a stocktake of things to say, listed on newly sheafed piles
‘it is my right, my rite, my desire to speak like a goat’
there are few reasons rather than this one to need to use a noun
i’m thinking here of the german language, and childhood.
there are many very impressive ways to groan a point across
like to say, ‘yeah, but… i just… but…’, that last word like a drummy
punctuation, a thing that was always discouraged in language,
putting it on the end like a plug or a soapstone book-end, shaped
like a pelican – one inverted leftwards and one rightwards – and
then falling into someone’s arms and speaking right up into
their throat (as if you were their voice box) and saying very unusual
and untruthful things, like ‘no!’ and ‘i didn’t!’ and ‘i don’t know!’
December 19, 2007 at 7:14 am |
this poem reminds me of bare-feet on lino. there is a satisfying amount of things and ideas in it; enough to encourage thinking about them after. it contains two animals and no milk. one reference to intimacy (although the entire poem might be described as intimate), and one (and possibly a half) to childhood. we have the pastoral in the study with ’sheafed’. we have an echo of the season, or of a consumer environment in general, with ’stocktake’. it’s a nice word to start things of with. the ’stock’ of stocktake, resonates with sheafed, and then with goat, both of which i associate with a certain rural environment. i would like a pair of pelican shaped soapstone bookends from santa, man! that or an emerald plug.
December 19, 2007 at 9:21 am |
normally this poem would make me smile, because i love a good verbal utterance as much as the next incoherent (and i would – on a better day – wax lyrical about the expressive qualities of the french “pfft”), but i lost my beloved glasses on the RER yesterday afternoon. and after i brushed away the myopic tears already frozen to my face, i went to announce my loss to the station master. ‘i’ve – ah – lost my – ah – glasses’, I stammered.
“pfft”, he replied with a shrug ‘we don’t have any glasses here’
merde merde merde – putain de “pfft”
December 19, 2007 at 1:47 pm |
fred — yes, yes, and yes! we’ll talk about this.
bettina — thanks to my rudimentary french learning, i know what the rer is, and i feel for you. needing glasses or lenses every waking moment means i don’t have the opportunity to misplace my specs anywhere, so i can’t actually relate, but the very thought is empathy-making. ugh. my mum says nick does a good ‘gallic shrug’, but i can’t verify either way. is that the gesticulated version of a pfft?
December 20, 2007 at 8:17 am |
they accompany each other. like vodka and gherkins they were born to be mixed and it’s killer when you get a gallic shrug and a pfft together. it’s great eaves-watching one (does that work as the visual of ‘eavesdropping’?), but when you get one yourself you just want to crawl up and die – depending on the context.
however – the update… i found them. i had left them in the laundry at work. talk about relief, because i was pretty upset about it (yeah, yeah, but i am one to cry over spilt milk… but more like the cries of a cussing sailor echoing through our building)
asterix – however – what another kettle of worms. you’ll go a long way in france understanding, as you do, the cultural subtleties of this comic series. for one of those aforementioned worms on the tip on an iceberg – have you read this one?
January 21, 2008 at 4:06 am |
“drummy” punctuation… was die Hölle dieses Mittel?
January 31, 2008 at 6:23 am |
My least favourite little intro to arguments is “the thing is…” – How can anything be THE thing?
February 6, 2008 at 2:07 pm |
You’ve been awfully quiet lately.
February 11, 2008 at 10:46 pm |
I have little to contribute to this small gathering but would prefer if you knew that I came to the party rather than coming and leaving without making some sort of impression (or smear as I am more prone).
p.g.
February 12, 2008 at 12:26 am |
hullo. sorry i’ve been awol. i’ve got a nasty little wart of poem trying to be squeezed but it’s not coming. more soon! thanks for the smear, patty.