Little Miss Morimoto (slash, cut, burn, put in commas))

[dedalus]

Little Miss Morimoto

(for YM with rueful affection, in memory of an interlude
that went disastrously comically wrong)

Silence
is the ultimate response
to impulses, to importunities;
it casts a veil, a cloudlike mist,
over opportunities.

In the pressing heat of long summer days,
the sonorous sound of morning cicadas,
a cold icicle pierces, a splinter, a knife,
into the centre of my life: dark winter weighs in:
and like a frozen apple on a frost-whipped tree,
so dies all feeling between you and me.

Your eyes, your smile:
it is the eternal feminine mystery,
returning, recharged,
with each cycle of human history.

Heliotropic, a turning towards the sun,
this is what you were to me;
but after light and warmth,
what one needs from the sun
is ... constancy.

We grow old, day by day,
we that have not succumbed
to childhood illnesses, road accidents,
nor the wiles of the recruiting sergeant;
and those who have lived too well,
flushed with wine and income,
flood the news with interviews
while the rest of us shiver in the shadows,
clipping coupons, bravely dissolving,
facing worse to come.

If the rich could live forever
(organ transplants, hormone injections)
that would be the crowning insult:
as long as they can die in shame and agony
some justice lingers in the world.

Pheromes dropping from heaven above
(a scent that arches from each pore)
can make boys and girls feel giddy;
interest aroused, they reach for more:
emotions abound, around and around,
fumbles, mistakes, a skid into touch
like a greasy football: heaven above
and hell below: aha, haha, romantic love!

Love is infernal, eternal.
Words upon a page,
an all-consuming physical rage.
Groan and thrust against a wall
or say pious prayers before each meal,
not to feel, never never
to think these things at all?

Whatever you say, baby doll.
Holy moley, I’ll be late for work!

Morning dawns on America.
It never seems to dawn anywhere else.
The night simply stops, the day begins
and ignoring a multitude, a plenitude of sins,
we drag ourselves out of sleep,
from very occasional happy dreams,
(the nightmares usually spring you awake)
to face another day, its name and number.

We no longer slumber
among the gods of ancient times
for we no longer live in ancient times
and cannot share the old traditions.
We live in a spiritually shrunken world
of unbridled technology: the 10 GB RAM,
the speed, the add-ons and additions,
the feelings of envy and awe!
(is this all that we're living for?)
The power! The potential! The hype!
Surf U-Tube, download, talk on Skype.

There has to be some other connection,
one with nothing to do with blinding speed,
a strong connection between present and past:
without such memory, non-RAM human memory,
life would lose all meaning.

Murtaugh O Brien was hanged, drawn and quartered
under the baleful order of frightened authorities.
An old woman approached his shattered form,
the splashes of blood and organs spattered the cobbles,
and cupping her hands, she drank his blood,
time and again, time and again, endlessly keening,
until the people of the town, disturbed, turned away.


This is the rebellious island I come from.
These are the things I need to remember,
even when if I don't want to ....

In the deep dark passages of a devious brain
remains this train of thought:
snail-slime seen under black light.

Last month’s e-mails …

are the dusty archives of the non-dawning day:
my dear one, however so much I loved you,
we could never quite match the passion
of last month’s e-mails. Now, of course,
there are no e-mails at all.

My dear one …
your black sparkling eyes
your body like a bolt of thunder!
We met in June, parted in July,
and I sometimes wonder why
these things come down like summer storms.

Love, not even love,
is a flight of birds
over a morning lake, a rustle of wings
over stillness, a descent of silence.

Love, not even love,
is a giving in hope of return,
trying so hard, so very hard to understand,
reaching only approximation.

We had affection, yes.
There was style and languorous grace!
But when I reached out for your heart
there was nothing there, an absence,
nothing but an empty space.

Silence
is the ultimate response
to all the things we hope for,
to all the things we fear,
to all the things we cannot understand.

When you die, sweet girl,
as we all must die,
a kaleidoscope of images will flash, unbidden,
across your agéd, your withered brain,
and of this present, this pulsating summer
no single memory will remain.

And that will be the final end.
Yes, that will be the end. But will it?
Long after you and I are dust and clay
some earnest future scholar may
unearth this poem, and recall
the beauty, the cruelty of it all.

[Helen Bywater]

Hello Dedalus,

I read the earlier version of this late last night, too late to collect my thoughts and comment. My initial reaction was just "Wow!" I wasn't sure then if I agreed with the comment David made on that version, about the snatches of very English dialogue. They fleshed out a picture, and the episodic feel of it brought Eliot's 'The Wasteland' to mind. But now those parts have been excised, the whole is so much more than the sum of its parts. Deeply moving.

I'm not sure about the stuff about modern technology, memory and connection. Maybe that would benefit from being cut down a bit?

A wonderful read. Thank you.

Helen

[dedalus]

Thanks, Helen. You're probably right about further cuts. These things really need to be cut back to the bone ... but it's sooooo hard throwing out things you've really worked on! Has to be done, I suppose ....