Analysis of Various Perversities

Posted on January 27, 2011 by Malcolm Farley

Paul Klee's Analysis of Various Perversities (Photo Credit: http://www.dailyartfix.com)

Analysis of Various Perversities

That Samsung ad sails past on the bus’s flank:
the one of a svelte blonde who embraces a TV
reflecting nothing but her own glazed gaze.

A gender-bent, post-mod Narcissus, she yearns
to kiss herself in the boob-tube of misdirected love,
a vacuum that has sucked out her pith,
then broadcasts it back as an unappeasable God.

At the gym, mirrors imprison me.  I gape at my body,
chase physique’s Holy Grail on a treadmill,
yet never smash through the glass screen of desire.

Is it me or have we all swallowed the kool-aid
of a cult whose bodacious icons sell Self
on every wall?  My own face swells like an angry cloud.
I can’t see what you look like anymore.

*Click on the audio icon below to hear Malcolm Farley read his poem “Analysis of Various Perversities.”


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Méduse

Posted on January 26, 2011 by Malcolm Farley

Méduse de Paris (le Marais, 2008) Photo Credit: Malcolm Farley

Pour qui sont ces serpents qui sifflent sur vos têtes?

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Family Ties

Posted on January 23, 2011 by Malcolm Farley

Double Alpine Butterfly Knot (Photo Credit: Layhands.com)

Family Ties

“One Body, Two Souls!” the headline blares
above the photo of a girl with two heads,
the first kissing the other on her cheek.  Or maybe,

in ontological confusion, they’re two girls joined
below the neck or twins who couldn’t bear to part,
even as an egg.  A diagram specifies more

than we should know: two spines that fuse
at the pelvis; two hearts with common circulation;
a single vagina.  Brittany loves milk.

Abigail hates it.  They go to school, swim,
ride a bike.  A perfectly normal abnormality,
the article affirms, whose Self-love equals,

by natural irony, Other-love.  We leave them
as, together, on their sneaker, they tie a double knot.

*Click on the audio icon below to hear Malcolm Farley read his poem “Family Ties.”

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Quote of the Day

Posted on January 12, 2011 by Malcolm Farley

Michel Houellebecq et Chien (Photo Credit: "Le Chien des Années 2000"; Le Petit Bulletin)

Michel Houellebecq on Children & Adults:

“Few adults, very few, are aware to what extent children watch their parents, constantly on the lookout for some sign of how they should approach the world; how sharp and vibrant their intelligence is in the years leading up to the disaster of puberty, how quick to summarize, to draw broad conclusions.  Very few adults realize that every child, naturally, instinctively, is a philosopher.”

– From a New York Times book review of Public Enemies: Dueling Writers Take On Each Other and the World by Dwight Garner

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Negative Capability

Posted on January 4, 2011 by Malcolm Farley

Domestic or House Mouse (Mus musculus). Photo Credit: George Shuklin via Wickipedia Commons

Negative Capability

Firm black turds—like sesame seeds—have popped up
again on the white formica this morning.  “Kill
the little mouse, the mouse that’s in the house.  He’s eating up my home, and soon he’ll wider roam…,” I sing

as I make tea and toast. Suddenly, everyone has them.
Mice. (Was it the truly bitchy December
that drove them indoors?)  X hopes to get along with hers.
They have pups.  Y wants them “disappeared”

like dissidents from Argentina.  I’ve tried peanut butter.
I’ve tried cheese.  (Once, one of the traps banged shut by itself
at 3:00 a.m and scared me to death.)  The couple
downstairs—call them Mr. Big & Mr. Little—are fighting

again.  At breakfast!  If I were a mouse, what would I do?
And who would listen if I chose to squeak?

*Click on the audio icon below to hear Malcolm Farley read his poem “Negative Capability.”


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