Finally! A short poem from me!!! It's not really a complete poem: It's part of a poem saga I planned to write, and that saga is something I've never ventured into. Something that's quite explicit to be going about with. I would say it is for you to judge, and it is upto me to do the writing... :) Enjoy
This isn’t a satire of Roman Polanski’s incredible 1996 movie starring Sigourney Weaver and Ben Kingsley, but it’s something personal: A satire rather of writing styles. I personally believe that writing has got to be in such a way that people reading it will actually be able to READ it and not try to DECIPHER it. It’s not a code: It’s just an assortment of words strung together to make music sound better :)
So in this notion, I write this ‘spoof’ on what I actually am writing simultaneously, a serious story which is as mischievous as it is a revelation. Ladies and Gentlemen, let me introduce you, to what is certainly NOT going to be my very own, DEATH AND THE MAIDEN…
“The Cross – That deitified emblem upon which one of the noblest of mortals, and immortals together had been issued a termination from his post of worldliness. And mutiny though he did, or continue though his existence in the ages passed, the moments on the verge of becoming history and the ages yet to be rolled out the red carpet, mortalisation is still as prickly as the unearthly is blissful. But venture or venture not, the worldly mundane, the forces of universal integrity do happen to shove pioneers and gist-breakers up through dusty cracks on this blue planet, to set first foot on roads seldom ventured into. And if exploration of the inevitable could be considered as brilliant as it is insane, then these pieces of a quadrupled cerebrum would very well be the daredevils of a generation yet to surface…
They could very well be the next big thing…
And that precisely, was what they desired
The Cross – That was how the tetrad rested their parts of personal invisibility on four comfortably engineered pieces of teak, their heads enclosing an obvious void at the very supposed origin of all warmth and humanity sustaining chasms of good beneath expanses of red, green and black. And this notion of axial emptiness is never intended to be metaphorical, that people essentially are heartless, but rather a cacophony directed at the ignorance of the common when interpretation and the urge to perceive obstructed all access to that other sense that had been installed by mandate in every hominid mind the mortal are cursed to be oblivious about. A laugh as exhilaratingly gleeful, probably, as that of Mozart when musically abuse he did, his formers, contemporaries, friends and fellow foes: A mark of overconfidence with a steroidal dash of mischief, circumscribing it all…”
Anyway, I guess a satire doesn’t get any better than this: Don't you think???
I must emphasise I did it again, with this poem: This is a song by the way. My second attempt at songs, and the first one completed (I stopped the other deliberately knowing I'm heading the wrong way). And again, I doubt very much, that this could be sung in any time under ten minutes. Probably you ought to cut down on the music score, and take away a few minutes of background music. But that's gonna hamper my song for sure, which means this is gonna be the next November Rain, in terms of Length!!! :DLet's hope you relish the goodbye kiss (And I mean the end of my song, not the picture I posted :D)
GOODBYE KISS
A thousand hesitations,
More than a man could ever face;
I felt in a single moment,
My personal End of Days.
Hit high on a frenzy,
Insanity made me sweat;
I sat limp on my old couch,
Sketching on new Blue Velvet…
When an age it takes, to conquer,
For even the mightiest king;
I took a moment for the telephone,
To pick it up and sing:
“Hey.. Girl!
Know you’re feeling sad;
Livid, waiting to break-up,
On your man seen being bad…”
“But Wait!
Need to tell you something before;
That girl’s just another friend,
Baby, you’re something more!”
“Oh Babe!
You’re a mark on my heart!
Indelible, as long as I live,
But if you still wanna part…”
“I’d say okay!
Just for you to know,
That your word’s my mandate,
However far you may try to go…”
“Girl, you’re all my life,
The crystal of my Atlantis;
You don’t know how I’ll miss you,
Oh Baby, give a Goodbye kiss…”
I could sense, I heard her fume,
Could even scent her sweet perfume;
More than a line, she didn’t resume,
“I presume”…”You’ll meet me today…”
I hung up, dazed, looking around,
Echoes in my head resound;
Angel’s given me an extra round,
Of sound… I didn’t know what to say…
‘No problem if she forgives me,
What if she said she didn’t care?
What if she chose to dampen our love
To a friendship… Now how’s that fair?!’
“Baby!
A friend’s just an excuse;
‘Especially when a woman wishes,
It’s sure for no future use!”
“So Honey please, let’s rather part,
A wound’s better, o’er a broken heart;
And, your love lesser will I miss,
If you say goodbye, with a goodbye kiss…”
“Goodbye with a goodbye kiss…”
“Girl, you’re every breath I take,
And every single move I make,
Is for you; for the love we share,
Oh Please don’t tell me you don’t care!!!”
