In the South Seas
Inroduction and notes on the text
This poem intends to serve as an incentive for artists, writers and other creative people to organize some kind of help for people in distress - especially those suffering from the consequences of the severe earthquake with ensuing tsunami and threats of nuclear disaster in Japan.
The poem was written for a tsunami charity appeal in 2005 after the catastrophe in South East Asia and had its first reading there.
The title refers to the Scottish novelist Robert Louis Stevenson (The Treasure Island) and his account of the voyage he made. Together with the opening lines it also alludes to the German actor of international renown Ulrich Wildgruber who ended his life by walking into the sea and who during his lifetime is said to have nourished a great nostalgia for those distant islands - especially the one where the crew of the "Bounty" took refuge. Other film actors are mentioned serving the same purpose.
This is a poem about names. Names are intended to single out individuals from all the others. Individualism, however, loses all meaning in the face of natural or man-made disasters - such as Hiroshima or Sumatra tsunami - just to mention a few.
Who is Trevor Howard?
My brain tells me I used to know an actor
by this name
hunting down the Third Man in postwar Vienna,
sea-captain to HMS Bounty in the south seas -
second filming,
still this name sounds strange to me
what's so special about being called Trevor Howard?
Why not Mountain Fountain or
Mushroom Caterpillar?
How many Howards were lulled to sleep
by caring mothers
so many Trevors yelled at by disappointed wives
and many more wept over by desolate widows.
What makes this one stick out from all the others,
countless Asians - all alike
locust.
Donald, Kenneth, Malcolm, Duncan,
Mathrafal, Brenin Gwalia -
what's the difference between a king and a horse?
Did this mean anything when
we and the world were young and curious
getting to know things for the first time?
Now that the world is getting older
forgetting about what was before
names lose their hair and teeth.
They are talking about “Les liasons dangereuses”
and this man Malkovich
never mentioning Laclos nor Philipe, Gerard.
Two-hundred-and-sixty-thousand instantly dead
after the bomb exploded
several hundred feet above ground zero
how do we carry on afterwards
we the survivers
do we exist in the same universe
or are we reincarnated into another?
Transferred to a distant fragment of time?
Someone switched off the light
and when it came on again
after a millisecond or less
it was in a different room
where the roses had withered and all the birds flown away.
Why do I cry over you Trevor Hopkins -
unknown to me
on a fine winter morning
the colours of the rainbow still with a peculiar smell -
your child face not shining
through the changing faces of the years
more telling than on-and-off digits of DNA
and other perishable particles
unpredictably charged?
Is it just because my brain
refuses to function
confuses words and music
losing its proper sense of proper identity?
Who will take up your life song
First sung on the day you were born,
Who?
Exit Frankie Howard, no encores.
This poem intends to serve as an incentive for artists, writers and other creative people to organize some kind of help for people in distress - especially those suffering from the consequences of the severe earthquake with ensuing tsunami and threats of nuclear disaster in Japan.
The poem was written for a tsunami charity appeal in 2005 after the catastrophe in South East Asia and had its first reading there.
The title refers to the Scottish novelist Robert Louis Stevenson (The Treasure Island) and his account of the voyage he made. Together with the opening lines it also alludes to the German actor of international renown Ulrich Wildgruber who ended his life by walking into the sea and who during his lifetime is said to have nourished a great nostalgia for those distant islands - especially the one where the crew of the "Bounty" took refuge. Other film actors are mentioned serving the same purpose.
This is a poem about names. Names are intended to single out individuals from all the others. Individualism, however, loses all meaning in the face of natural or man-made disasters - such as Hiroshima or Sumatra tsunami - just to mention a few.
Who is Trevor Howard?
My brain tells me I used to know an actor
by this name
hunting down the Third Man in postwar Vienna,
sea-captain to HMS Bounty in the south seas -
second filming,
still this name sounds strange to me
what's so special about being called Trevor Howard?
Why not Mountain Fountain or
Mushroom Caterpillar?
How many Howards were lulled to sleep
by caring mothers
so many Trevors yelled at by disappointed wives
and many more wept over by desolate widows.
What makes this one stick out from all the others,
countless Asians - all alike
locust.
Donald, Kenneth, Malcolm, Duncan,
Mathrafal, Brenin Gwalia -
what's the difference between a king and a horse?
Did this mean anything when
we and the world were young and curious
getting to know things for the first time?
Now that the world is getting older
forgetting about what was before
names lose their hair and teeth.
They are talking about “Les liasons dangereuses”
and this man Malkovich
never mentioning Laclos nor Philipe, Gerard.
Two-hundred-and-sixty-thousand instantly dead
after the bomb exploded
several hundred feet above ground zero
how do we carry on afterwards
we the survivers
do we exist in the same universe
or are we reincarnated into another?
Transferred to a distant fragment of time?
Someone switched off the light
and when it came on again
after a millisecond or less
it was in a different room
where the roses had withered and all the birds flown away.
Why do I cry over you Trevor Hopkins -
unknown to me
on a fine winter morning
the colours of the rainbow still with a peculiar smell -
your child face not shining
through the changing faces of the years
more telling than on-and-off digits of DNA
and other perishable particles
unpredictably charged?
Is it just because my brain
refuses to function
confuses words and music
losing its proper sense of proper identity?
Who will take up your life song
First sung on the day you were born,
Who?
Exit Frankie Howard, no encores.
sandaig - 13. Mär, 23:30
