On The Birth Of Van Gogh And The Death Of A Nameless Girl

october in the blood red earth
or
how i got arrested at the national gallery, london

with
apologies to
jack kerouac

staring at the van gogh’s, i see, peripherally,
two children
running by, chasing each other with sunflowers
on the cover
of newsweek magazine,
eyes lidded but i know they are dead
because it says so
in the headline

people flock to look at irises and lily gardens,
greens and pale yellows
mix with the red at the feet of the photographer
and on the
sweaters, the strings laid casually across
her neck
as if put there by the wind
in the cornfields; the peasant bends down
to retrieve the bright golden
husks
which are placed in wooden coffins
made too small

i scream at the people studying
slanted, cubic faces, faces with large brown eyes, oversized
and
looking at themselves, studying themselves,
through the people
i am screaming at

i am crying on a plane bound
for
london’s heathrow airport
at thirty-three thousand feet
and
seven hundred
and
fifty-four kilometres per hour,
trying not to let the passenger next to me
notice that tears are streaming down,
the face of the virgin,
the face of a little angel,
dried out by the forest air,
and her sister-friend-cousin
lying next to her
sur l’herbe
and i am screaming again as i nail this poem
to the wall to the immediate right
of van gogh’s starry, starry night,
and the security guards try to wrestle me
out of the room
but they’re not that tough to fight off,
they are only the sad and old
and incomprehensible
and they need to call others to wrestle me
to the ground
and i’m screaming, screaming
can’t you see? can’t you all fucking see?
are you all blind as well as stupid?
can’t you see the little girl
on the front fucking cover
of newsfuckingweek magazine
for october the fucking 12th
and do you see her executioners? her assassins? her murderers?
walking and studying and holding their hands to their chins
in deep, contemplative thought
of a bright, yellow glaucomal chair?
do you see the uniforms, cerulean blue, ruby red, olive green,
it doesn’t matter
they’re all the same,
struggling to get me under control
trying to smother me under their combined magisterial weight
but they can’t, they can’t,
i’m too strong, i have to much life left me
i am strong and can eat, shit and blow my nose any time I want to,

i throw them off
and yell
do you see? goddamit?
do you see her sandy blonde hair, limp, strands
straggling out from under her hood
which the killers
put over her head
so that they wouldn’t have to look at her face
when they shot her,
when they shot her….I don’t know where they fucking shot her…

but i can see her face clearly and so can everyone if they look really hard
i have a picture of her in my wallet where she is one year old with a soccer ball
in her hand, smiling for the camera, honey, the nice man is going to
take a picture that we can give to grandma

i could get on a plane and go there
but
she would be buried
and
the mourners would be dying
and
halfway across the world
another picture would be taken
and
people would go on studying
the van gogh’s
as i sit and watch
the two young girls
running across the floor
chasing each other
as their mothers and fathers
cross their hands
and
wonder at why that brushstroke is there
and just so thin
at that particular spot
but over here it expands
and see…here it is raised from the canvas
as if he wanted to have us feel the earth
underneath her feet

i sit and watch
and wonder
why my head doesn’t explode
right this very moment,
scattering the nearby paintings
with bright, red
blood
bathing the people in bright red
blood
and wondering, just where did van gogh get
that particular shade of red
he’s used

i sit and watch
and take out my son’s picture
from my wallet
and thank god
it isn’t me

much like the others
studying the pastoral landscapes
of provence
that look to much like
the earth underneath
the dead girl
on the cover of
newsweek magazine
for the 12th of october
in the year of our lord
nineteen hundred and ninety eight
amen

Delusions

I often try to read Foreign Affairs because I find that as the articles go into further depth than regular newspaper reporting, I tend to get more complete analyses of the aims of the U.S. in the world. The biases still remain for the most part but they do tend to offer a balanced or at least un-edited view. Of course, I could be incredibly naive about all this.

At any rate, in the latest issue, a paragraph from the lead story, 'Saddam's Delusions' by Kevin Woods, James Lacey and Williamson Murray, caught my eye. The article deals with a U.S. Joint Forces Command commissioned study of the inner workings and behaviour of Saddam Hussein's regime. The paragraph that makes me quite sad today when I hear about the 'militant uprisings' or whatever other double-speak is in use today is this one: "Even with U.S. tanks crossing the Iraqi border, an internal revolt remained Saddam's biggest fear. In order to quell any postwar revolt. he would need the bridges to remain intact and the land in the south to remain unflooded. On this basis, Saddam planned his moves."

Any one still wondering where all the weapons the militants are using to kill civilians and soldiers alike came from? Anyone still wondering why we didn't just help an 'internal revolt' instead of an invasion and occupation?

Keep digging and eventually you come to see us as dirty as anyone else in this world.

Take Out The Garbage

Spent the day working on death and taxes.

The spouse asked me to take out the garbage.

The children asked to play inapropriate games on the computer.

If I had a dog I might have kicked it.

Don't come over unless you have a bottle of wine and some damn funny stories.

Stop Making Sense

While driving in the car, my wife and I were talking about stress and how hard it was to stop damaging and unwanted thoughts from intruding on an otherwise nice day. The kids were yelling and fighting in the backseat about something or other and in an effort to stop the noise I challenged them to not think about anything. I told them that the hardest thing in the world to do was to not think. They both immediately took up the challenge and were silent for aproximately 15 seconds. Then my son said, "See, I just did it" and my daughter piped in "Me too!" and they proceeded to start bugging each other again at high volume. I looked over at my wife and decided to let the noise be part of the otherwise nice day.

