stone angels

Pacman angels. 

Gone to Gray Area

For Stuff. Will go 

To Amnesia/Bulldog for quickie

(either wait my return or meet

meet me at Bulldogs)

Lots of love… X

Room full of void

Hosted in the sky.

We're flying,

It's the next Golden Age. 

Amsterdam (naturally), 2010.

Notebooks

I told myself,

I could be a painter,

Painting,

Repainting,

Perfecting. 

O'Hara, he knew

Painters cover blemishes, 

Dissolve them

Remould, reshape, reinvent

And repeat.

Until sardines exist no more,

A painting starves.

I remember

Lines from my teacher.

I will put down my pen.

I will put down my pen.

I will put down my pen.

I will put down my pen.

I will put down my pen.

Japan, 2010

五百円玉 (go-hyaku-en dama; the five hundred yen coin)

I roll the contradiction between my fingers

Perfectly round, yet completely flat. 

'I don't know what "our story" is', he says. 

A feeble excuse.

'There are two sides to every coin', 

But unlike this coin, 

this go-hyaku-en dama,

our value is not yet fixed.

He wants to put "our story" in a box,

shelf it away

between some books

and the shell he found on the beach that day.

Then, he could turn it into a case study.

Or a fairy tale

for a rainy day. 

I want to take "our story" to the jeweller

Have it assessed 

by a professional.

Then, knowing that stories are price-less

I could let it go,

like a red balloon.

'You're a deer', he says, 

Definitively.

Hooves spring from where my hands used to be

(making it only more difficult to write)

that it's easier to divorce that idea you coined

than her,

lying on your bed,

her fingers twisted in your hair. 

Japan, 2011