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

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

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

'When I'm dead you can turn me into catfood'

Bury my bones in plywood
And set my box ablaze;
Then cast me free
On the open seas,
So I may finally take my ease
And drift to where I damn well please:
A beacon for forgotten days.

Bury my bones in plywood
And scrape my skeleton clean;
So feline things
Can feast like kings
On brains and brawn and crackerlings.
Then stick the labels on the theatre wings
To remember where I’ve been.

Bury my bones in plywood,
Or maybe MDF;
Then hammer me in
With nails of tin,
My face composed in a rictus grin,
Or stick my corpse in a compost bin:
A happy, slow, productive death.

Russell J Turner - December 2009

The Devil is Dead

December 6th 1865. The Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution is adopted, abolishing slavery.

Ding, dong, the Devil's in pain,
The Devil's in pain, the Devil's in pain:
They burnt his whip and broke his chains.
At least, that's what they're saying.

Ding, dong, the Devil is dead,
The Devil is dead, the Devil is dead:
They beat him and cut off his head.
At least, that's what I read.

Ding, dong, the Devil is gone,
The Devil is gone, the Devil is gone:
The children sing a freedom song.
But his hatred lingers on.

Russell J Turner - December 2009

Love is the Law

December 5th 2005. The Civil Partnership Act comes into force in the United Kingdom.

Love who you can,
Not who they plan;
Love who you may,
Not who they say;
Love who you will,
For good or ill;
Love who you would,
When love feels good.

And love for love's sake,
Not for propriety
Or the wisdom of ages,
But for the love of what is true.

Russell J Turner - December 2009

There was a Jeremiah

December 4th 1639. Jeremiah Horrocks makes the first known observation of a transit of Venus.

There was a Jeremiah in the Bible
Who drove his truck to Israel and Judah;
Who warned of false Gods, false Prophets
And the true wrath of the Lord.
Who for his pains was beaten, imprisoned, threatened with death
And thrown into a cistern.

But you prophesied beauty,
And watched as love drove her carriage across the sun.
And for your pains you died an early death, an incalculable loss,
And were forgotten.

Russell J Turner - December 2009