Write up
And at the actors are following me-
need an author to write them down
Damn praxis of subjectivity-
greedy stories-each wantin’the crown
The truth, the right-
proof their mem’ry. triumphs all
Held up. to the light:
Hist’ry written. final call
to the dead: “we did it
we wrote our your wrongs
its was said, they admit it
we sang out your songs”
and the weight-it crushes
to write some’thing of use
and thus create- fitfull rushes
objective stories- the abuse
the pain .the suffering
democracy bursting at the stitches
the rain. the shuffling….
blood pours as they hunt those witches
To write the other side-
must get where its coming from
The stand between the lines-
The reasons its resting on
The fallacy . of neoliberal growth
The phallic-ly military belief in both
Women in the house- men (dead) in d’streets
Raping their spouse-‘s they beat’m.t’the-beats
Of the drummers’ drums – as these lives pass them by
Drip through bloodied hands- and the souls reach the sky
Each blow. a reactionary blast from the past
The tables they turned- at last at -last
Order this cancer - this belief there is change
Kill this pink panther- this Fidel-ist rage
Shooting all beards, all women in trousers
The devil reared- these red rabble rousers
Re-writing history with the blood they spill
Their press, their laws, the willing lost their will
To counter.to cry out.fear squeezin them down
Out of love they come back- slowing regaining ground
Limbo-ish wait for historians redemption
Broad sweeping statements- as I casually mention
How they Destroyed the other, polarised ripping apart
Of exceptional democracy- the loss of heart
As church called for the military- some order please
Steel cold bureaucracy- terrorising, by decrees
A polarised narrative of a polarised time
All black and white- no reason no rhyme
But what of the greys- the cracks -and slips
No space for the may-bes- lurches and dips
The murky wrongs of those fighting for freedom
Acid-scarred children- bombing- they lead on
To uncomfortable comparison- well the army killed more
A cleansed-up narrative- mere victims- the poor
Agentless ‘pueblo’-just forgot it did fight
Killers and victims- the wrong and the right
Agents of state- pushed to the edge
By feckless politics- the cold war’s thin wedge
freedom fighters- they be murderers too
we dont like this- thats consensus for you
losing the agency to legitimately fight
to the god of consensus-the compromised right
to lay down your weapons- pick up burgers instead
wi-fi and Nippon- cheap cars- and the dead?
well we bury ourselves- in coffins of glass
no fairytale prince- no at last at last
no kiss of redemption- just neoliberal judas
the state of exemption-now accepted view’as
the economy is seen as the military's gift
for the rich torture was an exceptional lift
as the glass ceiling was reinforced- a few flew by keep the poor divorced- from the stars in the sky.
Wednesday, 28 January 2009
Thursday, 8 January 2009
No block, when I rhyme
I'm currently writing up my dissertation on Chile's report about torture. Well, trying to.
The first section is about how when one reads the Valech report, one is overcome by how pervasive and massive this repression really was- beaches you love becomes the sea where that the disaparecidos were thrown into, deserts become mass graves, my 'trapeze'- Chile- becomes a much more complicated place.
The second half is about how I find it really hard to reconcile my feelings of duty to those who helped me along my way, and my intention to write a critical piece, that is of societal use. Perhaps it's the idea that an undergraduate dissertation can be of use, that is the problem. But what can one do but try.
Conceptualization
And the trapeze I was sitting on- it was the executioners noose
And the white sands stretching long- they were sun-bleached-bones, loose
The first section is about how when one reads the Valech report, one is overcome by how pervasive and massive this repression really was- beaches you love becomes the sea where that the disaparecidos were thrown into, deserts become mass graves, my 'trapeze'- Chile- becomes a much more complicated place.
The second half is about how I find it really hard to reconcile my feelings of duty to those who helped me along my way, and my intention to write a critical piece, that is of societal use. Perhaps it's the idea that an undergraduate dissertation can be of use, that is the problem. But what can one do but try.
Conceptualization
And the trapeze I was sitting on- it was the executioners noose
And the white sands stretching long- they were sun-bleached-bones, loose
With the years of forgetting
And the report is a map- 4000 k of torture and death
‘N they don’t give a crap- wine, eat and shop, laugh lest ...
...We remember
Don’t think, just be- a democracy made of cheap hotdogs, no books
Eighty percent illiteracy*- gossip mags and saucy looks
98% of detained women were sexually abused
And lest we forget- we’ve all moved on, no-one cares
Family victims I ‘spect- still holding on- yet everyone stares
Look- the ‘ familiares’ with the black and white
photographs of the dead
Communist conspiracies- why blame the military now
Oh n’ innocent kids-I see- 33 thousand lives- oh wow.