“Baby, give a goodbye kiss…”
……
“Say goodbye with a goodbye kiss…”
‘I finally met my Angel,
Moments after her call;
In the park, said it’s quieter,
Than the downtown mall’
‘Took no time to get there,
Lot longer to walk;
To hell with the saying, ‘cause
Tough was the walk in the park!’
‘And tougher was it to talk,
Was the wind which spoke for me;
My eyes were a second option,
Hers were for me to see…’
‘Gosh! She was pretty…
Hair blown by the breeze;
Communicating with her brow,
Asking me, “Is it so?”
And I smiled a “Yes”, with ease…’
“You’re in every part of my heart,
Girl! Let’s not stop, let’s just start;
Saying goodbye can never suffice,
Even with a Goodbye kiss…”
‘My! Did I say how her lips align?
In a moment, they were onto mine,
She kissed me… No prior sign,
And stepped back, eyes fully alive…’
‘I said nothing, before and after,
Not deliberately, I didn’t know;
She beat me, saying a single line,
“Goodbye love… Until tomorrow…”’
‘The sweetest words I’ve ever heard,
Thrust me into a state of bliss;
Words better than her best,
Even better was her Goodbye kiss…’
Girl!
Better was your Goodbye kiss…
Your eyes!
Better was your Goodbye kiss…
Your words!
Better was your Goodbye kiss…
……
“Girl, you’re all over my heart,
Shall never stop, let’s always start;
Afresh; a goodbye can never suffice,
Even with your Goodbye kiss…”
“At this!
Even with your Goodbye kiss…”
You’re the crystal of my Atlantis…
Hey.. Girl!
Better was your goodbye kiss…
Oh she said goodbye!
……
Goodbye with a Goodbye kiss…
I worried on my ‘hit or miss’…
Goodbye with a Goodbye kiss…
Goodbye with a Goodbye kiss…
Goodbye with a
GOODBYE KISS!!!
This is an original work of P.KARTHIK and any unauthorized use or use without proper permission or documentation or the writer’s consent is a criminal and punishable offence.
STARRING: JULIETTE BINOCHE, FANG SONG, SIMON ITEANU.
RATING: ****
This movie, a remake of THE RED BALLOON, a 1956-Academy Award winning film by Albert Lamorisse, is supposed to have been one of the films that enthralled critics, viewers, one and all at Cannes early this year, the others being ‘4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days’ and Gus Van Sant’s truly engrossing ‘Paranoid Park’. These two are pieces of information I did not know before I watched the movie, and I am sure that in case I had known this, my subconscious mind would have compelled my lips to mouth (Or my fingers to type in this case!) that what I had watched was indeed a remarkable film, something I could easily have forced myself to believe even. I’m not to be blamed for this, for critics these days seem to be redefining ‘boredom’ as ‘excellence’ what with films like ‘Gerry’ (By Gus Van Sant again!) receiving critical acclaim. Film Directors and respectable critics could share a few jokes indeed, but should it be at the expense of a common film aficionado?
‘The Flight of the Red Balloon’ isn’t stupid by the way, if you people have started to take that angle of thought. My point is just that good movies can be taken in ways more interesting than this. Mr. Hou seems to have exploited the celluloid quite effectively indeed, for events in this movie are a spectrum indeed but just vaguely distributed. There’s nothingness on a grand scale, followed by a short-scale occurrence of a lot of things in quick succession that is quite overwhelming, especially since that type of an occurrence is typecast whenever the frazzled and extremely preoccupied Suzanne (Binoche) walks into the frame. And Hou also emphasizes upon a sort of gradual unfolding of conversations and sequences even, an example being a sequence in a train, where Suzanne talks of a very important postcard of hers from her adolescent times, and it’s just her till she hands out the postcard to Song (Song Fang) sitting opposite to her, who again translates whatever she said, to a third man, a Mr.Zhang, to whom actually, the postcard is presented. A similar thing occurs in a telephonic monologue in a cab, with visual exploit of reflections upon the transparent glass, by Suzanne, that’s one of the two crucial monologues in the movie, and is no doubt, expertly photographed.
The film essentially begins with a beautiful conversation between Suzanne’s son Simon (Iteanu) and the imaginary red balloon that’s actually the red balloon Hou’s film boasts of, in which he innocently asks it to come down to be with him: An indication of the boy’s loneliness, for he misses his mother’s true love, what with her being too busy over her puppet plays and eviction of her once-friendly tenant, who seems to have taken a liking towards not paying rents though having a good stock in his bank account.Simon also misses his sister who’s living in Brussels alone, while his Dad is lodged at Montreal, trying to do some justice to a book he’s working on (Suzanne is divorced, obviously). The Red Balloon appears friendly: In fact, it proves to be more than just a Red Balloon, for once it leaves him safe in the train he’s expected to board, it wobbles all over a picture-perfect Paris, finally leading to a bus, out of which a Gabriel-like girl, Song Fang, A film student in Paris, hops out to meet Suzanne at her theatre school: Song is Simon’s newly hired Nanny. Suzanne tells Song in their first car trip that she doesn’t seem to be shy: Song disagrees, saying she’s a bit. But as the film progresses we agree upon Suzanne’s point.
