DH Lawrence

I never saw a wild thing
sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
without ever having felt sorry for itself.

Pablo Neruda

When I see the sea once more
will the sea have seen or not seen me ?

Why do the waves ask me
the same questions I ask them ?

And why do they strike the rock
with so much wasted passion ?

Don't they get tired of repeating
their declaration to the sand ?

"knockin' on heaven's door", roland boer

this is a delicious little book.

brilliantly and shockingly iconoclastic

perverse but also creative and revelatory

I revise that slightly in the section on the Song of Songs – it was perversely and stupidly excessive and self-revealingly self-indulgent, jaded, degrading, absurd, cynical, mercenary, machine-like, plastic, empty, soul-less, chauvanistic ... and reluctantly (for me) significantly valuable in spite of the author's apparent phallic insecurities and associated sexual ambivalence.

the inter-threading and weaving of post-modern theory, marxist theory, structuralist theory through 'odd-couples' (unique pairings between popular culture and hebrew bible icon) – with an aesthetically inspired semi-mythic-narrative (shades of 'Underbelly' and 'Children of Men') that ties together the delectable streams of the research like a bouquet garni.  

I am enriched and glad for

- the candour and the arrogance of the text (without which it would never have been captured)

- that routledge had the foresight to publish it

When I touched him my hand did not pass through

When I touched him my hand did not pass through.

Something is wrong.  Something is broken.

The ocean of the bed carries us on waves.  Conflicting currents.

I turn to you just as the current separates us and place my hand on your shoulder.  It is a desperate act.

But it is just a hand on a shoulder.

It used to go right through, my hand.  It used to pass through and then redistribute itself.  But my hand was stopped by your skin.  Just a hand on a shoulder.

It is a tragedy.  You probably don’t realize the grief I feel.  I can’t pass through you anymore.  I used to pass through you and hover in a delicious space.  A garden.  A peace beyond description.  But I am outside of you.  And no matter how hard I push I can’t find the way in again.  It used to be so simple.  All I had to do was touch your shoulder and I was there.

How will I bare this life on the outside.