The Negative

[mrmalcontent]

#1 Fairytale of NY

I, like many others, believe the words of Shane MacGowan are damned and damn good. he is a poet, if a poet is a person who can find allure where there shouldn’t be.

far from a heavenly gift, this is a curse. the poet is doomed because the poet can see Reality better than most, but do little to fix it.

there is Reality, and there is Romanticism. poetry squats somewhere in the middle. Xmas, definitely a private grade-listed property, is a place where both meet. if you catch up with people you seldom see, it is also a time of the year where the self and the idea of self clash at their most intimate. most folks, with time, learn to remember the communion as children and see the fissures as adults.

misleading chorus aside, there is no communion in Fairytale of NY. a reckless relationship crosses an ocean to find the inescapable tragedy of self-hatred projected onto each other. we hear there have been broken promises of a Romantic future, yet these promises couldn’t have been truly broken because they hinged on illusions. familiarity breeds contempt, unfulfilled fantasies turn into resentfulness.

we believe, after the skirmishes and the bile, that MacGowan has left us with a happy ending: “can’t make it all alone/i’ve built my dreams around you.” but here is where the root of the problem is earthed, in the inescapable erosion that engulfs the couple, an addiction stronger than the whisky and heroin that punctuates their dialogue. much like the cyclical return of xmas, their pattern will keep repeating until their impending deaths (the proximity of which is referenced twice).

in celebrating JC’s impossible birth, xmas also celebrates the domestication of death. it’s all there in the symbolism of uprooting a tree to bring it indoors, depriving it of air but adorning it with lights. the song is also about uprooting, (see: ‘The Rare Old Mountain Dew’ as a symbol of nostalgia but also as melancholy continuity) yet Fairytale of NY echoes not what its lost, but rather what did not and will not change. the subconscious parallels with xmas and an unhealthy dose of souvenir Irishness are what makes it so pervasive.

“With sweet vanilla rooibos & chocolate-y notes, this creamy Irish coffee inspired blend is a Christmas dream come true!”

Fairytale of NY (the tea) tastes like coffee and milk, not like codependency and whisky.  

you won’t find the pogues in a song. you won’t find solace in fairytale of ny. you won’t find Ireland in a teacup, and you certainly won’t find tea in this tea.

[mrmalcontent]

the mouse stares at you entranced

the spider does not dare to descend even

            one more millimetre to the ground 

the coffee is a blue spectre over

             the stove

ready to disappear forever

oh yes my darling

it’s seven in the morning

wake up young girl

pull up your hair in the photograph

discover your forehead your grin

smile beside the kid who

                 looks like you

oh yes you do what you can

and you are equal to a kind of happiness

that never grows old

stay still

there in that paradise

beside the kid who looks like you

it’s seven in the morning

the perfect hour to start

dreaming

the coffee will be eternal

and the sun eternal

if you don’t move

if you don’t wake up

if you don’t turn the page

in your little kitchen

in front of my window

[mrmalcontent]

The moon did not become the sun. It just fell on the desert in great sheets, reams of silver handmade by you. The night is your cottage industry now, the day is your brisk emporium. The world is full of paper.

Write to me.

[mrmalcontent]

I lay on the bed in the dark Laughing at things i think of Getting off on the pornography of my past Lighting matches and dropping them Into a wet glass It’s summer now and it’s hot And the sweat pours out And the air is the same as my body And i breathe my body inside out With sunlight around my skin turns brown And you wouldn’t know me from your pa Or Adam or Allah But I haven’t changed No I haven’t changed Day is all that resolves All we need is here on earth About every other day Scratch marks on my knees since I’ve been running The bramble lee When I’d much rather be wanting to be Running the loping Peace on your hand Don’t be silly But peace on my body When tired and beaten All we need is here on earth About every other day Oh to live in the country With a chicken and those other things Where the hills loping Where the dress and the hair in the river Undulating To take a wife and no paper Never again to wonder Did that rapper rape her All we need is here on earth About every other day

[mrmalcontent]

Don’t let that horse                              eat that violin    cried Chagall’s mother                                     But he                        kept right on                                     painting And became famous And kept on painting                              The Horse With Violin In Mouth And when he finally finished it he jumped up upon the horse                                        and rode away            waving the violin And then with a low bow gave it to the first naked nude he ran across And there were no strings                                       attached

[mrmalcontent]

Passing body

Sitting on a chair

With eyes and hands on screen

I see the river of my blood go by

Towards death

Veins, cartilages and nerves

Glisten tenderly when I sleep

And nothing makes me happier

Than the radiance of the stars

Enclosed in my arteries

But nothing makes me more somber

Than the light of a cigarette

When I think about the future

And a swirl of ash

Abruptly derails my smile

And my past

[mrmalcontent]

Having stolen

Rain from your garden

And touched your body

I go to sleep

Let no one be blamed

For my dreams 

[mrmalcontent]

I inherited a dark forest where I seldom walk. But there will come a day when the dead and the living change places. Then the forest will be set into motion. We aren't without hope. The most difficult crimes remain unsolved despite the efforts of many police. In the same way that somewhere in our lives there's a great unsolved love. I inherited a dark forest but today I walk in another forest, the light one. Every living thing that sings wriggles sways and crawls! It's spring and the air is intense. I have a degree from the university of oblivion and I'm as empty-handed as the shirt on the clothesline.

