#28 - Le Petit Omar

(Russell J Turner)

This year we are using films from the Sight and Sound 2022 list as prompts

Seventh up from me is Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers (1966 - #46), concentrating on the women and children involved in the conflict, particularly Little Omar and Hassiba Ben Bouali

You slip into a status and a smile
You map the maze that men may slowly learn
You host the home, the monument and trial
You cut and paste the masks of no return
You blow the bars with gifts of wire and dial
You live, you love, you kiss, you kill, you burn

He grows up with the heroes of the past
He learns to run the streets under disguise
He brings the word, delivered low and fast
He shouts a bold defiance to the skies
He is a child soldier at the last
He grips Hassiba’s hand, and then he dies

We never know the loss until they’re gone ‒
le petit Omar, il n’a que treize ans...

RJT

#27 - Strange Beasts Arrested

Fay Roberts’s final sonnet this year is inspired by Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s romantic, mythic, surreal creation, the Thai movie Sud Pralad (2004), written by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and starring Banlop Lomnoi, Sakda Kaewbuadee, and Huai Dessom

I do not want to watch this film tonight.
Don’t get me wrong: I want to see the thing,
to get engaged with strangers’ layered plights,
suspend myself, and feel my spirit sing.

The critics call it vivid, taut, and lush;
ambitious, beautiful, and quite surreal.
The thing is – art that good should not be rushed,
but, damn it all: I signed up for this deal!

Well, fine, I’ll check the platforms it was on;
both English phrase and Thai to be quite sure…
It’s disappeared; it’s vanished – up and gone!
So was it ever there, or just a lure?

It seems they’ll have to wait another day
(until I’ve found a price I’m game to pay).

Image from the Sabzian listing of the press kit for the movie

Humph! I was really looking forward to this one, but was worried I didn’t have the spoons to focus on subtitles and complex, mythic symbolism tonight. Now we’ll never know! If you have access to the DVD, which is the only legal place it seems to be (and too short notice for my deadline), you can watch the 1:58 long, Thai language movie there. Content warnings include: violence, homophobia, heartbreak (I guess… from the stuff I’ve read!). Let us know what you thought if you’ve seen it!

#26 - Sancho the Bailiff (1954)

This poem was inspired by Sansho the Bailiff, a 1954 Japanese period film directed by Kenji Mizoguchi. This film is about two aristocratic children who are sold into slavery in seventeenth century Japan. That felt like too big a topic for me to tackle in 14 lines, so I got distracted by the style of the film instead… 

#26 – Stories told in monochrome 

A story told in black and white may seem

archaic. I assure you that it’s not. 

It’s history. It’s certain, like a dream;

the tones are sharper, and the patterns pop.

The shadows take a darker kind of hue – 

both literal and in symbolic sense.

Without the colours, there’s nothing to do

but focus on the plot. It’s more intense,

the gravitas seeps through the monochrome

and bathes the retinas in sombre tones.

The black and white is stark as written poems;

as stark as dampened earth and pallid bones. 

As serious as colour film can be,

these black and white constraints set stories free. 

LM 

Image via IMDB

#25 - Our Motto:

 #19 - Apocalypse Now (1979)

I love the smell of napalm in the morning!

If someone tells me that’s their favourite line,

I’ll likely take that as a useful warning,

and think: This dufus ain’t no friend of mine!

 

cuz if you think that Kilgore is your idol,

it’s fair to say you’ve missed the movie’s theme.

which makes me think All Yanks are homicidal!

with Wagner-flavoured national fever dreams.

 

For me, the key is Willard’s opening speech –

imprisoned in a dark he can’t control,

lamenting wasted time and virtues bygone –

as peace and sanity twist out of reach,

he growls a line from out his tortured soul:

 Saigon. Shit. I’m still only in Saigon.

AWB

to see the video of this poem and more, check out Andy's Patreon

#24 - Sikiliza Kwa Wahenga

(Russell J Turner)

This year we are using films from the Sight and Sound 2022 list as prompts

Sixth up from me is Jordan Peele’s Get Out (2017 - #100), a curtal sonnet taking inspiration and its title from a Swahili refrain used in the soundtrack

Listen to the elders as the stories begin,
drinking brews of mesmerism ‒ a sunken place
manifests affected care and narcissism.
Monuments to second chances, trophies of skin ‒
blind are they that seek to use another’s face,
deaf to the tranquil, the wild and quiet rhythm.

Listen to the last songs of deer that lay dying,
dance in disbelief the gods may grant you their grace,
crack the artifice and glamours that imprison.

Listen to the sorrows, to the children crying
“listen, listen, listen…”

RJT

#23 - Disconnected Intermissions, or: if Kubrick wrote a sonnet, it would be a Chant Royale set to Strauss

Fay Roberts’s penultimate sonnet this year is inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s epic, surreal sci-fi classic, the USAmerican movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), written by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, and starring Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester, and Douglas Rain.

In pain, this late, I don’t know if I’ll last;
I tried to read the book when I was wee.
(my television’s not exactly vast)
it’s not the way he wanted us to see…

This fearful symmetry, this awful drone;
intelligence is warfare, death on hand?
And what’s a stylus but a sharpened bit of bone
rotating, waiting for the chance to land?

The choir shrills their harsh, triumphant skirls,
the people decorations, afterthoughts
(the future’s white, and all the servants girls)
a way to highlight scale, the plot for naught…

As splendid isolation is the way
this final human touch calls it a day.

Image from Wikipedia

If you have access to Prime Video, you can watch the 2:29 long, English language movie here. Content warnings include: violence, flashing lights, murder. Let us know what you thought if you’ve seen it! Maybe don’t watch it knackered and in lots of pain, though, unless you enjoy obsessing over tapirs in a sleep-deprived state… And conception metaphors…

#22 - Spirited Away (2001)

This poem was inspired by Spirited Away (2001) which was one of my favourite films when I was in school. It’s a Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by the legendary Hayao Miyazaki. A big part of the story revolves around the main character losing her name. Names and naming are a really common theme in stories and folklore, so that was what I focused on for my sonnet. 

#22 – Nameless

an answerless non-riddle

My name is in the swaying of the elms,

the humming birds, all gathering at dusk.

A solitary sound, a darkened realm;

my name’s the pecan, shielded by the husk.

A moniker, inscribed upon my chest,

my name’s the word the finches know by heart.

My name is lightning, my name is suppressed,

a flicker, flaming brightly through the dark. 

A lost lament, my name is happenstance,

a floating orchid, swirling in the swell,

my name resides in roses, when they dance;

my name’s the chemical that splits the cell.

If you can name me, I’ll be yours to keep.

My name is in the earth. It’s buried deep. 

LM 

Image via IMDB