fandom_poetry | Entries tagged with fandom:watchmen

flyingrat42.livejournal.com

Keeping Quiet
- Pablo Neruda

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.

For once on the face of the earth
let's not speak in any language,
let's stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment,
without rush, without engine,
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.

Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victory with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and would walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
(Life is what it is about,
I want no truck with death.)

If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness,
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with
death.

Perhaps the earth is teaching us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.

Now I'll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.

( In Spanish )

eugenetapdance.livejournal.com

When We Lived With the Bomb

We had a room in Queens with a couch that opened
into a second bed. I baby-sat odd nights, your father
worked from home, proof-reading phonebooks, some
days leaving only for cigarettes. One night I found
the two of them playing cards. Look who I met
in like at Larry's Liquor. And get this, it knows
my hometown. Later it said the same thing to me
and I was from somewhere else. Did you ever go
to the light house? it asked. Ever take a boat
on Misery Bay and wonder at the dead of 1812?
We knew it wouldn't pay its way, clean house,
or feed itself. Maybe we needed the noise to hide
our silences. Maybe we needed a louder silence.
Anyway, we kept it--bought extra food, extra tickets.
If we went to the movies it sat between us, on the train
it stood and swung, if we fought it took no side but
stayed in the room. I recall thinking we should hide it
from the landlord, then watching with your father
when the landlord met it on the stairs, the way
it nodded confidently. Do you know the old Belgrade
station? Do you remember the woman who sold
fortunes there? She told mine, too. Eventually
we got better jobs, moved to the village. We said
it could stay on the couch, but if begged off, made
excuses about pride. It knew you were coming,
that you would cry, and how long.

Brendan Constantine

Buy his book!

cynic2022.livejournal.com

Kinky
by Denise Duhamel

They decide to exchange heads.
Barbie squeezes the small opening under her chin
over Ken's bulging neck socket. His wide jaw line jostles
atop his girlfriend's body, loosely,
like one of those novelty dogs
destined to gaze from the back windows of cars.
The two dolls chase each other around the orange Country Camper
unsure what they'll do when they're within touching distance.
Ken wants to feel Barbie's toes between his lips,
take off one of her legs and force his whole arm inside her.
With only the vaguest suggestion of genitals,
all the alluring qualities they possess as fashion dolls,
up until now, have done neither of them much good.
But suddenly Barbie is excited looking at her own body
under the weight of Ken's face. He is part circus freak,
part thwarted hermaphrodite. And she is imagining
she is somebody else-- maybe somebody middle class and ordinary,
maybe another teenage model being caught in a scandal.

The night had begun with Barbie getting angry
at finding Ken's blow up doll, folded and stuffed
under the couch. He was defensive and ashamed, especially about
not having the breath to inflate her. But after a round
of pretend-tears, Barbie and Ken vowed to try
to make their relationship work. With their good memories
as sustaining as good food, they listened to late-night radio
talk shows, one featuring Doctor Ruth. When all else fails,
just hold each other, the small sex therapist crooned.
Barbie and Ken, on cue, groped in the dark,
their interchangeable skin glowing, the color of Band-Aids.
Then, they let themselves go-- Soon Barbie was begging Ken
to try on her spandex miniskirt. She showed him how
to pivot as though he was on a runway. Ken begged
to tie Barbie onto his yellow surfboard and spin her
on the kitchen table until she grew dizzy. Anything,
anything, they both said to the other's requests,
their mirrored desires bubbling from the most unlikely places.

(Thanks

flyingrat42 for kicking my ass over here.)

flyingrat42.livejournal.com

( We must love one another or die. )

flyingrat42.livejournal.com

Like many of us, I'm a child of the Cold War, and I remember the Wall coming down...but I was born too late to really ever be able to understand the fear that ran so deep in the veins of America, and of the world. There are certain words that still have the power to give us a small taste of what that felt like.

We were talking about poetry.
We were talking about nuclear war.
She said she couldn’t write about it
because she couldn’t imagine it.
I said it was simple. Imagine
this doorknob is the last thing
you will see in this world.
Imagine you happen to be standing
at the door when you look down, about
to grasp the knob, your fingers
curled toward it, the doorknob old
and black with oil from being turned
so often in your hand, cranky
with rust and grease from the kitchen.
Imagine it happens this quickly, before
you have time to think of anything else;
your kids, your own life, what it will mean.
You reach for the knob and the window
flares white, though you see it only
from the corner of your eye because
you’re looking at the knob, intent
on opening the back door to the patch
of sunlight on the porch, that garden
spread below the stairs and the single
tomato you might pick for a salad .
But when the flash comes you haven’t
thought that far ahead. It is only
the simple desire to move into the sun
that possesses you. The thought
of the garden, that tomato, would have
come after you had taken the knob
in your hand, just beginning to twist it,
and when the window turns white
you are only about to touch it,
preparing to open the door.

