A poem for installation

By -



Daumenkino

Sky a pinhole camera and she doesn’t know
which side she’s on. Dirt in the blood of her
nailbeds, something hard beneath her soles,
she should be screaming. Milk curdles for less
than this: a shutter, closing night. In the all-over
grey she mouths: God, I know
it’s not that you don’t love me. Ruthie. Somewhere,
stars. Her hips curl in on themselves like doves waiting
for morning. She thinks of black and whites of Auschwitz:
This is how thin you can be and still be alive. The shutter’s opening,
it’s day again, black and whites of Auschwitz: bodies in piles because feet
pummeled heads to escape the gas rising from vents in the floor.
A thumb of moon and the ceiling looks like floor again.
Ruthie, which side are you on? She should be screaming but
she has eyes of mud, mouthing: Please just shut it. Even she
knows there is no language light enough to float
her out of this hole. Shutter,
little girl, shutter.

Comments

  1. JonMarch 26, 2010 at 10:12 AM

    Kate-

    Whoa. Unsettling for sure.

    so i looked up Daumenkino - flip-book? I got confused when I read through 3 pages of german.

    So, so much good here - "milk curdles for less / than this" is outstanding. The kinesis, the movement of the poem is really gripping.

    But, and maybe this is the failure of my knowledge, but "Ruthie?" The italicizing of lines (from Ruthie I presume) is distracting. I don't know why there needs to be another voice here, especially if Ruthie's (or the person talking's) to remain mysterious. I've noticed you've been incorporating a lot of outside "speech" passages in your work for the past little bit - it's an interesting move, but I don't know that it's doing as much for me here as i'd like.

    also, this doesn't really feel as disturbing or troubling as my brain tells me it should. I think the authorial presence, the unity of syntax is getting in the way of a more palpable emotional reaction. Like "milk curdles for less / than this:" is great, it pulls me along, i need something here to make me curdle, and "a shutter, closing night" doesn't do it. It's well paced and correct, and well constructed, but it feels like our speaker is being really rational about all this, and expects the same reaction of me. That's fanscinating, and if that's the kinda speaker you're shooting for, I say amp it up. a speaker who's unwilling to let me feel the disgust and sadness I want to feel at this? wow, i'm in. play it up.

    I like the surrealist moments - the eyes of mud, the moon and ceiling looking like the floor - but they're very hard in their presentation here. end stopped, not further described. Let me have some flex room to get inside them.

    Kate - good to have you back. I missed you.

    ReplyDelete

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