Achilles Heel

 I thought I saw...

 

A dead pair of boots,

 

Tarred black leather,

 

Discarded and limp;

 

Road strewn...

 

On the path,

 

Worn, rejected

 

Ruined.

 

 

 

But,

 

I looked again, and...

 

It was

 

A drunken man,

 

Kissing a brown

 

Bottle.

 

Walking barefoot;

 

Broken glass

 

For a face...

 

Singing

 

Mourning

 

A sad lament

 

For a soul lost…

 

On a street in Saigon.

All Rights Reserved / Copyright David John Drew 2011

Vive Voce

Hundreds of grasshoppers along the railway embankment, hidden in tall wayward grass under a burning sun. Nettles bit the ankles and burdock was nearby to soothe the pain. He had caught some of the grayish green warblers by assuming the nervous and instant reflexes of his prey; a mantis slowly and steadily creeping along through the scrub like a head louse. Limbs poised in martial prayer, and then a swift skimming to enclose the object of passion in a cupped clap of hands. The dry 'chirrup chirrup' became an invisible chant held with dark reverence. Thus all he caught traveled with him to school, in a dusty pocket to meet with ancient oak and beech desks, to practice arithmetic, recite grammatical legends, flirt with girls and evade rose-hip itching powder. He had captured enough for an army and they obeyed his commands with a silent calm, moving this way and that, forming straight lines, attacking and then retreating against the incessant onslaught of Napoleonic infantrymen. Pavement cracks and granite curbs served as battlements until a Dam-Buster flew overhead and destroyed their last remaining refuge. Then, a pessimistic father peered down from the blue sky, from out of the clouds after his overtime work on Friday and pronounced their demise. "But no..." the boy cried, "they are not dead... still alive..." Even at this tender age he could not accept the finality of a posthumous verdict. And he sprinkled them with water in an attempt to bring them back to life. 

 

All Rights Reserved/Copyright David John Drew 2010.

Szczepanski 1895

I was casually listening to the radio one afternoon and listening to a fascinating story told by an old homesteader called Philip Antonelli of Silverton, Colorado in the depression era. His tale recounted an episode when a severe tornado hit the town and nearly swept most of everything away. Life was certainly hard for 19th century settlers, and nature wasn't always in concord with the intentions and plans of folks who settled there, whatever their business. Anyways, this tale inspired a short 'visionary' poem in me, brief but rhythmical and of a somewhat mystical account of a small western township hit by a natural disaster. In my poem the tornado sucks the life out of the entire population and leaves only dry bones buried in sand. Many years later these remains are rediscovered by an archeologist  who 'paints them red' or brings them back to life... pieces their story back together as a symbolic form of resurrection. The title of this piece evokes something distant and faintly historical but unrecognizable (it is actually a Polish name, a foreign name, perhaps an immigrant). The date is merely a random point in past history.

Szczepanski 1895

 

 

Painted bones

 

Singing the sky

 

Clouds of dust

 

Spinning.. spinning

 

Burning earth

 

Driving wilder

 

Drying waters

 

Invoking screams

 

Houses slashed

 

In rain of stones

 

Desert God...

 

Hard hammering

 

Thunder spit

 

Blinding fury

 

Ate the men

 

And strangled boys

 

Gnawed the flesh

 

Mute women die

 

Fallen girls

 

Sank the town

 

Walls and all

 

Parched white soil

 

Sucked love and

 

Life and left

 

The white bones

 

Still, sleeping still

 

Bones like bread

 

Brittle crusts

 

Deep, deep down

 

Swallowed shards

 

Of thin skulls.

 

 

 

Digging up

 

And painting red

 

Voices past

 

Whisper gently

 

Hear us now?

 

We were few;

 

Farming, mining

 

Loving, kind

 

Too soon

 

Consumed.

 

Our parched bones

 

Recite the light.

 

 

All Rights Reserved/Copyright David John Drew 2010.

Eighteen

 

Patriotism and duty are key issues in American life. The inspiration for this piece came from the original 1813 Star Spangled Banner created by Mary Pickersgill, and which was raised over Fort McHenry on the morning of September 14, 1814, to signal the American victory over the British in the Battle of Baltimore. In the late 1800’s over 200 sq feet of snippets were cut from the flag and given away as souvenirs to prominent people. As a conceptual piece I have attempted to define the power of patriotism as a symbol gradually eroded by the stress of conflict, as exemplified by the contemporary war on terrorism. Each individual piece represents a State of the U.S. and as a whole is meant to evoke the numerous stones in a military graveyard. As ‘Snippets’ it questions the U.S. Patriot act of 2001, enacted by the administration of President George W. Bush and which enables the government to examine and intercept all communications and personal records of U.S. residents in the war against terrorism. It addresses the conflict between personal freedom and governmental control, the fracturing of patriotism in an attempt by the authorities to curtail foreign incursions. Such controversial elements in this are covered in depth in Michael Moore’s ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ which was also a major inspiration of the piece.

