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David McLean's of dead snakes |
Hmmm… well, David McLean is at it AGAIN… more DEATH… more NIHILISM… more EROTICISM… and even more DEATH in his new, small, but powerful book book of poems of dead snakes.
I often wonder what it would be like to live in the land beyond “this” reality, to live in a land of a “Great Beyond,” to live with my mind in constant ecstatic overdrive where everyday people, places and things take the mythic proportions of gods and snakes and other such denizens that are reflected in McLean’s poems like “Snotty Religiousity,” or “Of Dead Gods and Silent Poets,”… but, I don’t need to, because he has taken care of that for me, and for anyone else who is brave enough to read his work.
To commit to living with the acknowledgement that everything is in a constant state of change, or as in the case of many of McLean’s poems, in the state of decay, which, is still “change,” at least from an alchemical perspective, requires a strength of acceptance, as well as a degree of nihilism that that few poets can muster. Yet, McLean does this with ease.., possibly, because when one has accepted that he/she has no limits in the metaphysical sense, then living this “way” becomes almost easy. McLean’s poetry demonstrates that while living in this advanced state, the same rules apply using the universal hermetic principal, “as above, so below,” or for Judeo Christians “on earth as it is in heaven,” and so forth. But, what sets of dead snakes apart from McLean’s previous books of poetry is now a well-developed, and, a sly sense of humor, as in the poem “The Old Slut Venus and Me:”
the old lovers’ Venus is not dead
but she’s a sadistic bitch
nowadays, her face full of speed
and tortured beauty, her fingers
razors under the black sun,
sundry perversions in her pocket
and her stolen father’s thunder
just curt curses and wet sand
here, hopeless as love
i try to propitiate her with tiny suicides
and propitious self-injuries –
basically she’d like to see me down in the dirt,
but we have a relationship that works.
I have long been an admirer of McLean’s work, and to discover the added bonus of comedic tone to McLean’s work made reading of dead snakes, a pure pleasure for me. Yes, I say, BUY the book… keep the mystic going, because McLean is taking poetry to a new level, and I, along with so many other fans, both present and future, want to see where it goes next.
of dead snakes, copyright 2009 David McLean, Rain Over Bouville Press, rainoverbouville.co.uk, ISBN 978-0-9555786-4-9, 45 pages, $2.95 (or free pdf), available at Lulu.com.
copyright 2009
Marie
Lecrivain |
