Monday
Sep142009
Surge by A.E. Plastic
A.E. Plastic September 14, 2009 at 10:46PM kids left
with cummerbunds of flesh
and (poets aside)
tears are no use
in making trenches
back in the Foreign Office
a girl sends mip-
mapped images
of her breasts
to an unknown male
asks with amorphous mockery
“Is this Art?”
Reader Comments (11)
Yes. It is Art.
Very sharp writing. Although I'll have to think some more on how poets tears are useful in making trenches. No bad thing, of course.
B.
~
elegantly spare, as ever. i query "amorphous". i query "mip-mapped", but only because i don´t know what it means, it sounds lovely.
Mip-Mapping
hovering around an anecdote , but way too clever for such nonsense, well played kiddo
I love how the cummerbunds of flesh play off the breasts and that is not something one writes every day so must be pretty special.
Art it is.
Mipmapped breasts.
And really great movement in here, Plastic. I am trying not to go to cumberbunds of flesh playing off breasts (of B) but then I don't have to. The cumberbunds really work for me and then I get to go to the foreign office and someone's computer and mipmapped breasts. I really like it. Regarding "poets aside"--although poets are exceptional beings, we should not continue making excuses for them. They may start taking the world for granted and where would that leave the rest of us.
ah, mipmapped. beautiful. thanks brian. so why "amorphous"?
Why? What sort of question is that? And what sort of question is this?
I don't know how to interpret this. But I like poems I can't interpret because then they are free to happen in me. I've been criticized for using unlikely adverbs and adjectives in poems, like your cumberbunds, but remember Shakespear's "bending the pregnant hinges of his knees"? No problem! "tears are no use in making trenches" linked me to something I say a lot to new arrivals in India: felling pity for beggars is self indulgence at their expence. All they want is your money and sometimes very desperately need it. As regards your office girl it once happened in an office I worked in that a girl sat bare bummed on a photocopier and sent it somehow round to everyone. Was it art? No (but it was great fun guessing who might have done it!)
dear Johnny
if i am hearing this properly.......'surge' speaks of the term used daily
about situations in war torn countries and brings a richness to 'trenches'
in the poem.....and sets up so nicely 'back in the Foreign Office' as a scene
of the true mockery of how people are careless with the lives of others.
it brings to the forefront if 'the world is art' or instead a flagrant neglect
of compassion and wisdom.
for me this poem should find itself chosen to represent
some of the finer writing found on this site.
a warm smile
silent lotus
Thanks for all the comments. SL , you have indeed homed in on some of the murky motivations behind this poem.