-and the (copper-bought) traffic
goes on,
down roads of cheap consumerism ,
stretching long.
Write up
And at the actors are following me-
need an author to write them down
Damn praxis of subjectivity-
greedy stories-each wants the crown
The truth, the right-
proof their mem’ry. triumphs all
Held up. to the light:
history written, final call
to the dead, “we did it
we wrote our your wrongs
its was said, they admit it
we sang out your songs”
and the weight-it crushes
to write some’thing of use
and thus create- fitfull rushes
objective stories- the abuse
[the pain .the suffering
democracy bursting at the stitches
lead rain- the shuffling
blood pours as they hunt those witches. ]**
goes on,
down roads of cheap consumerism ,
stretching long.
Write up
And at the actors are following me-
need an author to write them down
Damn praxis of subjectivity-
greedy stories-each wants the crown
The truth, the right-
proof their mem’ry. triumphs all
Held up. to the light:
history written, final call
to the dead, “we did it
we wrote our your wrongs
its was said, they admit it
we sang out your songs”
and the weight-it crushes
to write some’thing of use
and thus create- fitfull rushes
objective stories- the abuse
[the pain .the suffering
democracy bursting at the stitches
lead rain- the shuffling
blood pours as they hunt those witches. ]**
[...]**provisional ending
.
TBC- I want this to be an epicpoem (in length)
*Chile is estimated to have 80% functional illiteracy- people who don’t read in their day-to-day lives.
.
TBC- I want this to be an epicpoem (in length)
*Chile is estimated to have 80% functional illiteracy- people who don’t read in their day-to-day lives.
writer's (B)lock.
Working on my dissertation about the Commission on torture, Chile 2003-2004.
Writer's block seems to send me to new heights of self doubt.
This is an extract from a leeter I wrote a friend.
It's interesting, as Chile really didn’t think torture was that important at all. If you look at the speech Lagos made, re: launching the torture commission, he dedicated about a sentence to the whole thing- blink and you miss it style.
What is difficult about my dissertation is that I'm trying to combine the subjective elements, with writing something that is objectively useful (or subjectively useful at the very least)
Reading the Valech report is so reminiscent of being taught history in Chile... 'this isn't interpretation, rather the facts'. My standard response is this: 'What this essay seeks to analyse is the very narrative created in the ‘balanced’, apolitical, supposedly non-interpretative representation of ‘fact’'
I'm becoming quite the trendy academic, with my references to discourse and the overlaps and incongruence between truth and memory, and the problems inherent in the historicisation of living memory...
It's all quite terrifying.
I feel I am doomed to repeat the same semi-postmodernist analyses about the construction of a dominant historical discourse and the contests between different actors to counter the hegemony of an 'official truth' and (in this analysis at least) a mercurio-santioned official history.
Thus my 'originality' stems from arguing that the ideological hegemony seems to have been some sort of compromise between the concertacion and leading interests (as represented by the mercurio).
My fate seems to be becoming a slightly revisionist historian whose greatest innovation was arguing what commonsense shouts out.
Writer's block seems to send me to new heights of self doubt.
This is an extract from a leeter I wrote a friend.
It's interesting, as Chile really didn’t think torture was that important at all. If you look at the speech Lagos made, re: launching the torture commission, he dedicated about a sentence to the whole thing- blink and you miss it style.
What is difficult about my dissertation is that I'm trying to combine the subjective elements, with writing something that is objectively useful (or subjectively useful at the very least)
Reading the Valech report is so reminiscent of being taught history in Chile... 'this isn't interpretation, rather the facts'. My standard response is this: 'What this essay seeks to analyse is the very narrative created in the ‘balanced’, apolitical, supposedly non-interpretative representation of ‘fact’'
I'm becoming quite the trendy academic, with my references to discourse and the overlaps and incongruence between truth and memory, and the problems inherent in the historicisation of living memory...
It's all quite terrifying.
I feel I am doomed to repeat the same semi-postmodernist analyses about the construction of a dominant historical discourse and the contests between different actors to counter the hegemony of an 'official truth' and (in this analysis at least) a mercurio-santioned official history.
Thus my 'originality' stems from arguing that the ideological hegemony seems to have been some sort of compromise between the concertacion and leading interests (as represented by the mercurio).
My fate seems to be becoming a slightly revisionist historian whose greatest innovation was arguing what commonsense shouts out.
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