tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post2226523040471543628..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: UndergroundUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-45706690482691499042015-08-01T01:34:36.029-07:002015-08-01T01:34:36.029-07:00Abdal-Hayy,
Many thanks once again, and yes, thes...Abdal-Hayy,<br /><br />Many thanks once again, and yes, these must be those same children of the universe, whether God's or whoever's... <br /><br /><br />Duncan,<br /><br />Thanks very much for addressing this dark chamber of the unmentionable. <br /><br />That top picture, which initiated the post, is for me a splendid example of what can only be called the art of the historical moment, saying so much more about the present than any words could or perhaps ever will do. The photo comes with the sort of double-take that often arrests the attention in works that jolt the mind awake, expanding the signifying world as we know it. <br /><br />In that respect, as wordless storytelling, I'd rate that photo (indeed, pair it) with an equally telling shot of a month or so back, Empress Merkel in the gaseous yellow glass vacuum box inspecting the micro-technology works. "Our Time", yeah.<br /><br />In preparing this post I learned perhaps more than anyone would wish to hear regarding life in (and under) contemporary Bucharest.<br /><br />In pointing to the palpable resemblance of the sewer "community" to a Roma encampment you've captured what I take to be the point of the post.<br /><br />The irony here is that the attention of Channel Four, relatively compassionate yet fairly objective, then followed by the attention of the Daily Mail, predictably lurid and sensationalistic, became a publicity embarrassment for Romania, leading to complaints by government officials regarding uninvited interference, and then in turn to the raid -- which on the face of it may appear to have been a good and necessary thing, but there has certainly been no indication that those evicted and helpless may now look to better days ahead.<br /><br />I was stunned by the seriousness and sophistication of the work of Romanian poets the research led me to explore -- represented by the four poems by the two poets posted here.<br /><br />Poetry is not the only art that has flourished in this zone of oppression.<br /><br />Surely I'm not alone in thinking the Romanian cinema of this century has been, along with that of Iran, the most provocative and instructive produced by any nation.<br /><br />Films like The Death of Mr Lazarescu and Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days make Hollywood vehicles of the same period look pathetically shallow in comparison.<br /><br />On that note, in case anybody's interested, this short primer includes some remarkable and compelling works:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2014/15-essential-films-for-an-introduction-to-the-romanian-new-wave/" rel="nofollow">Fifteen Essential Films for an Introduction to the Romanian New Wave (Taste of Cinema)</a>TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-6833503340218943852015-07-31T23:11:17.487-07:002015-07-31T23:11:17.487-07:00There are few people that live with as much abuse ...There are few people that live with as much abuse and harassment as the Roma. <br /><br />These makeshift communities are undoubtedly chaotic. Nevertheless there is a care that can't be found anywhere else at the edge of Merkel's Europe.<br /><br />The photograph of the figure sleeping before the imaginary NYC is remarkable.<br /><br />Still lost in dust and cobwebs and crumbs and inclined planes.Mose23https://www.blogger.com/profile/01100756913131511440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-86059810340170440632015-07-28T13:36:29.035-07:002015-07-28T13:36:29.035-07:00CHILDREN OF THE ANTS
Children of the ants childre...CHILDREN OF THE ANTS<br /><br />Children of the ants children of the corn kernel <br />children of the dandelion growing in an orchid patch<br />children of the shadow of the bridge to the big city<br />children of truck exhaust and coal dust<br /><br />children of the ancient lineage<br />of the mysterious moan in the forest<br />of the street corner where people have<br />met their fate and lived to relate it<br /><br />children of moisture and dryness of plenty and<br />penury<br />children whose hearts are a blaze of lights<br />whose path goes between buildings to a<br />green openness<br /><br />children of darkness and nothingness<br />who’ve sat at the king’s table in borrowed ermines and eaten<br />chocolate-dipped strawberries and<br />slivered succulent alabaster fruits<br />directly with the king<br />bathed in splattering shafts of the king’s light<br />and returned to town again in sackcloth and<br />cardboard shoes preceded by donkeys<br />stuttering when spoken to<br />incapable of giving directions to the police station<br />to the woman with the dogs<br /><br />children of the suspended dust mote in a light shaft<br />of the shadow of rainbows crossing a rushing stream<br /><br />children of cows and horses grazing absentmindedly<br /><br />children of the unknown nuclear physicist riding the subway<br /><br />children of the cobwebby corner and the inclined plane<br /><br />children of breadcrumbs blown from God’s feast<br />in a Paradise of eye blinks and an<br /><br />avalanche of sweet breaths<br />expelled from His divine lungs into their own<br />________________________________________________<br />11/9/01 (from Where Death Goes, Ecstatic Exchange)Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moorehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05692776372807142753noreply@blogger.com