Thursday 21 January 2010

I fell in love with a girl from Domrémy

For Jehanne – a work in progress

There was a maddening silence in the library
As I beat my head against the monitor,
Screaming 'Information overload! Information overload!'
Vlad looked up from his copy of the Financial Times
Smiling, sprightly for a man dead five hundred years,
He cleared the shelves in one bound
And plunged his kebab into the chest
Of a slightly startled Goth.

But Jehanne, dear Jehanne, stroked my fevered brow,
Whispering sweet revelatory mysticism, softly in my ear,
Whilst toying provocatively with her crucifix.
I shifted sweatily in my seat,
Anxious that such a blatant display of faith
Would bring the wrath of the liberal and the secular
Upon out unconventional heads,
For I feared the atheist police.

We left the building arm in arm,
She with me and me with she,
Picking flowers after dark,
Poisoning pigeons in the park;
Casting plagiarised clichés at the feet
Of uncomprehending passers-by,
While Friedrich, dancing with horses,
Played a penny whistle above an empty hat.

I sat by the side of the sodium wasteland
Weeping, silently, for what was, and could have been.
But Jehannne, dear Jehanne, stroked my fevered brow,
Whispering harsh quotidian mysticism, softly in my ear:
'I lose myself in you, and you in me,
Our suffering is our greatest loss;
But you may lose your certainty,
When you see your lover nailed to a cross.'

Russell J Turner – January 2010

Thursday 7 January 2010

Films What I Have Seen At The Cinema

July to December 2009

Patti Smith: Dream of Life
Moon
Paths of Glory
Antichrist
Mesrine: Killer Instinct
Inglourious Basterds
Broken Embraces
District 9
Fish Tank
Kisses
An Education
Stalker
The Men Who Stare At Goats
Bright Star
A Serious Man
The White Ribbon

Friday 1 January 2010

Books What I Have Read

July to December 2009

The Gone-Away World - Nick Harkaway
Fascism: A Very Short Introduction - Kevin Passmore
The Vagina Monologues - Eve Ensler
Metrophobia - Stephanie Leal
Symmetry and the Monster - Mark Ronan
The Legend of Elizabeth Siddal - Jan Marsh
Lizzie Siddal - Lucinda Hawksley
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest - Dale Wasserman
The Kindly Ones - Jonathan Littell
The Night of the Long Knives - Paul R Maracin
Cash - Johnny Cash & Patrick Carr
Ilium - Dan Simmons
Transition - Iain Banks
The Infinities - John Banville
Lustrum - Robert Harris
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - Tom Stoppard
Olympos - Dan Simmons
Someone Who'll Watch Over Me - Frank McGuinness
Shake Hands With The Devil - Romeo Dallaire
Psychogeography - Merlin Coverley
Breaking The Code - Hugh Whitemore
The Elephant in the Corner - Aoife Mannix