Besser spät als nie: eine Entdeckung amerikanischer Dichtung

Ich verdanke sie einem freundlichen Hinweis und nicht zuletzt der eigenen Verblüffung, die wieder einmal mit J.S.Bach zusammenhing. (Der drittletzte Ton ein b oder ein c? Ich glaube dem Cellisten.) Vor allem: was für ein Regieeinfall, sich auf den ersten Teil der Sarabande zu beschränken, – soll etwas offen bleiben? Entscheidend für mich: die oftmalige Wiederholung, der Eindruck des gesprochenen Wortes und endlich die Erschließung der schriftlichen Verständnishilfe. Der aufgefundene Text.

Ab 1:14 Two poems… the first one is titled Grenade … ab 5:47 the second poem is Heavy Metal Soliloquy…

Grenade

There’s no rehearsal to turn flesh into dust so quickly. A hair-trigger, a cocked hammer in the brain, a split second between a man & infamy. It lands on the ground—a few soldiers duck & the others are caught in a half-run—& one throws himself down on the grenade. All the watches stop. A flash. Smoke. Silence. The sound fills the whole day. Flesh & earth fall into the eyes & mouths of the men. A scream trapped in midair. They touch their legs & arms, their groins, ears & noses, saying, What happened? Some are crying. Others are laughing. Some are almost dancing. Someone tries to put the dead man back together: „He just dove on the damn thing, Sir!“ A flash. Smoke. Silence. The day blown apart. For those who can walk away, what is their burden? Shreds of flesh & bloody rags gathered up & stuffed into a bag. Each breath belongs to him. Each song. Each curse. Every prayer is his. Your body doesn’t belong to your mind & soul. Who are you? Do you remember the man left in the jungle? The others who owe their lives to this phantom, do they feel like you? Would his loved ones remember him if that little park or statue erected in his name didn’t exist, & does it enlarge their lives? You wish he’d lie down in that closed coffin, & not wander the streets or enter your bedroom at midnight. The woman you love, she’ll never understand. Who would? You remember what he used to say: „If you give a kite too much string, it’ll break free.“ That unselfish certainty. But you can’t remember when you began to live his unspoken dreams.

© Yusef Komunyakaa

Quelle: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/168507

Heavy Metal Soliloquy

After a nightlong white-hot hellfire / of bluesteel, we rolled into Baghdad / plugged into government-issued earphones, / hearing hardrock. The drum-machines / & revved-up guitars roared in our heads. / All their gods were crawling on all fours. / Those bloated replicas of horned beetles / drew us to targets, as if they could breathe / & think. The turrets rotated 360 degrees. / The infrared scopes could see through stone. / There were mounds of silver in the oily dark. / Our helmets were the only shape of the world. / Lightning was inside our titanium tanks, / & the music was almost holy, even if blood / was now leaking from our eardrums. / We were moving to a predestined score / as bodies slumped under the bright heft / & weight of thunderous falling sky. / Locked in, shielded off from desert sand / & equatorial eyes, I was inside a womb, / a carmine world, caught in a limbo, / my finger on the trigger, getting ready to die, / getting ready to be born.

© Yusef Komunyakaa

Quelle: The New American Poetry of Engagement: A 21st Century Anthology / edited by Ann Keniston and Jeffrey Gray / McFarland 2012 ( ISBN: 978-0-7864-6467-8 )

Wer ist Yusef Komunyakaa?

For myself, I read everything aloud as I am ... as I am writing, because
the ear is a great editor.
I think listening is the most important thing in the creative arts but
also in life.
In the highly technological society it seems to me that instruments are
there to steal bits of what we call "information".
But it isn't knowledge before us, it takes a dialogue.
And any interesting complex dialogue comes out of silence and listening.
I am listening for [or: And listen to?] the music as opposed to the ideas.
The ideas are there, because language is really a composite of symbols
that which comes from the body as opposed to that abstract mental space.
[...]

"What young poets should not do"

1st - to [or: do?] not write for others.
2nd one is: - to not write on a computer.
3rd one: - to not be afraid of surprising oneself.

Des weiteren:

http://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/ode-drum bzw. HIER

Dank an JMR!!!