Those bold, yet limited words of Song when she gets to spend a lot of value time with little Simon is what makes him open out to her. She doesn’t care to ask why he says his sister Louise is merely a ‘pretend’ sister; nor does she hesitate to say “I guessed so”, when Simon innocently says his parents are divorced. She has a camera on her that she uses to record whatever Simon does, and he in turn films what she does, and that includes his expertise on Pinball-playing, as well as Song’s first pancake-making lesson. She says she’s making a film on a red balloon, which points out that, incidentally, the red balloon is everywhere: On the side of a building, as a painting, wobbling outside a window alongside Song’s reflection, above Simon’s skylight as he sleeps under it. The Balloon is a nice metaphor of the imaginary world that unites Song and Simon – A bond he has never been given a chance to share with his mother. She’s more like a sister to him, for his sequences with Louise always appear to follow or precede those he shares with Song. Simon hardly speaks with her, and Song hardly ever speaks (!) but still, between the naturally introverted Simon, and the reserved Song, their silence is what ultimately speaks…
Juliette Binoche appears to be a certainty for every good film made contemporarily in France: Michael Haneke’s ‘Cache’ had her, and here she is again this year to captivate one and all with a beautiful and good-humoured portrayal of Suzanne. She does great justice as the woman who is helpless about her present state, of things that happen and how she wished they weren’t that way: Her desperation shows when she badly wants her daughter to move with them, so that she could be with her. Fantastic again, is the scene where Suzanne and Song discuss Song’s film called ‘Origins’ which, according to Suzanne, told of things she had neglected so long. “I felt like I could almost hear my dad pacing about the room, and my mother slamming the door”, says Suzanne excitedly, as Song simply smiles and expresses her thanks. Song Fang is beautiful as the courteous, just and measured Taiwanese girl, who develops a nice friendship with the person she’s supposed to develop: Simon. Simon Iteanu as Simon is every bit of the kid he’s portrayed on screen, and the match of his real and cinematic names suggests that the director could very well have used his true mannerisms on screen, for he seems to be natural in whatever he does, be it swinging about a lamp-post or asking his mom ‘Why she’s in such a hurry’.
Excellent photography, especially in truly dramatic sequences involving a blind piano-tuner, and those involving transparent glass windows make it wondrous, visually. The music score is good too, perhaps an extra edge it is in the penultimate sequence again, where the sounds of the man tuning Simon’s piano are the only music in the background and that music in turn is beautifully arranged. Some nice shots, particularly (as mentioned before) the gradual unfolding of characters involved in a conversation, as well as a sudden cascade of occurrences after ages of silence. The puppets are symbols of Song’s strong ethical backdrop, which also serve to alter Suzanne, and help her rediscover and re-establish the love she has upon her son. ‘The Flight of the Red Balloon’ is an addition to the collection of nightmarish child tales, where the only problem of the child is his/her negligence. Hou doesn’t want Simon to be neglected: He has his angel to take care of that. An angel who kisses Simon good night as the Godly Red Balloon supervises from above. And you smile at how lucky a child Simon is…
‘The Flight of the Red Balloon’ isn’t a drag: It’s just my review of it that is. The movie had a load of things for sure. The only problem is that it’s director Mr. Hou chooses to tell them to us in the sober way he thinks life actually is…
At the beginning of this poem, I told myself that this would be the first time I am going to edit a poem of mine, because all my previous ones have crossed the 100-line barrier, one that's proving to be too much of a hindrance to me. So I sat pre-planned, that this one is surely gonna be a 70-liner: Nothing less, nothing more. And I erred again...
I should not have sat with a mind full of thoughts, I should never have lived with a stuffed mind, stuffed especially in the involuntary part. For again I wrote a hundred and thirty lines: And again I felt I shouldn't edit... Well I could ask you folks to judge for yourself, not much of words to say that! But it takes a whole lot more: Cause 130 lines make a whole page on here!
Still I thought I had to say, for this is the first time I convey, my true feelings: One without love. One a whole lot higher. Something that the world's neglected: Something the world's never wanted to believe. Something I certainly believe in.
Something that can't be real for sure: Something that beyond all this, is actually the truth...
This is how my poem ends: These are the last few lines. Hope you enjoy it: Enjoy it enough to say you truly felt my point :)
THE MONK WHO SOLD EINSTEIN...
“Listen up son, for these could be my last,
My last words ever spoken;
Scream to the world that the force exists,
My conscience thou shalt bear as a token.”
“Never should you believe in a single God,
One’s too good to be true;
It takes a whole lot more for the world to function,
