Peter Falk
"These people are extras...extra humans."
Wings of Desire (1987)
1.
A single tree grows out of a lake
Primordial. By fog and silence
Quiet water. Water as cold as it gets.
Winter in Berlin. Bombs were dropped
An old man walks through a wasteland
His Potsdamer Platz still can't be found.
A pre-war car is taken out for a drive
Every sector has its own hard border
A schoolgirl waits for a john by the road.
2.
Doubles and ghosts, the clowns don't speak
The clowns try on hats, sky and heaven
Lies, if you didn't have it, you would miss it.
Charivari. A trained goat walking a barrel
Their last performance free for the kids
They race into the ring to get their balloons.
This one is for those who wished they were alive
This one is for all the evil places in the world
This one is for the poets in the cold.
made me go pale.
ReplyDeleteDear Kerri, Thank you for listening. 'Peter Falk' is just one poem from a 6-poem cycle loosely based on Wenders' great "Wings of Desire" film. The whole thing was a bit too long to type up at midnight after a strange day in Shanghai, typhoon rains imminent..and so I posted the part that makes me go pale too.
ReplyDelete1. Marion
ReplyDeleteWhen she was a child, she made faces
Whenever they took photographs
Already knowing that she was
At grave odds with the world
Hearing the loud machinery
Outside the levelling of the choir
At 12 years old reading Nietzsche
Tossing that aside for Rilke at 14
Then the Japanese Zen cases, later
Other mystics, social astrophysics
Not waiting around the silent library
For knowledge or the end of the world
Other accidents – painting & music
Poetry and the men came after that
I place my hand on her shoulder
She spits and shivers like a cat.
The lead poem...
ReplyDelete4. Who Would Rather Not Think Anymore
ReplyDeleteSit in the van getting ready
The last night will be your best
A little bit afraid of the full moon
Thinking where were our angels
When the bombs were falling?
Before the story of war
It was going quite well
The days of ecstatic dance
Learning to live with animals
Before it was all paved over
Is the antiphon dirge or beatus
That plays when life is risky?
There will be a party afterwards
But first the audience applauds
The woman who fights the air
Furry ropes and tired props
And cigarette butts joining
White feathers on the water
All of it invents the story
You will keep on having
Glory is all drunken singing
There is a sorrow in angels
No doorways or corners
The set of war is suicide
Why are you crying?
The fourth poem.
ReplyDelete"Peter Falk' was the third poem.
ReplyDeleteLove the poem, but (as usual) haven't seen the film — hardly ever get to the cinema for some reason.
ReplyDelete1987. Won Best Director at Cannes. Worth tracking down.
ReplyDeleteThe whole film is up on YouTube.
ReplyDeletewonderful poem, Rob. I haven't seen the film since it was released, but the feeling of great pity in the film and the sadness of the angels has stayed with me.
ReplyDeleteIt's an interesting poem, you don't need the film to appreciate the poem.
ReplyDelete