whiskerslily.livejournal.com

The silhouette of a mountain. Above it
a dark halo of rain. Dusk’s light
fading, holding on. He thinks he’s seen
some visible trace of some absent thing.
Knows he won’t talk about it, can’t.
He arrives home to the small winter pleasures
of a clothing tree, a hatrack,
his heroine in a housedress saying hello.
He could be anyone aware of an almost,
not necessarily sad. He could be a brute
suddenly chastened by the physical world.
They talk about the storm in the mountains
destined for the valley, the béarnaise sauce
and the fine cut of beef it improves.
The commonplace and its contingencies,
his half-filled cup, the monstrous
domesticated by the six o’clock news—
these are his endurances,
in fact his privileges, if he has any sense.
Later while they make love, he thinks of
Mantle’s long home run in the ’57 Series.
He falls to sleep searching for a word.

-"Evanescence", by Stephen Dunn

This poem reminds me of Dan, post-Karnak. He and Laurie end up quite shell-shocked and broken, but they somehow manage to keep living anyway.

flyingrat42.livejournal.com

Laurie: Oh, it's sweet. Being alive is so damn sweet. (Watchmen XII: 22)

What the Living Do
- Marie Howe

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably
fell down there.
And the Drano won’t work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes
have piled up

waiting for the plumber I still haven’t called. This is the everyday we
spoke of.
It’s winter again: the sky’s a deep headstrong blue, and the sunlight
pours through

the open living room windows because the heat’s on too high in here, and
I can’t turn it off.
For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street,
the bag breaking,

I’ve been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying
along those
wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my
wrist and sleeve,

I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it.
Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called
that yearning.

What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to
pass. We want
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss – we want more and more and
then more of it.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the
window glass,
say, the window of the corner video store, and I’m gripped by a cherishing
so deep

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I’m
speechless:

I am living, I remember you.

whiskerslily.livejournal.com

"The Taxi"

When I go away from you
The world beats dead,
Like a slackened drum.
I call out for you against the jutted stars
And shout into the ridges of the wind.

Streets coming fast,
One after the other,
Wedge you away from me,
And the lamps of the city prick my eyes
So that I can no longer see your face.
Why should I leave you
To wound myself upon the sharp
edges of the night?

-Amy Lowell (1874-1925)

This is a love poem about alienation, and the feeling of loss-- which reminds me of Laurie (and of Laurie/Jon). One thing about Laurie is that ... well, she is a loner. She has no real friends (besides Dan and Jon, who end up being her lovers, and I wouldn't count her mother as a friend per se). Once Jon leaves, Laurie has very few options.

The poem has the speaker call out for the lover "against jutted stars", which just makes me think of Laurie realizing that Jon is far, far gone (both emotionally and physically -- he can't relate to her either way). And, since Laurie really has been shackled to Jon for years, she has to adjust to the world again.

PS... I have been a big fan of this community for awhile, and I'd love to help advertise it. The idea behind this communtiy is just genius, and I think lots of people would love this place if they knew about it... :D

glasspyramids.livejournal.com

Hello, insomnia. How nice to see you again.

We know how Adrian saw humanity, when he decided on his plan of action. What other moments, captured in memory, unique and savored and unmentioned, made the sacrifice worthwhile?

( Do you see? )

Current Mood: awake

eugenetapdance.livejournal.com

To continue the recent Ginsberg theme:

Howl II (the Moloch section)

Anyone who's a fan of the Minutemen era in Watchmen should read this/listen to this/know this/love this/eat this.

Moore named Moloch the Minutemen villain after the Moloch of mythology, who eats babies and all that lovely kind of thing.

Nevertheless, considering Moore's wild and crazy cultural fantasia of a brain/beard and Moloch's love for Blake (who in turn influenced Ginsberg) in some versions of canon, it's hard to believe that Moloch's characterization in the graphic novel doesn't take some influence from this section of Howl.

Text below.

( Moloch whose name is the mind! )

flyingrat42.livejournal.com

In Watchmen, the city of New York is just as much of a character as any of its human inhabitants. This poem reminds me of that.
( Sometimes when my eyes are red/I go up on top of the RCA Building/and gaze at my world, Manhattan. )

flyingrat42.livejournal.com

So, Rorschach is described in Watchmen as having excelled at literature when a student at the Charlton Home, and his journal entries indicate a remarkably poetic turn of mind. That said, I am still absolutely flabbergasted at how well some of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda's works, in translation, resonate with a Rorschach-like view of the world.

I dare you to imagine the following poem as if it were Rorschach speaking, in his gravelly voice, describing one of his dreams. Go on.

(I'll be over here, curled up under the bed.)