 

I changed this piece as it developed in the latter stages to reflect the events of October 2009 which saw the heaviest losses of personnel in Afghanistan. 18 refers to the number of killed servicemen brought to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on October 29^th 2009, a unique event since President Barack Obama attended this event together with the families of the deceased. At this point he (The President) was aware of the fact that he had been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, and the committee was reported as subtly attempting to influence his decision to cease the conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, yet all of this was to no avail. In December of 2009 the President made the order to send a further 30,000 troops to Afghanistan despite having received an international award for peace.

 

Throughout the production of this piece I have been working with numerical values and their connections to the lives of real individuals. It finally reached its apex with the designation of ’18.’ That so often war is often only concerned with numbers and statistics and fails to appreciate events on a human scale. I was emotionally moved by the return of dead servicemen at Dover and motivated to write an accompanying poem; ‘Eighteen is Not Just a Number.’ The name ‘Dover’ is a significant cultural reference in my mind, connected to the ‘White Cliffs of Dover’ which soldiers returning from the wars in Europe would see first; it signifies a safe haven, a end to conflict, peace. I thought that this event at Dover AFB would the beginning of the end (of the war) and a return to normality, but I was disappointed and disheartened. In the background I could hear the Joint Chiefs of Staff and general’s laughing… laughing at the Presidents prize for peace whilst they handed him the order to send in more troops to continue their war.

 

‘18’ sums up my feelings concerning American patriotism as an ideal that is slowly fracturing under the weight and expense of total war. 

O white silence

Snow and sand and chalk

Vision of Dover

Pale moon silent

Standing stillness

Faces in prayer

Unloading the Eighteen.

 

Eighteen…

Not just a random number

But the price of Patriotism:

 

18 mother’s tears

18 hours of waiting

18 steps of despair

18 shots in darkness

18 fragments of memory

18 reasons to doubt

18 hollow sounds

18 random shouts

18 blanks

18 citations

18 awards

18 lost lovers

18 letters sent

18 SSN’s

18 resume’s

18 hearts

18 questions

18 men…

 

Eighteen is not just a number.

Artwork: Flag #18 (formerly ‘Star Spangled Snippets’). Cotton Fabric (American Flag) on Pinewood panel, Acrylic paint, flat household paint, military belt, Fencing Wire, Steel Staples.

Copyright David John Drew 2009

Arianrhod: Queen of Heaven

Arianrhod

Thro darkest violet vales of shade

Her crescent crown appears in light

New bright moon of silver'd braid

A Queen invoked from velvet night

The Grace appears from whispered praise

The Goddess in cloak of purest white.

Unshrouded she walks thro our minds

Dancing in streams before out eyes

Inspiring dreams with love refined

Mortal souls stretched to highest skies

Heavens brow, a form majestic, designed…

A bridge of quiet, silent beams and sighs.

Her blessing bestowed thro age and time

From depths of space, eternal bond

Banished thought of death: tremulous rhyme

Ancient spinning wheel, a voice beyond

Echoes our prayer with words sublime

Ever watching, waiting to respond.

All Rights Reserved/Copyright David John Drew 2009

The Ferryman and the Ship Yard

 

Chinkle of the ferry chains

 

In the river's downward wind,

 

Secures the dire mooring

 

Decayed landing platform...

 

Where thousands embarked, left and

 

Crossed and returned

 

For work; now is silent;

 

Swinging in tides, holding

 

Now… Only a harbor of

 

Memories.

 

 

 

In a dense fog comes a ghost...

 

A monk, nestled

 

In the oak ribs, and

 

Leather of a coracle...

 

Sinews struggling with the tunes

 

Of deep, hidden currents

 

One solid oar dipping

 

In rippling shadows

 

Of murmuring...

 

Dark energies.

 

Chanting a psalm

 

Through sheets of cold sleet

 

Creating ringlets and triskeles

 

On the cold iced surface

 

Of green, brackish Water.

 

 

Looking back, turning round

 

At the Southern bank, and shore

 

Of shingle, looking back

 

Across the river, with all time...

 

All the history, a dim haze

 

retreated and gone.

 

 

 

Hammers now silent;

 

No riveters or the bright

 

Embers of welder's torches;

 

Who talks with that...

 

That dialect now?

 

The tongues are also

 

Silent... unheard... Long gone and lost,

 

The precious Gold coin of an Emperor

 

Buried deep in the earth.

 

 

All Rights Reserved/Copyright David John Drew 2009.

