Arioflotga

Frank Kuppner

• Publisher: Carcanet Poetry
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9781857549331
• eBook ISBN: 9781847778673
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

Surely none of us can have been left quite unaffected by the recent startling and unfortunate disaster of the disappearance of the Great Poetic Anthology into the electronic cracks between the major academic institutions which were preparing it - something which one might have thought to be impossible in this age of unremitting communication. Nothing can compensate us for a loss of such magnitude. And yet here is some slight alleviation. Just over a year and a half ago, a copy of what seems to be a version of the index of first lines of the vast confusion of lost poems mysteriously turned up in a Latin American restaurant in Glasgow. No time has been lost in offering it to a still disconsolate public. It is not nothing that a portion of what promised to be the greatest collection of poetical thought of all time has not been utterly lost. And, as it happens, such is now not the case. No. Not so. For here indeed are depths, insights, provocations and astonishments. Or, at least, the beginnings of them.

A,b,c,d and so on. Where’s the problem?

A beautiful dead girl drew the blinds aside;

A beautiful garden, with someone to talk to attached to it,

A beloved land is that central land, Oblivia with its marvels;

Abortion among the star-studs! Rape too! Ah, how rapturously

About failure on such a scale there is almost something heroic.

Above all else, God likes us to lie about dozing in the morning;

Above all else, the desire to be Oblivian.

Abraham – a completely imaginary figure –

“A brave literary academic?” Are you serious?

“Absolute shit”? Whenever I hear the phrase,

Absorbed as I was by a volume of Heraclitus in Sanskrit,

According to Mark, one of the brothers of Jesus was called Judas;

A clerical assistant, who hailed from distant San Ignacio,

A contradiction in terms with delusions of grandeur

A cry of, “Deaf, inconsiderate oaf!” woke me up again.

Actually, I understand women perfectly.

Actually, it doesn’t smell too bad now.

Actually, it’s pomegranate juice. Quite nice, no?

Adamson! I had supposed you were my friend.

A devout Christian alcoholic? Is that even possible?

Adios! The Gods are simply too expensive.

A disembodied voice whispering “F——k off!”

A dog barked, and the whole thing completely fell to pieces.

A few thousand more corpses were washed ashore that evening;

A few years ago, I was half a potato – when, suddenly

A flair for falling asleep in all the great temple sites

A flock of vicuña leisurely passing by

A friend of yours once told me you worship my stupidity. (Do you?)

After a fall in his home at the age of ten months

After a few shrill screams, the Stepson of God

After a second fall in his home at the age of ninety-one,

After a while, one simply packs it in and dies.

After God made your mole, Madam, I suspect He, quite justifiably,

After having had seven, or maybe eight, children – or maybe nine –

After I have ceased to exist, I just know I will still exist.

After joking for several years about having a heart problem,

After my last bowel operation, I said to myself: Ithuriel,

After our disastrous first meeting,

After sitting with one of her feet in my lap for most of the morning,

After sitting with one of her hands on my head for most of the evening,

After the brightest point of the day, something even brighter

After the proud traditional cry of, “It lacketh testicles!”

After the sudden delightful shower on Busch Avenue

A gay shadow pissing through the doors at evening

A great religious leader will soon come out of Alexandria

A group of water-drinking North American homosexuals

A half-decent pair of headlights quietly at work in a kitchen

Ah! Here it is at last! You know, I was almost beginning

Ah, yes! The old dream of absolute non-contingency!

A hymn of joy is rising again from the clean bathroom;

A ladder taller than the tree it was leaning against

A lady journalist from Thailand with utterly charming toes

A large, weathered shape at the back, which may be Jesus Christ,

Alas! Considered as a possible haven,

Alas, I am far too intelligent for my own good.

Alas, I have been quite unable to achieve satisfaction

Alas, I must rise and go now, and try my nightly couch;

Alas, I overlooked the fact that I too would grow old.

Alas, it is already clear to me that my son is a venomous little turd.

Alas, it seems they are merely a religious phenomenon –

Alas, my dear mother seems to have gone somewhat insane again.

Alas, not a single word of all that utterly marvellous teaching

Alas, the angel next door no longer flashes her wings at me.

Alas, the arrival of a younger ponce in a bigger car

A law-abiding citizen once found a hand-grenade

Alcohol? Surely alcohol is for sexual failures?

Alexander von Humboldt! Huh. We all know why

A lift climbs slowly in the hollow of my eyes

A little less melodrama, if you please, Penelope.

Allah does not like hearing the word ‘Allah’.

Allah leads into error whomsoever he pleases

All art is a dulled nostalgia for our childhood toys;

All a writer can do today is fart uncontrollably.

All day in this retreat I hear the sound of bad men laughing;

All jewellery is a homage to the privatest of parts

All joys, all passions, all finer thoughts of Oblivia,

All languages compare badly even with your suppressed sneezing.

All life bar the physical life is conceptual or imaginary.

All living religions are a form of betrayal

All my life I have been a martyr to acute hearing.

All my life I have been struggling with my back teeth.

All my uncles were intellectuals in unfashionable cities.

All night I writhed about in agony yet again;

All one needs to know about God is that He is never in fact there.

Allow me, if I may, to take advantage of this crude instrument

Allow me, Lord, to do good – if that is what you have already chosen for me.

Allow me, love, to insist upon the impossible.

Allow me to tell you precisely what I tell Almighty God about you.

All...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Epigraph
• Table of Contents
• Poem
• About the Author
• Also by Frank Kuppner from Carcanet Press
• Copyright