Agua Sexual
Pablo Neruda

( With the two halves of my soul I look at the world. )

flyingrat42.livejournal.com

So here's another Adrian Veidt poem (Watchmen). I think this works equally well whether you're thinking of the version of Veidt from the graphic novel (Utopia Justifies the Means) or the movie (Necessarily Evil).

( There was much, though, to be done/And only himself to count upon. )

flyingrat42.livejournal.com

More Watchmen. What else is new?

eugenetapdance said on his journal recently that Watchmen to him is about "optimism in the face of understanding", and belief in the essential goodness of the world. This came to mind...

An Optimistic Ditty
by Hans Magnus Enzensberger, translated by Reinhold Grimm

It does happen, now and then,
that somebody cries for help.
At once, someone else leaps into
the water, absolutely for nothing.

In the thick of fattest capitalism,
the glinting fire truck turns the corner
and quenches the flames, or silver shines
from the beggar's hat all of a sudden.

Every morning the streets are teeming
with people who run back and forth, without
drawn knives, just at their leisure,
in search of milk and radishes.

As in the midst of peace.

A glorious spectacle.

flyingrat42.livejournal.com

Another poem that came to mind when thinking of Dan/Nite Owl II, a self-professed romantic. I've loved this one for years.

( Yeah. I guess it figures...y'know, being a crimefighter and everything. It was just this adolescent, romantic thing. )

flyingrat42.livejournal.com

Here's another marvelously cynical, darkly humorous cummings poem for the Comedian/Eddie Blake.

Humanity i love you
because you would rather black the boots of
success than enquire whose soul dangles from his
watch-chain which would be embarrassing for both

parties and because you
unflinchingly applaud all
songs containing the words country home and
mother when sung at the old howard

Humanity i love you because
when you're hard up you pawn your
intelligence to buy a drink and when
you're flush pride keeps

you from the pawn shops and
because you are continually committing
nuisances but more
especially in your own house

Humanity i love you because you
are perpetually putting the secret of
life in your pants and forgetting
it's there and sitting down

on it
and because you are
forever making poems in the lap
of death Humanity

i hate you

flyingrat42.livejournal.com

Here is a sexy, sexy car poem for Hollis Mason, former masked adventurer Nite Owl (I) and grease-monkey extraordinaire!

she being Brand
e.e. cummings

she being Brand

-new;and you
know consequently a
little stiff i was
careful of her and(having

thoroughly oiled the universal
joint tested my gas felt of
her radiator made sure her springs were O.

K.)i went right to it flooded-the-carburetor cranked her

up,slipped the
clutch(and then somehow got into reverse she
kicked what
the hell)next
minute i was back in neutral tried and

again slo-wly;bare,ly nudg. ing(my

lev-er Right-
oh and her gears being in
A 1 shape passed
from low through
second-in-to-high like
greasedlightning)just as we turned the corner of Divinity

avenue i touched the accelerator and give

her the juice,good

(it

was the first ride and believe i we was
happy to see how nice she acted right up to
the last minute coming back down by the Public
Gardens i slammed on

the
internalexpanding
&
externalcontracting
brakes Bothatonce and

brought allofher tremB
-ling
to a:dead.

stand-
;Still)

flyingrat42.livejournal.com

Another stupendous Neruda poem for Watchmen.

To me this is Dan, standing in the ashes the day after the end of the world, and remembering a lost friend and what he died for.

( Yesterday, truth died a most untimely death. )

flyingrat42.livejournal.com

Watchmen is still on the brain...What can I say? You know a work is great when it entwines itself into your thoughts in all manner of ways.

Inspired by the great poem posted by

whiskerslily.
( Yesterday, I lay awake in the palm of the night. )

whiskerslily.livejournal.com

"The Mouthless Dead" by Charles H. Sorley

When you see millions of the mouthless dead
Across your dreams in pale battalions go.
Say not soft things as other men have said
That you'll remember. For you need not so.
Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should
they know
It is not curses heaped on each gashed head?
Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow.
Nor honor. It is easy to be dead.
Say only this, 'They are dead.' Then add thereto,
'Yet many a better one has died before.'
...

(This one reminds me of Adrian's nightmares after sending the Squid to NYC...)

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Entries tagged with fandom:watchmen

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Watchmen-related Cold War poetry.

Dan/Laurie

"September 1, 1939" by W. H. Auden

"The Garden", by Dorianne Laux

"Evanescence", by Stephen Dunn

What the Living Do (Marie Howe)

A little bit of Laurie lovin'...

Postscript (Heaney)

Howl II by Allen Ginsberg

My Sad Self (Ginsburg)

Agua Sexual (Neruda)

Voltaire at Ferney (Auden)

An Optimistic Ditty (Enzensberger)

Miniver Cheevy (E. A. Robinson)

Humanity i love you... (e.e. cummings)

she being Brand... (e.e. cummings)

Tal vez tenemos tiempo / Maybe we have time (Pablo Neruda)

The Names (Billy Collins)

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October 2010

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