Wednesday, November 18, 2009

3WW CLXIV (the sex, death, and betrayal issue)

Image of a fishing boat bobbing beside Waglan Island, Hong Kong, 100 meters off of the marine demarcation line for China's nautical boundary.Dear Gentle Reader,

It's 3WW time.

This week (CLXIV) the words are accident, loyal, and obscene.

As usual, each haiku gets its own American sentence title.




Id and super-ego found dead, cause unknown, "accident" has been claimed...

Loyal, royal we
auto-support our obscene
ego. Accident.



If only opera had betrayal and sex and death; we'd all watch!

Loyal henchman--Mack.
Plunged into the moll--obscene(!)
...Accident--with knife...



Who played who, who plied who, who's lied to... ...who gets the alimony now?

Accident or planned?
Loyal friend or obscene foe?
...Infidelity...




Tschuess,
Chris

And for some cognitive dissonance (or maybe I think this is all a game...), I present the music for today's post...

Click here to hear some Funkadelicious French Funk, 'Get on my camel', released in France, in 2000, by Chicago's Paul Johnson

25 comments:

Thom Gabrukiewicz said...

always a pleasure. The thinking man's poetry, I'd call it. And to merge both an American Sentence and haiku, man that's just tasty.

anthonynorth said...

Excellent, all of them. And the American Sentences were icing on the cake.

Richard Wells said...

a Kurt Weil smile

Teresa said...

Great haiku, Chris. Although I did find them obscenely murderous. The "Riding on a Camel" added a definite dissonance to the experience and heightened my senses of fear and foreboding.

I was going to say that I may have a chance to visit HK in December 2010 for a conference of translators. I was thinking of looking you up. I'm not so sure now...

Larry said...

you keep me totally confused.

Cloudia said...

"Id & Super Ego found dead"
The title for my autobiography!


Thanks dear Scribe



Nihau & Aloha, Friend!


Comfort Spiral

Jeeves said...

Nice one. Esp first one

Sepiru Chris said...

Dear Thom,

If you truly enjoy them, then I am happy as it is always a pleasure to read your finished products.


Dear Anthony,

I am glad that you enjoyed the cake and the icing.


Dear Richard,

With Bertolt Brecht breath...


Dear Teresa,

I was all excited and plumping up cushions until 2010 sunk into my brain... Leave your foreboding at home... it alerts you to danger too soon...


Dear Larry,

How so?

The first one is a classic Freudian poem referencing the ego, super-ego, and id, the royal we is the trinity, me myself and I, and yet only one of the royal we has survived....

The second is a dig a popular culture, opera--popular culture of its day, and it playfully references Brecht/Weil's Three-Penny Opera, with the protagonist, the villain MacHeath, and his famous introductory song, when translated to English, which is "Mack the Knife"... for the non-North Americans, a moll is a gangster's girl from the days of the liquor-running gangsters of Prohibition.

The third haiku is is a simple mystery/allusional haiku around infidelity and motives and questions after...

Send me your query and I will do my best to answer it; I am a fan of meaning, if not clarity...


Dear Cloudia,

You crack me up, Cloudia dear...


Dear Jeeves,

I am delighted that you like that one.


Thank you, all.

Tschuess,
Chris

gautami tripathy said...

Your haiku always make me think!

ship-wreck

Kill Word Verification

Ana said...

Neat wordplay and the mix-match with American sentences makes for an interesting poetry experiment.
The most I like the last (one).But, I’m afraid alimony depends on the state law, and in certain states does not matter who’s friend or foe but who made more money…

Julia Phillips Smith said...

'If only opera had betrayal and sex and death; we'd all watch!' - LOL!

Sepiru Chris said...

Dear Gautami,

As does yours, dear, as does yours.


Dear Ana,

Indeed, community property states, in the USA, are like that. I believe, but US law is not my field and divorce law not my interest.

Thankfully I am not wearing my professional advice hat, or wearing a forensic wig, either, today.

Actually, in my jurisdiction of call, I never have to wear a forensic wig... I prefer my horsehair underneath me, and over swiftly retreating fields, rather than on my head in curls and tails.

I am, however, delighted that you enjoyed the experiment.


Dear Julia,

Pleased to know you smiled. :)

Thank you, all three of you.

Tschuess,
Chris

Linda Jacobs said...

Hi Chris, I saw your comment about "Chinese Pie." What can I say? That's just what we've always called it. Even our cafeteria in school calls it that and I don't think anyone has ever mentioned the racist aspect. We've all just grown up with it and it seems normal. I also remember having it in college which is still in NH but a couple hours south of where I live.

I know times have changed and we have to be more politically correct but it's just part of my heritage as a French/Irish Catholic growing up in a mill town in northern NH. It is what it is. Sorry it jarred you so much!

Tumblewords: said...

Quite exquisite to read the tri-roll of double 17's.
Sex, death and betrayal pretty much spell life in a nutshell, I think. Hm. 17.

Dee Martin said...

I love the combination of the sentence and the haiku. It creates an entirely new art form. The third was my favorite but having all three together with the sing song swing back and forth rhythm is musical all on it's own.

Fireblossom said...

Pommes the Wonder Cat

Likes apples and applejack

That's it and that's that


ta da! *strikes pose*

Teresa said...

Chris, I am saving my pennies for airfare. I was just teasing about the forebodings. Glad to know the pillows will be well and heartily plumped by December 2010!

Ann (bunnygirl) said...

You did a lot with the prompts this week! The first one really made me smile, though. Just like an ego, really, to rid itself of the others...

when the musics over said...

