Photo / graphics by Roman.
I lost my marbles the other day.
I threw them all away.
Never did play them much anyway.
They were nicked and dusty
And by lost packets interrupted
From the platonic ideal,
Their kaleidoscope magic dimmed
For it was light from other days.
Yip
it’s nonsense! nonsense i tell you: utter bunkum!
the force fields are fully engaged
to send any and all
circling a wormhole drain
around a realm of imagination
where nothing and everything
is down the drain
including the drain
Photo / graphic by Roman.
No exit and no return
From these imprisoning shadows.
A rustling creak creeps above
From a dread dimly seen
Thrills a chill of loosened bowels.
You really don’t want to know…
–Yip
Photo by Roman.
“Total Perspective Vortex”
i am but an imaginary number
carried away on a wind of neutrinos
like unto a swirl in the turbulence
of a murmuration of starlings
it’s one of those things
you cannot know
by just kicking the tyres
–Yip
Photo by Roman.
One lone bird at
Dawn calls in the silence
Without reply.
Why do I hear the word
“Survivor”?
— Yip
Old But Out of the Way
Ageing makes the mundane laborious.
Pretending to be a poem,
I pace for exercise…
–Yip
Stars in my garbage like grains of styrofoam…
Photo / Graphic by Roman.
Shiny, sparkly, slimy thing, eating our future yesterday. What is it? Well, Benjamin Braddock could tell you: Plastic!
But I have a soft spot for sparkly things…
It inevitably reminded me of this:
I don’t know if this was intended as poetry, but it is poetry IMHO:
Newly posted on Vimeo by the National Film Board of Canada, the video’s description doesn’t quite do it justice, but:
Cut off from his loved ones due to the pandemic lockdown, a quadriplegic rabbi in a long-term-care facility is filmed remotely by his daughter. Offering powerful meditations on love and hope, Perfecting the Art of Longing shows us what it means to be alive in a state of profound isolation.
April is National Poetry Month, and for the occasion Frank Hudson’s Parlando Project has been producing a series of “Lyric Videos” based on audio recordings of the poems done previously. The month is not even half over, but (so far) Hudson’s performance of “Zeppelins” by F.S. Flint is my favorite, though “Dunbar” is not far behind.
And of course, the poem is also so very appropriate to what is once again happening in Europe these days, not to mention elsewhere in the world none of which I’m not going to mention as I’m sure to shamefully leave somewhere or two off the list…
The term “lyric video” is also new to me though the practice is… not new. As a concept, though, it wraps up and gathers together poetry as oral interpretation and poetry as literature. As a bonus, one can throw in ancillary aspects like music, musicality, concrete poetry just to name-drop a few. Is pretty cool concept, methinks.
This animation from director and animator Renee Zhan is weird and wonderful and existential and it will fulsomely reward you for the 16 minutes you entrust to it. Never mind that the filmmaker describes it this way:
“A woman who can’t stand the passing of time sucks everyone and everything she loves inside herself to keep them with her forever. Eventually, she turns into a black hole.
“A thousand unchanging years pass inside her dark embrace until one day, the Singularity wakes.”
Yip Abides 