Jean Francois D'or and the Eccentric Club

The Eccentric Club, formerly known in its various incarnations as The Illustrious Society of Eccentrics, The Everlasting Society of Eccentrics, The Eccentric Society Club and, finally, The Eccentric Club. It was once one of the most important institutions of the British society. Its name is a long established and reputable brand, its members were amongst those who had shaped the British culture into what it is now, its history is inseparable with that of Britain itself... Founded a number of times by seemingly unrelated and socially different groups of people, for centuries it served as a meeting point to many great and original minds, pioneers of thought in artistic, literary, theatrical, scientific, legal and political circles, providing an amicable environment for their recreational and creative pastime as well as a testing ground for the novel and controversial theories and approaches to the issues equally important to the British society and the entire mankind.

First records of The Eccentric Club began with its official opening in 1781:

"Lookat that eccentric wheel in that steam engine, what motion would you get out of it without that wheel's eccentricity - only rest. So in society you would get precious little driving force out of it, but for eccentricities having free andactive motion. Let us encourage them, let us utilize them! (Applause)." -(Extract of the opening speech by its first president, 1781).

I composed a poem Inspired by the forthcoming 'Monthly General Meeting' of the Eccentric Club in London; which will incorporate a festival of eccentric poetry- featuring cutting-edge contemporary verse versus lyric recollections from the dusty archival drawers of the authors and publishers. In this I adopted the traditional sonnet, an example by the Bard himself: William Shakespeare and reworked it according to the modernist anarchic principles ofthe Dadaist poet Tristran Tzara, employing the sharpened capabilities of a pair of scissors. I thus set about chopping up the Elizabethan Bard's well crafted verse, subjecting it to another ancient form of random divination and re-composing it within a new framework. I kept the sonnet format (abab cdcd efef gg), added a few words of my own and decided to dedicate this one to the Jean Francois Dor and the Eccentric Club.

THE METHOD:

To Make A Dadist Poem

Take a newspaper.

Take some scissors.

Choose from this paper an article the length you want to make your poem.

Cut out the article.

Next carefully cut out each of the words that make up this article and put them all in a bag.

Shake gently.

Next take out each cutting one after the other.

Copy conscientiously in the order in which they left the bag.

The poem will resemble you.

And there you are--an infinitely original author of charming sensibility, even though unappreciated by the vulgar herd. 

ByTristan Tzara

(TristanTzara (April 16, 1896 - December 25, 1963) is the pseudonym of Sami Rosenstock, born in Moinesti, Bacău, Romania. A poet and essayist who lived for the majority of his life in France, he is known mainly as a founder of Dada, a nihilistic revolutionary movement in the arts.)

PRE-OPERATION OVERVIEW:

William Shakespeare. Sonnet XVIII

1. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

2. Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

3. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

4. And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

5. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

6. And often is his gold complexion dimmed,

7. And every fair from fair sometime declines,

8. By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:

9. But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

10. Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,

11. Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

12. When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,

13. So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

14. So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

POST-OPERATIVE STUDY:

Possession eternal complexion hot summers untrimmed day? long this the thou rough wanderest lines and death sometime life when too nature's and in eyes thou thou shall men sometimes changing brag chance summer eternal shade compare fair as often gives temperate fair lease more dimmed thee in shake shall can short that from can his owest see declines summer nor thee his growest breathe every of date thy gold buds the heaven fair this or do fade so by I may and thou shines lives but of to lovely in course not or and art more and lose darling hath a eye of no to so shall winds long all too a.

DR.SHELLY'S DRAMATIC RECONSTRUCTION:

The Sonnet Reconstructed: The Days of Gold, dedicated to Jean Francois Dor Director.

In possession of your eternal complexion;

Long lease of those hot, untrimmed summer days,

Thou beam wanders in my rough direction

Thro life's nature tho' sometime death too brays.

And when thy men shall sometimes, in thy eyes

Brag the shady chance of summer eternal

And compare the fair, as temperate oft gives guise

Tis short shake for thee, less dimmed in each vernal;

The more yer summer declines, this all can'st see

T'more your breath grows, in all dates, in every way;

Fades not his fair gold buds of heaven: but flows free

And so, may thy Sun-shine thro lives of mortal clay…

A darling course too lovely in art and yet more

So eyes and long winds shall ever rest on thee: Dor.

CONCLUSION:

Tristran Tzara recommends a newspaper clipping although in this instance I used a poem by a reputable bard. I might have gone completely wild and written something truly avant-garde but something within me begged for the traditional format of the sonnet. With the references to 'summer', 'sun' and by inference 'gold' I decided to dedicate and end the composition to J.F.D. (the French/Belgic 'd'or' beingthe word for gold). And so, everything has been examined, probed, dissected, illuminated, reconstructed, re-appraised and dedicated: fulfilling the standard requirements for combining the ancient with the contemporary. The central anarchic principle of the Dada poem allows the poet to do whatever he/she desires, regardless of any convention: so although I have followed atraditional format in this example, I need not have.

In all good faith,

David John Drew. Copyright / All Rights Reserved 2009.

Image: André Breton, René Hilsum, Louis Aragon and Paul Eluard posing with a copy of Dada 3, 1919.