This being Giorgio de Chirico’s birthday, I’m adding this link to his contemporary epitome Trevor Winkfield.
It’s an entertaining interview, and includes several images of Winkfield’s unique vision. Both de Chirico and Trevor Winkfield were favourites of John Ashbery.
Anyway, Happy Birthday, Giorgio!
Here is my review of Operation Violet Oak in the Fortnightly Review.
From Notions of a Mirror (Anvil Press Poetry, 1983)
*
*
From Notions of a Mirror (Anvil Press Poetry, 1983)
Saint Catherine of Alexandria by Caravaggio
My article on martyrdom down the ages – and reflections on Ukraine – published
here by The Fortnightly Review in May 2022.
And here is my poem for Shireen Abu Akleh, a martryr in my time.
More about Holodomor
I am also now protesting about the Royal Academy’s decision to mount a historical show on Ukrainian modernism. To being asked whether I therefore supported a foreign “invasion”, I felt it necessary to reply:
“This is not what happened, as you probably actually know -unless you only watch the BBC. Since the 2014 Maidan coup, the breakaway Russian regions in the East including Crimea voted by 96% to return to Russia. The large majority is Russian speaking. However the Nazi regime in Kiev constantly shelled, bombed and attacked those regions, and also prohibited speaking Russian or Russian education in the region. Biden’s son Hunter was paid millions as a fake employee of Burisma – the energy company run by oligarch Yanokovic and Zlochesky – sponsors also of the Banderite Asov brigade that Boris Johnson has just disgracefully welcomed to the commons. Yanocovic also sponsored Zelensky’s media career through his media holdings in the Ukraine and also his political career. The Russians began their special military operation to protect the ethnic Russian regions that had broken away. Banderite Nazism is rampant in Kiev. NATO is supporting these Banderites. Kiev is the most corrupt regime in Europe, involved in organ smuggling, prostitution, drugs and every sort of racket. Since the City of London is a haven for racketeers through its shell companies, the British public has been manipulated into thinking this is an invasion. Nothing could be further from the truth. Watch the Duran, watch Scott Ritter, watch any decent independent source of news and all this becomes glaringly apparent. Why do you think RT is banned in Britain? The NATO establishment is not afraid of lies. It is very afraid of the truth. Whether you agree with me or not, this is not the time for the Royal Academy to be seeming to be taking sides in a highly controversial issue.”
That what has happened in the Ukraine could also happen in the East – in countries such as the Philippines in particular – is well articulated by Brian Berletic at the New Atlas.
x
You journos, you’re poets on active duty,
For you can get disappeared, positively aimed at,
Even with PRESS writ all over you.
Maybe even because….
Today you’re Al-Jazeera, tomorrow
Some scruffy independent.
x
And then you have your caricatures
In the press-corps, fresh from their diplomas,
Each with a degree in data-marketing…
They’ve learnt the first of the 48 Laws
So well they’re more than willing to repeat
The spiel of their senior, so as not to outshine
x
Down the corridors of the Hotel CNN,
Worlds away from anyone’s front line.
Nothing to do with them,
Your ducking away as the shell is dropped
Into the mortar’s barrel, saving ears.
How hard it must be
x
To feel ordinary again
And not unearthly, unless you already are.
x
My homage to the murdered journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.
New Evidence suggests that Shireen’s death was a targeted kill
Colonel investigating the shooting says he and his colleagues were “flabbergasted” when the initial report claimed that the shooting was “accidental”.
SHUNGA 1
Over the bedspread
His pipe is well-used, and he fills it again.
You’re wearing a mantle over your gown
Because he likes to enter the reserve,
Searching here and there for its waterfall.
x
You have done up your sleek black hair
With a fine comb and ivory pins,
Done it up with particular care
In contrast to the wilderness below.
x
Taking another puff of his blow,
He thinks of it all in a dopey dream,
Imagining what he’s about to do,
And comes too soon, annoyingly for you.
x
SHUNGA 2
That curls the toes.
