Brentley Frazer - A Stranger Tells Of Helen

Underground Poet Brentley Frazer recites the poem A Stranger Tells of Helen from his critically acclaimed book A Dark Samadhi.

Film, effects, audio, animation by Thomas Allan.

A Stranger tells of Helen

A stranger in a doorway waiting,
his obvious involvement in the cruelties of life evident
lent me a cigarette, coughed gently and said:
—I left her, my Helen, in the Troy of my bare rented room.

Was so lonely on the bus today that I cried.
Through the window, steamed by breathing,
upon which I had written

— Give me an urban mercy from the
tongue of a silver trumpet o all you heartless!
I saw, sitting like Buddha on a war monument,
a smiling child plucking a pigeon.

Son, there are thunders in a thousand parts of me
and I am living in dread of the rain. Or another way to
explain this would be, there are winged amphibious creatures sculpting tears urns in the pale amphitheater of my heart. And when there is nothing left, various scraps of marble, the devils lexicon, dried fruit, nerves entwined in a fitful ballet, only then will I allow myself to love again.

© Brentley Frazer http://www.brentley.com

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• poet
• underground poets
• poetry reading
• spoken word
• jazz poetry fusion
• poetry film clips
• australia
• brentley
• brentley frazer
• video poem

[tehchezman]

it's true- bic has a meaty crunch whereas zippo is a metallic ring. You seem upset that the cliche was avoided

[kom9os]

if there was a zippo it would have been cliche, but alas it was a bic, it sounded like a zippo.

[tehchezman]

Err, where is the zippo?

[kom9os]

very good brentley, the zippos a little cliche, but the effects are great.