In No Particular Order

A little late I know but here is my list of top 5 albums (ok, ok - CD's) of 2005. Now these are cd's I actually listened to in 2005, they may not have been neccessarily released in 2005.

In no particular order:

Sigur Ros - Takk
Opeth - Ghost Reveries
Thelonius Monk Quartet with John Coltrane - At Carnegie Hall
Robert Fripp - Love Cannot Bear
The Dears - Thank You Good Night Sold Out

Honorary mention (but, really, could have been in my top 5, probably should have made a top 7 but who makes a top 7?):

The Mars Volta - Frances, The Mute
John Coltrane - One Down, One Up: Live At The Half Note

Aghhh!

I'm officially old.

Holding the elevator door open for a woman in her mid twenties today, she thanked me and called me sir.

The Work Life Part 2

Paralyses rules my day.

From The Inside

Sometimes from the outside a work place might seem chaotic or aribitrary. Especially in personnel decisions or certain project successes or failures. From the inside though, i's interesting to watch the strings being pulled from certain quarters or behind the scenes. It's interesting to watch the politics and moves being made, an elaborate chess game on several boards and within several dimensions. Business is a battle and you'd better be careful where you stick your neck.

Desire

"We call nonexistant that which we do not desire." Columbus to Isabella.

From the play Christopher Columbus in the collection Three Plays by Nikos Kazantzakis. Simon & Schuster, New York, 1969 - page 65.

This to be used as an argument only, to sway someone to something we ourselves want, surely. Alternatively, if we do not desire something, it has no hold on us.

The Rosebush And The Dung Pile

"The secret that sin too is in the employ of God."

Columbus to the Abbot. From the play Christopher Columbus by Nikos Kazantzakis in the collection, Three Plays. Simon & Schuster, New York, 1969 - page 78.

God uses sin to make us see what we do wrong? To make us wish for something better? To debase ourselves first so that we will know the low and know how high the high actually is? I haven't quite grasped the meaning of the above quote.

The Oldest Advice

"Good! There goes that life, too. We lived it, and it was brief, but what does it matter? We enjoyed it, in a flash, like lightning, all of it."

Lycophron to Alka in the play Melissa by Nikos Kazantzakis. From the collection Three Plays. Simon & Schuster, New York 1969 - page 189.

As always, the old advice. Live in the present moment.

The Moderns Part 2

"My whole life has been a wild, unceasing struggle uphill, plagued by terrible virtues and equally terrible vices."

Periander to Lycophron. From the play Melissa by Nikos Kazantzakis in the collection Three Plays; Simon & Schuster, New York, 1969 - page 139.

The plight and the paradox of modern man.

Shiny, Happy People

"Happiness shames man, my child, it disrupts the order of the world."

Nurse to Alka. From the play Melissa by Nikos Kazantzakis in the collection, Three Plays. Simon & Schuster, New York, 1969 - page 127.

All the better to be happy then.

The casting out of Eden, paradise, rest and play, to work and toil, forever.

Happiness is the road back to Eden, paradise.

The Ends

"Can you, even at the moment of your strength and victory, keep your mind clear and detached, fixed not on yourself, but on your god?"

Minos to Theseus from the play Kouros in the collection Three Plays by Nikos Kazantzakis, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1969 - page 269.

God is the goal. It is the outcome. It is the ends. Not the means. Not the player, musician, worker, artist, labourer, painter, sculptor, bricklayer or scientist. The end result is the goal. The goal is god.

The danger here is that the ends could justify the means. But there is danger everywhere, especially in literature and reality.

To Be Strong

"...to be strong is to control your strength..."

Minos to Theseus from the play Kouros in the collection Three Plays by Nikos Kazantzakis, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1969 - page 245.

A proper zen koan if you will. Hard to live up to for most. How does one maintain such integrity in the face of such temptation? How about it America? The west? Me and you?

Life On Earth

"Beloved, are you still concerned with gods? What curse is this that drives men so! They battle unceasingly, incurably, with shadows, never realizing that god exists and toils and rejoices only in the flesh!"

Ariadne to Theseus from the play Kouros in the collection Three Plays by Nikos Kazantzakis, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1969 - page 266.

This could only be written by a meditteranean. My life is here on earth. Some may take this passage to mean that we should revel in the material but I take it as meaning that all we need is right here on earth, there is no need to hunger after insubstantialities. There are plenty of mysteries and adventures in substantial things, today, right now.

Out Of Reach

"I, too, will choose the highest, most innacessible mountain to enthrone my god so that I, too, may climb it alone and converse with him."

Theseus to Ariadne from the play Kouros in the collection Three Plays by Nikos Kazantzakis, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1969 - page 236.

That seems to be the problem. We've set god far away from us in an inaccessible place. We've chained him to a lofty location and enslaved ourselves to a low place and we never meet...What we we need are gods we can keep close to us, so close we can smell them, taste them and have a true feeling for them.

The Unexpected

Captain - "What do you expect to find?"
Theseus - "The unexpected..."

From the play Kouros in the collection Three Plays by Nikos Kazantzakis, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1969 - page 220.

This is a daunting concept for most, never completely accepted.

What Do You Speak?

What slanguage do you speak?

I didnt't quite know what this meant before either but take the quizz and have fun. It eventually makes sense.

Myself? Canadian slang naturally.

The Mirror Stares Back At Me

I stare into the mirror but do not see what others see. Is the fault in my eyes or the mirror or the others or in the space between all? Or is there a fault at all?

Radio, Radio

There are lots of internet radio stations but I happen to like this one because I believe it is quite useful in building a station that plays the type of music I want to hear and also adds in some pleasant surprises.