The first, segue, presents us with a reverse run-through of a life, from the protagonist's observations about his funeral, to his faintly optimistic attitude to birth.
and I,
having used up every organ
and passing on the post-mortem,
wonder, who chose the music?
Goddammit, I said when I was dead
I wanted a feast in a field
with pissed people pissing around
swilling whiskey to the dulcet sounds
of Bobbie Gentry and the Grateful Dead,
instead, I have Mozart, Chopin, Brahms,
and some poor bastard I can't even name:
I would've preferred Wagner, loud.
swathe of new cut grass
as it tickles bees' bellies
atop the grave mound.
segues to
I am the discombobulation of the molecules passed
on to me by that life that used to be,
born again with similar features,
but just that little bit different,
a combination mix-mash animation
and I cry, scream my fucking lungs out,
use my animal voice, because I know,
ahead of me somewhere out there,
there is a life replete with the truth,
the only freedom I'll ever have
is choice.
And in between we see why people are pissed and pissed off with their existence.
These poems are grown-up in the sense that they reflect identity, the identity of the protagonist one assumes to be David E Oprava as he confronts modernity and what is perversely called postmodernity, the destructured and deconstructed sense of non-specific identity that people are supposed to pretend to like, Kitsch and intellectual abortionists who try to suck all the goodness out of foreign cultures that used to have a lot going for them. The poetic voice in this book is like a voice of sanity protesting the emptiness
You're not even here. You are in your world that revolves
around axis weird and I thought it was cute, sweet, an
infantile treat to find someone so raw and pure, unsullied
by human nature, so beguiling and immature. But now
we are thirty-five going on dead and that same feckless
look you have been playing with is the result of all the
meds you take, not some inner peace that only you see,
hear, and feel, this is life baby, this is the real deal.
or, from another poem
Media internalized external stimuli pictures the populace could abide of
forces at play, left alone with their sway of opinion unchecked by moderation
left alone to portray the other as lesser and the common as more, close the
door on influx of dissimilar, mind, where did the majority find the time out
of the factory fields to discover too late that once they too were the object
of hate?
And thus the game was lost.
Generally, many of the poems are full of a delightful negativity, strong and potent, a jukebox of nihilism
--- shit. Name one thing that isn't, see, I told you
so. LOVE? Are you fucking kidding me, when have I not
been shat upon by doves with tits and claws, or politics, or
socio-economic stratification as the crap just settles to the
bottom where most of us swim, shit, what about a beautiful
day, maybe if you have coke-bottle glasses and don't see
the carcinogens in every molecule of bubble-ridden syrupy
existence, I know, a rose by any other name smells just
as shit, bred with thorns, without, smelling, non-smelling,
red, blue, white, yellow, purple, pink, some prick sits in a
lab and plays with the genes 'til it seems like the perfect
flower, but where the fuck is the real thing? Gone, gone
But the collection also includes a poem about the passing of the poet's father that, without messing around with any clichés, conveys the importance of the event by the poem locating the feeling while looking for anger and rejection. After that the collection ends with "LOVE: is a partially loaded gun" - great poem, relationships going out not with a whimper but a bang - it seems better, Mr Burroughs.
Oprava's poetry is nimble and still heavy, the flashing play of the verse does not detract from the weight of the contents, we are all waiting for death and need to relate to it. But death is shy sometimes, it needs some encouragement. Buy this book, you won't regret it. There's a lot about life in it too, and about everything in between.
