Days Under Water (2001-4)

brief 30 (2004)

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[brief 30 (2004): 88-91]


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Suburban Apocalypse (2001-4)

Suburban Apocalypse (2004)

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[Catalyst 4 (2005): 67-71;
“Blue,” in Spin 49 (2005): 60;
& “Hitler’s Villa,” in Tongue in Your Ear 9 (2006): 60]


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Ancestral Voices (2001)

brief 16 (2000)



Ancestral Voices

Auckland populations rely little if at all on sexual reproduction, but … grow into small replicas of the adult worm, within the parent’s burrow.

– Morton & Miller, The New Zealand Sea-Shore

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[AUCKLAND – Monday, 12th February, 2001:]

The invasion starts with the eyes. When you find yourself pecking and rubbing at them, attempting to remove the source of discomfort – look out! Your bondage has begun.
First, the colours go: the intricate shading of a field of grass turns spring-green, as in the BAYLEYS real estate poster. Then go nuances of detail: skin becomes hairy or smooth, tan or cream – no tracery of lines and blemishes. Finally, the horizon lowers to eyes and watch. You find yourself consulting it every second moment, using it as an arbiter for how long things should continue. No time to eat a plum, or throw a frisbee; time to hurry on instead.

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For Louise

Worshipping the sun-disk we proceed
Akhetaten
land on the horizon
city of our Lord
Amenhotep’s son and seed

priestesses submit
their Bodies to the Promptings of the Rod
the feral North
packed pellet snow
darkness in the pit

outstretched hand-hooks
of the sun-disk
framed by angled light
this street old times old friends
the films I read old books

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Jeremiah 31: xv

For fear the grass should offend thy feet
thou buildest footpaths
(Spent a summer once
constructing wooden bays
for concrete)

Cheers! The polo sports bag
takes its leave
backed up by body
T-shirtdouble-chin
& legs

A voice was heard in Parnell
Rachel
weeping for her children
and would not be comforted
because they are

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[AUCKLAND – Thursday, 8th August, 1996:]

Coming up, soon, to the two months’ anniversary of our break-up – or, rather, of Marianne’s unceremonious dumping of me: “Time to pack, Jack;” “Take a walk, dork;” “No time to floss, Ross;” “I’m moving on, John.”
My mind is pullulating with ideas, most of them somewhat unconstructive, I fear (i.e. drowning myself off Mairangi Bay beach; crossing Hobson St a bit too slowly). I recall listening to hours of other people’s break-ups: Ali Lum for one, Bruce & Alison, Lisa & Murray – no-one seems too anxious to reciprocate for me, however.

*

It’s Friday now, & the last class of the week is coming up. Too much more of this job would drive me crazy; I’m halfway there already. On Tuesday I lost my temper & slammed a door & threw something because my afternoon class sat there immobile & wouldn’t help me go and get a chair – or two – or three – for the classroom. Not a great success. I doubt that getting fired would be the best of moves just now.

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[brief 16 (2000): 62-69]


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Case Studies (2001)

[brief 20 - aesthetics,
ed. John Geraets (Auckland: The Writers Group, 2001)]

Tell me where is fancy bred
Or in the heart or in the head?
– Shakespeare

1. The Cliché


2. Truth in the Cliché?


3. The Psychic


4. Truth in the Psychic?


5. The Road of Excess


6. The Palace of Wisdom


7. Memento

- First published in brief 20 (June, 2001): 23-29.

 

The Britney Suite (2003)

Preface

After collaborating on the book A Town Like Parataxis and the video The Perfect Storm, Gabriel White and I were discussing a third idea - a film to be based on my sequence of poems The Britney Suite - when he left Auckland for Melbourne at the end of 2000.

We couldn't get funding to produce our screenplay, so both of us moved on to different projects instead. In the course of our work, though, we produced a version of the sequence illustrated with black-and-white blow-ups of Gabriel's fascinating Tongdo Fantasia photographs from South Korea (some of which appeared in Landfall 214 (2007): 32-40).

Very much in the style of Parataxis, this mock-up for an unpublished book still seems to me an interesting work in itself. In any case, I've decided to post it here online so you can decide for yourselves. You'll have to click on both the images and the text pages to see them properly, of course.

NB: The texts of the Paul Celan translations incorporated in the original work are available here.

An electronic text of The Britney Suite can be linked to from here.

A discussion of the work as a whole and what I was trying to achieve with it can be found in my paper "Meeting Paul Celan," delivered at the Poetics of Exile conference at Auckland University in July 2003.

Contents:

• COVER
  
  
• TITLE-PAGE
  
  
• COPYRIGHT
  
  
• DEDICATION
  
  
• CONTENTS
  
  
• QUOTATION (Britney Spears)
  
  
• [Paul Celan:] SCHNEEPART, gebäumt, bis zuletzt / SNOWPART
  
  
• QUOTATION (Paul Celan)
  
  
• QUOTATION (Cut Above)
  
  
• [Wendy Nu:] keith partridge y yo
  
  
• QUOTATION (Paul Celan)
  
  
• [Paul Celan:] ERZFLITTER, tief im / ORESPARK
  
  
• QUOTATION (Paul Celan)
  
  
• Who is Wendy Nu?
  
  
• QUOTATION (ISBN)
  
  
• Nouvelle vague
  
  
• QUOTATION (Britney Spears)
  
  
• [Paul Celan:] KALK-KROKUS, im / CHALK-CROCUS
  
  
• QUOTATION (Paul Celan)
  
  
• Letter to the author
  
  
• [Wendy Nu:] mr darling writes to penthouse forum [Wendy Nu]
  
  
• QUOTATION (Paul Celan)
  
  
• [Paul Celan:] DAS GEDUNKELTE Splitterecho / DARK
  
  
• QUOTATION (Paul Celan)
  
  
• QUOTATION (John Felstiner)
  
  
• QUOTATION (Nine Days)
  
  
• It’s always too late ...
  
  
• QUOTATION (Britney Spears)
  
  
• [Paul Celan:] BEIDHÄNDIGE Frühe / BOTH-HANDED
  
  
• QUOTATION (Paul Celan)
  

© Text: Jack Ross (2001) / Images: Gabriel White (2003)