All three quite good, Chris. I particularly enjoyed the alliteration in the last American sentence. Great take on 3WW

missalister said...

Oh, for chrissakes, you say you’re not clever. Bollocks. I love Thom’s comment. Truly, you are a thinking man, and they are indeed clever, as you are, you and Paschal with your sky-high IQs… I am conveniently only loyal to visceral, obscenely so; and clever, if clever happens, is merely an accident.

Enough of our back-patting here already! I’ll tell you the thing that tickled me most, and that thing is to do with your first combo: without saying auto-immune, the auto-support and obsence made it so, so that Id and Super-ego—both, along with Ego, in the same monkey-mind racket—turned one on the other and now we are no thing but enlightened!

There, Monsieur Chris, I have proven my point, that I am not a thinking chick, just a visceral one ; )

Sepiru Chris said...

Dear Linda,

Thanks for the update, and I appreciate your follow-up. I am utterly convinced that it was as you say it is, re Chinese Pie.

I, also, strongly suspect it is as I think it is which is why it bothered me and why I felt compelled to write a note.

And I liked what I read, that point aside. Thanks for the taking the time to comment and explain. I appreciate it.

Dear Tumblewords,

:) You know, I had a bet running with myself that if you came to visit I'd have a 17 syllable reply. Something about my appreciation of your skill as a word tumbler, and your sense of play. I love to be proven right.

I just hope there is some redemption mixed in with that betrayal mixer which encapsulates life. Or some really hot sex to make it all worthwhile... (Stage 1 for the boy born in Lumbini [Prince Siddhartha Gautama].)


Dear Dee,

I like the combinations too, mostly because I like the East-meets-West feeling, and because I like titles.

Interestingly, to me, the American sentence (17 syllables in one line), as a poetic structure is far closer to the Japanese haiku than the Western-style haiku (5-7-5 syllables on three lines) that I so rigorously stick to.

The Japanese require a total sentence, or a set of words and phrases, comprising a total of 17 syllables on three lines.

But, apart from the structure, if you found grace or fun, then that simply rocks.


Liebe Feurbluete (FB),

...

Strike a pose, there's nothing to it

Vogue, vogue
Vogue, vogue

...

All you need is your own imagination
So use it that's what it's for
Go inside, for your finest inspiration
Your dreams will open the door

It makes no difference if you're black or white
If you're a boy or a girl
If the music's pumping, it will give you new life
You're a superstar, yes, that's what you are, you know it

(Madonna, Vogue)

*strikes a pose, then a bow*

*considers striking a gong, as the shepherd's crook grabs him by the waist (waste?) and pulls him, flailing (and, usefully, threshing), from the stage...*


Dear Teresa,

Excellent. With no foreboding the schemes will be such much easier to enact. .... *cackle*.

You know, Teresa, last night I heard "Thriller", by Michael Jackson, for the first time in years. I had forgotten how much I missed his voice. And, did you know that he studied art history, and fine art, at both Yale and at the Courtauld Institute? I would have loved to have met him at a dinner party. And, back to you, it will be great to meet you. Squirrel those pennies away! Winter 2010 is approaching!


Dear Ana,

Your voice sounds just like your characters! Wow! Case in point...
"Just like an ego, really, to rid itself of the others..." I can utterly imagine that was said by, say, a rock band manager...

And, Ana, it is just like an ego.

Don't tell Carl that I said so, but sometimes, just sometimes Siggy had things spot on. Then Siggy became too startled, I think by the societal implications of his findings and he fled from his observations. And his good work...


Dear MichaelO,

I am so pleased that you enjoyed them. And, seeing as how the post started with Freud, and my last response also dealt with Freud, one has to query what Freud would think about your e-moniker tag...

Michael, although also an archangel, derives from Hebraic "מִיכָאֵל / מיכאל" or "Mikha'el" being an interrogative, a question, meaning "Who is like God?".

...And then you finish up with "the BIG O"....

I say, Michael.

wOw!

Sepiru Chris said...

Dear Miss Alister,

Don't get me wrong, MA, I know that I am clever. I just hope that sometimes it comes out clever rather than say, pedantic. Or overblown.

But what I meant to say over at your e-house, is to praise you for the utter richness of your verbal, written creations.

And, for the record, I think you are clever, too. But visceral is what remains. No one reads G.K. Chesterton, now. Well. I do. But, most people don't. They go for the stuff that sways the soul. Or hits you in the gut after smashing out the emotional solar plexus. Or strokes you softly, like a cat's tail in the morning, before that tail morphs into a succubi's whisper that steals your breath away.

Your work has visceral impact and you steal my breath almost every time I come e-knocking and reading.

That is what I meant.

So, I'm delighted that my clever is.

And, I meant what I told you. Get thee to a publisher. So, how delighted was I to see your next post on slumming? Very.


Thank you all so very much for stopping by and commenting.

I know how much effort it entails as I so often read, and comment in my head, but do not share the comments with the creator.

So, thanks.

Tschuess,
Chris

Fireblossom said...

LOL! Btw, I love that song.

The useful threshing to go with the thrashing still has me giggling.

one more believer said...

yeah, yeah..what misalister sed...nad all the others...and all of that...i was thinkin the spanish novelas instead of opera... haha..and thanks for the comment back there on my post on the previous 3ww...

when the musics over said...

Chris, thanks for that! You bear fodder to the adage "what's in a name?" It's good to know someone can appreciate the forethought that went into my moniker! ;>)