resignation

As a plough breaking up the sods of earth
and the hopper dropping a seed into the furrow.
Or as a knife plunging into flesh
and the blood spurting upon its return.
So I have looked for such significance.

An action pregnant with consequence
and birthing a new and different future.
Something other, something different,
not now, not ever been before.
The great expectation, the fulfilled promise of many a thought before sleeping
or before an unscratched lottery card.

I always thought there would be more but there is not,
life is, as it appears to be and no more.

Or is it?

In spite of our creation and wandering
for 70 or 7 million years
only the corner of the canvas remains blotted.
The vastness is untouched by most
and yet there are those who reach with brush and paint a great swathe.
And there are those who splash their color upon the ready and waiting whiteness.

Can I?

Pick up the plough, the knife or the paint brush
and stretch out into the future of my making.

The seed will grow, the blood will spill and in the end,
as always, the paint will dry.



--------------------------------------------------------------
Written in 20 minutes with probably 5 minutes of editing. An experiment in writing something inspired by my recent resignation from my job.

I have no job to go to but I would rather uncertainty in a future of my own making than certainty in a future that is not what I want.

A fool? perhaps.

liquidation

After reading liquidation I find myself reaching for that big book all of us have in our libraries, diminished though they be. The book which tells us what we should know or that which we already know but of which we unsure. Fumbling between 'post-coital' and 'Potenza' I find that expletive post-modern. The definition alludes to a 'late 20th century style, a distrust of ideologies, a deliberate mixing of styles and conventions'.

I don't understand the term because for me it always referred to an art that contained within itself a criticism of the form itself. It contained an allusion to its creation and a criticism of it. I never found it to be modern, let alone post-modern. Hamlet, for instance, I find to be post-modern as evidenced by the play within a play. Ulysses by Joyce must surely be post-modern and yet this term persists, and yet too, there must be some relevance for it as a descriptor. Or is there any relevance to it beyond the stylistic concerns of the Sunday supplements?

Liquidation suffers the fate of many books from late 20th and early 21st century writers who try to leave something of significance and yet the paradox is that they are generally nihilistic or cynical in their approach. The act of writing a book is essentially positivistic in nature and yet the doctrine they preach is pessimistic. Can a trumpet be blown that rallies people to their own demise? Perhaps, is what Beckett would say, and yet be assured I would not make this argument at the vanguard of conservative ignorance but rather in the shadow of such bold intellects.

'work makes one free'

I wanted to like this book and yet feel let down by the author, Nobel prize winner though he may be. Liquidation it is a good book that goes beyond the story telling narrative of a beginning, middle and end. It does seem to capture the succession of events that make up a life and the sense that their is very little of a story to relate. There is a sense that the story is lost, is abandoned, is discarded and maybe in some sense we all discard our own story. It is a 'degenerate art' that surely Hitler would have burned but yet it survives. Unfortunately, I believe it ultimately fails to make a connection with the Holocaust in spite of the words, in spite of the author's own life story.

But perhaps, in asking the questions, in presenting what is at times a contrived story it does achieve some awareness of an event. As you can see I am conflicted in my response to this book, a definite re-read is in order. However, I was left, thinking that I should go to Auschwitz.

Perhaps, he succeeded. Perhaps.

For more information ...
liquidation
Imre Kertész
post modernism
Auschwitz