[mrmalcontent]

The sky in Brighton is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Living by the sea, looking out my windows, I feel like I’m part of the weather itself. Sometimes the sky is so blue and the reflection of the sea so dazzling you can’t even look at it. And other times, great black thunderheads roll across the ocean and you feel like you’re inside of the storm itself. What I fear most is nature. Now that it’s sent its weather to exact revenge, we’re all in for it now. Soon the weather's gonna put on a real show. Funnily enough, the more I write about the weather, the worse it seems to get, and the more interesting it becomes, the more it moulds itself to the narrative I’ve set for it. You know, I could control the weather with my moods; I just can’t control my moods, is all.

[mrmalcontent]

New Year’s Resolution

I ask my friend Bob what his New Year’s resolutions are and he says, with a shrug (indicating that this is obvious or not surprising): to drink less, to lose weight... He asks me the same, but I am not ready to answer him yet. I have been studying my Zen again, in a mild way, out of desperation over the holidays, though mild desperation. A medal or a rotten tomato, it’s all the same, says the book I have been reading. After a few days of consideration, I think the most truthful answer to my friend Bob would be: My New Year’s resolution is to learn to see myself as nothing. Is this competitive? He wants to lose some weight, I want to learn to see myself as nothing. Of course, to be competitive is not in keeping with any Buddhist philosophy. A true nothing is not competitive. But I don’t think I’m being competitive when I say it. I am feeling truly humble, at that moment. Or I think I am - in fact, can anyone be truly humble at the moment they say they want to learn to be nothing? But there is another problem, which I have been wanting to describe to Bob for a few weeks now: at last, halfway through your life, you are smart enough to see that it all amounts to nothing, even success amounts to nothing. But how does a person learn to see herself as nothing when she has already had so much trouble learning to see herself as something in the first place? It’s so confusing. You spend the first half of your life learning that you are something after all, now you have to spend the second half learning to see yourself as nothing. You have been a negative nothing, now you want to a positive nothing. I have begun trying, in these first days of the new year, but so far it’s pretty difficult. I’m pretty close to nothing all morning, but by late afternoon what is in me that is something starts throwing its weight around. This happens many days. By evening, I’m full of something and it’s often something nasty and pushy. So what I think at this point is that I’m aiming too high, that maybe nothing is too much, to begin with. Maybe for now I should just try, each day, to be a little less than I usually am.

[mrmalcontent]

I would also like to be wise. 

In the old books it says what wisdom is: 

To shun the strife of the world and to live out 

Your brief time without fear 

Also to get along without violence 

To return good for evil 

Not to fulfill your desires but to forget them 

Is accounted wise. 

All this I cannot do. 

Truly, I live in dark times.

[mrmalcontent]

The conditions of a solitary bird are five: The first, that it flies to the highest point; The second, that it does not suffer for company, not even of its own kind; The third, that it aims its beak to the skies; The fourth, that it does not have a definite color; The fifth, that it sings very softly.

[mrmalcontent]

1

You left with the last rains and back then I believed that for the most boring house in the suburbs there would be no springs nor autumns nor winters nor summers But no. The seasons were fulfilled as predicted in any almanac And the landlady and the mailman didn’t ask  about you again. 2 To forget you and not see you I watch the journey of the flies through the air         Great Style                  Great Speed                           Great Height 3 To forget you I cling to the first train and head for the country Impossible Because your absence has a bit of Flora of Fauna of Picnic. 4 They didn’t raise my wage because of your absence however the jar of Nescafé lasts twice as long thrice the razor blades.

[mrmalcontent]

"...You don’t hear me lighter than the leaves 

Because I’ve freed myself from all the branches..."

[mrmalcontent]

The lion, symbol of courage and nobility, trembles in the anthems, flutters in the flags, guards castles and cities. The hyena, symbol of cowardice and cruelty, doesn’t tremble, nor flutter, doesn’t guard anything. The lion gives its name to kings and plebeians, but there's no news of any person who has been called or is called Hyena.

The lion is a carnivore mammal of the feline family. The male spends his time roaring. His females work hunting deer, zebras or any other defenceless or inattentive creatures, while the male waits. When dinner’s ready, the male helps himself first. The females eat what’s left over. If, at the end, there’s some scraps, the cubs eat. If there’s nothing left, they’re screwed. 

The hyena, carnivore mammal of the hyaenidae family, has different customs. It’s the gentleman who brings the food and eats last, after the kids and the ladies have been served.

As a form of praise, we say: he's a lion. To insult, we say: he's a hyena. The hyena laughs.

I wonder why.

[mrmalcontent]

"You are the books you’ve read, the paintings you’ve seen, the music you’ve listened to and forgotten, the streets you’ve walked. You are your childhood, your family, a bunch of friends, some loves, a lot of annoyances. You are a sum dwindled by infinite subtractions.”

[mrmalcontent]

Tonight at noon Supermarkets will advertise 3d EXTRA on everything Tonight at noon Children from happy families will be sent to live in a home Elephants will tell each other human jokes America will declare peace on Russia World War I generals will sell poppies in the streets on November 11th The first daffodils of autumn will appear When the leaves fall upwards to the trees Tonight at noon Pigeons will hunt cats through city backyards Hitler will tell us to fight on the beaches and on the landing fields A tunnel full of water will be built under Liverpool Pigs will be sighted flying in formation over Woolton and Nelson will not only get his eye back but his arm as well White Americans will demonstrate for equal rights in front of the Black House and the Monster has just created Dr Frankenstein Girls in bikinis are moonbathing Folksongs are being sung by real folk Artgalleries are closed to people over 21 Poets get their poems in the Top 20 Politicians are elected to insane asylums There's jobs for everyone and nobody wants them In back alleys everywhere teenage lovers are kissing in broad daylight In forgotten graveyards everywhere the dead will quietly bury the living and You will tell me you love me Tonight at noon