Ramblings
For random or less serious writings
Two disturbing nudes - 10/04/25
While photographers Lehnert and Landrock are best known for their orientalist photographs of north African 'life', possibly less known (though I'm no expert) are these two nudes of Tunisian women, taken in 1909 and 1904 respectively (see below).
On the left are depicted two girls, who cannot be through their teenage years. The image plays into the trope of young girls acting intimately with one another: the model on the right (hand in hair; lighter complexion) keeps an unnotable downward gaze and neutral expression, but the other, on whose lap she sits, looks upset. Though I know little of the specifics of this picture, I would struggle to believe that these poor girls sat and posed for a reason other than money. The second photograph, taken in 1904, shows something more explicitly disgusting: a Tunisian woman bound at her hands, calves, ankles and chest, with violence furthered by her having been turned to face the wall. To my mind this is a fantasised depiction of rape – specifically of indigenous people by the whites who captured and bought such images.
It may be that we witness here an alternative to the 'jewel of the east' – a more overtly racist depiction of the native woman. A contrast between the two is in the first image; the girl on the left is distressed, darker, ethnically decorated and to the white man an example of the ignorant, suffering Arab; on her lap is something much more sensuous, who is to be desired. Ultimately, the colonist desires that either be in ropes.
A few poems from 2024 - 03/01/25
Prefatory note: I write poetry semi-regularly. My technique is normally to, once I've finished something, not look at it for a week or two then come back to it and pass judgement - which is normally a negative one. As I haven't put anything on my writings page in a while and this 'ramblings' section is completely bare I thought with the beginning of 2025 I could share some of my poems. As a bit of a warning, I better say that even the poems I'm happy with absolutely don't hold up to any critical standards. I'm not so deluded to be an aspiring poet!
Please
The charity case is
here antique.
Where do they park their cars
asks boyish whine,
of Dharavi Madonna
and little spluttering, yelling,
red-faced junctionthing
October sun-fried pigtail
shooed by air-conditioned fingertips
nicely rounded claws
who point and maim
Their veins’ icewater under escort
from walking sandpaper.
“I wonder who she is,
what she likes,
where she’s from”:
a little one’s contribution
How innocent –
shoulders the seat before
in unison exclaim.
The Buzzards
It seems to be a family
Of three or four, or five.
They barge into the sky
Racketing pre-planned circles,
Singing down to us
Or calling, rather – but what?
And they must be taunting
Surely – to mill around in naked thick
Bedraggled, yes, but perhaps offset
Then take off when we dare admire
What little is to be!
Bent, withered listless...
Bent, withered listless
Windswept, uprooted;
There’ll be no hand of God, no miracle –
Get up.
Branches far-flung.
Bleeding in the nest.
And the soil, the rock you take as home?
There’ll be no sap bag.
Let twigs snap if fickle gale subsides.
They were held at the corner...
they were held at the corner
by the Storm.
a thin film of plaster surrounds them.
on what could’ve made a lovely morning
hellfire-cast-debris falls.
the Storm? unceasing – despite the blue
resting its weight on what were once ceilings,
walls, teachers’ desks, patients’ beds.
just here were those who flew from
the Storm, address to address. finally
they sat, they waited.
mother, father, daughter – waiting for this
to be over – all over. its eye had them cornered:
the Storm had consumed but
this mountain of brickwork mustn’t succeed them.