She has been attending his creative writing class.
He has invited her to his summer-house,
He says it’s where he does his best work.
It overlooks an undulating stream.
x
She has put on her loveliest kimono:
The one with the chrysanthemums:
Pink and yellow pompons floating on a grey
Watery silk with raindrops maybe
x
Or discarded petals. Goes so well with the hot
Pink of her sash. It’s crimson underneath,
Which he discovers – when he lets her read
His latest verse while dipping in her pot.
x
SHUNGA 3
Behind a screen
There’s no point in fussing with her hair,
Left on her own all summer,
Belly getting heavier and heavier,
Her black-necked crane sent off somewhere
x
Remote. His fault for lines that discomfited
An emperor. She keeps the lantern lit,
And now he’s sent her this totally
Horny book, with an intimate note in it.
x
He’ll be back with the cranes this winter,
If he can wheedle his way back into favour.
Now she dribbles cum all over her loose
Maternity smock. She knows he likes her flavour.
x
SHUNGA 4
Fuck the exam!
I turned up to show you my prep, not my pussy,
And don’t see why you should need to inspect
It here in your bedroom, not in your study.
Anyway, as far as you’re concerned,
x
There’s nothing to see. The sight
Of what you’ve got leaves me sealed up,
As good as intact. Get that discoloured instrument
Away from me. It makes my toes uncurl.
x
You should treat a nice girl with respect.
I don’t give a shit about your intellect.
Wrap your arm around my thigh
And you’ll see red – I mean to scratch your eye.
x
SHUNGA 5
Feeling him again.
The cherry scent of Spring offset the nip
That was still in the air. My maids had spent such ages
On my coiffeur, and he was home at last from his business trip.
A coat well-travelled and well-stuffed wallet.
x
I’d had the towels laid out for his bath,
But my plan had been to feed him first
His favourite noodles. Carefully prepared,
Dressed in my opulent best, I came in with the tray.
x
I knelt and set it down, and he
Had an appetite, yes. His hunger like a tree.
He had been a fair good while away.
The noodles? Not exactly his priority.
x
SHUNGA 6
On a floating carpet
Delicate hands, delightfully slim, such a darling hen.
She should be on stage, so able is she
To typify the perfect courtesan.
This is why I begged her to come over.
x
We could study the classics together, the key roles:
Suicidal lover, nemesis of the conqueror,
But how should a game cock tread her – since she proves
As eager for the ride but actually
x
As cocky as myself? No need to worry,
Love will always find a way to enter,
Turn the tables on what’s said in Persia,
After a summer of girls, one boy through the winter.
x
x
Shunga, literally “spring pictures”, is an erotic artistic tradition that emerged from early modern Japan, featuring graphic images of sexual activity. Produced by the thousands during the Edo period (1600-1868), shunga offered sexuality a shameless visual platform, where sexual pleasure, female sexuality, and homosexuality were not only acknowledged but encouraged.
(Artsy, Sept 24, 2013)
These can be found by scrolling down through the link.
And here is an introductory video I have made, in which I read the beginning of The Distance Measured in Days
We are gathered outside the magistrates’ court
To witness justice wither away.
Barristers with black sling-bags and grey
Drainpipe suits slink inside past officials today
As we listen to the Grim Reaper
Analyse the truth’s ignominious departure.
Big lorries blare their support.
Lamborghinis could not give a fuck.
The Lion and the Unicorn above us all
Have one comment: Dieu et mon droit.
x
We are gathered outside the magistrate’s court
Attended by the foreign press. It seems the Beeb
Is on Easter break as we unite in chants for freedom,
All too aware that this is an illusion
Rubbishing those rights for which so many fought.
A signature establishes the irrational.
The CIA are here among us trying to look hip.
And as the wife of Julian Assange
Communicates a foregone conclusion.
The prosecution flees like rats from a sinking ship.
anthonyhowelljournal 