Mina Loy, Music, Perforation

This is going to be an all-singing, all-dancing blog post of varietal wonders.

I will begin by recommending one of my favourite poets to you because I'm sure we're all sick of the sound of my voice.  And also no-one ever seems to have heard of her despite the fact that she is GREAT and at least as good as other people who were writing at her time, namely Gertrude Stein, Marianne Moore, et al. Her name is Mina Loy and I would advise you to quick-step - run not walk - to your nearest good bookshop, or Amazon, and purchase The Lost Lunar Baedeker which is edited by Roger Conover.  It is a very good collection indeed.  Personally I prefer the earlier poems, which I wrote a critical essay on a couple of years ago, talking about how Loy writes from her perspective as a woman.  Here is a Wikipedia page which tells you a bit about her (as always with the dreaded W, take anything that isn't properly referenced with a pinch of salt.  And don't even think about citing it as a source)... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mina_Loy

I lent my copy of this book to my friend so I might have to pilfer a poem from Google, if I can find one, for your reading pleasure...

Lunar Baedeker
by Mina Loy
A silver Lucifer serves cocaine in cornucopia To some somnambulists of adolescent thighs draped in satirical draperies Peris in livery prepare Lethe for posthumous parvenues Delirious Avenues lit with the chandelier souls of infusoria from Pharoah's tombstones lead to mercurial doomsdays Odious oasis in furrowed phosphorous--- the eye-white sky-light white-light district of lunar lusts ---Stellectric signs "Wing shows on Starway" "Zodiac carrousel" Cyclones of ecstatic dust and ashes whirl crusaders from hallucinatory citadels of shattered glass into evacuate craters A flock of dreams browse on Necropolis From the shores of oval oceans in the oxidized Orient Onyx-eyed Odalisques and ornithologists observe the flight of Eros obsolete And "Immortality" mildews... in the museums of the moon "Nocturnal cyclops" "Crystal concubine" ------- Pocked with personification the fossil virgin of the skies waxes and wanes----

I stole that from here and I would really have liked to share 'Parturition', which is my favourite of her poems, but I can't find it online.


And because I can't resist the narcissism, here is a first draft of something I started writing yesterday:


perforate


when first he slipped it in
it hit a rib before sliding 
through my bone-valley
like a solid metal snake.
all that was soft collapsed
and seeped through its cage,
cooling as it trickled down my legs.


the blade met my blood,
greeted it like an old friend,
and I remembered that tang --
like eating off a cheap spoon --
from when I licked those
hidden, self-inflicted wounds.




Now I'm going to make some dinner before heading out to see The Dead Weather.  I might even review it later.  But I have a few gigs to catch up on - Pixies, iLiKETRAiNS, and Annie - so perhaps I should get to those first.  Anyway, I'm hoping tonight will be good - I saw them at Glastonbury, unexpectedly, and they still managed to suitably rock at five in the afternoon, so my expectations are high.  Plus it's at The Forum, and you can't go too far wrong with The Forum, in my opinion.