Low Key but No Lightweight
BY LILY SUN I June 2, 2009
David C. Kopaska-Merkel. Dreams and Nightmares, Issue 82.
Holding it in hand, no one will feel the magazine weighty in any sense. Eighteen pages, soft cover, nothing fancy or eye-catching in its appearance, it feels like a booklet for casual reading. Unfortunately, it is this low-key guise that — except, perhaps, for the sulky mermaid painted in black and white that graces the cover — makes the reader feel no pressure or impulse to read it immediately but, more likely, to pick it up and flip through for a glimpse, either to kill time alone or simply to beat out the boredom from the daily grind. With one poem per page, printed neatly and simply, as well as an occasional sketch, the entire magazine reads pleasantly and comfortably.
Using a general motif of dreams and nightmares, the issue touches upon such much-discussed topics as the progression of time and revolution ("Slumming with the Ghost of Charles Fort") or 'random variation', the relationship between man and science ("Little Frankenstein"), between the human world and outer space ("Mike the Jedi" and "The Best Laid Plans," the latter of which is illustrated with a picture of some ET-looking figures against a dark sky), multi-identities and otherness, desire and illusion, and so on. However, there is an undercurrent in the collection of poems that leads one to see each subject in an unexpected way, subtly propelling the reader to new conclusions about seemingly familiar paradigms and enabling one to approach the world with an understanding smile and some serenity in the mind.
The most picturesque poem of the collection, with a title most unromantic yet cunning, "Outfoxed" strikes with its smart play on the fox, blending seemingly irrelevant images and ingenious associations with thought-provoking ideas about infinity and the confinement of space and time and of one's physical existence. As a result, it invokes in the reader a deep, tranquil yearning for what is so beautiful and beyond reach that it makes one's heart ache at the distance and leaves one indulged in the unfathomable depth of the sky, visualizing a "thread shooting from the eye of a needle / meteor in reverse / falling up the sky" resting "in a cage filled with light / neat as a button / caught on a sleeve".
In contrast to the soothing atmosphere of "Outfoxed," "Stone Baby" proves to be a very disturbing poem. Following God's creation of the world, this short story stops on the sixth day, the day of rest, which will never come, not for the woman. In the end, she leaves the baby on "the cracked stone," watching it "laugh and swallow fat raindrops," and returning home alone, poaches "two fresh eggs for dinner." Narrated in a distant and detached tone, the story carries with it an illusion and a weight unbearable in life, reminding one of Milan Kundera's works as well as one's own plight in the real world.
Covering one and a half pages, "Doppelganger" does not intimidate the reader in the least or prevent him/her from going on, thanks to its ending with one of the most magical lines, "the object of your desire / says the words 'I love you.'" Not intending to be mushy, it actually suggests something rather opposite, the idea of alienation, cloning, dual identity and otherness, the core idea of which is made even more effective with the illustration below the poem that shows a monster released from a bottle labeled 'space.' It looks like the one set free from Aladdin's magic lamp but by looking at it, one cannot help but be reminded of Pandora's Box. And, what truly catches the eye is the author's repetition of the line "Doppelgangers are useful" in almost each stanza, either at the beginning or in the middle, the dry sarcasm and the teasing tone throughout the poem, mingled with a sense of resignation, or of Thoreau's "quiet desperation." It echoes the message conveyed in "Not Alone" appearing earlier in the collection that "Otherness awaits / Our ignorance, there'll be going back," with no "epithet to equal our distress.../ Who might have turned aside& cried to all dark gods for loneliness." Likewise, the poem is accompanied by a picture of two cute-looking ghosts, hand in hand, mingling and crying, dancing "the night away."
Like a theme song in almost every newly released album, "Cambion" may be considered as the theme poem of the collection, dealing primarily with the idea of dreams, reality and truth. Starting with a quiet narrative, it is seemingly devoted to offering various ways to kill nightmares and prepares the reader for something else. While well prepared, the reader is nevertheless caught off guard by what meets the eye and the mind later on: "So look into those bright eyes and say / I have forgotten you / Say it until it is true / Say it until, one morning, you awake / and forget to turn / Say it until you forget / just what it is / you feel so empty without /...and your flesh will ache for something / you know not what."
On the train to visit my friend late one summer afternoon, looking at the last rays of the day scattering on the passing roofs and trees, I saw the images in some of the poems flickering against the windowpane, like the slanted, silent sunshine cooling down the day's noise, making me feel happy to be able to hear the beat of the city and enjoy such a fleeting moment.
Comments
