Literature, Art, Poetry- Keith Harvey Blog

Beginning of "Mittilagart," sequel to Okeanus

2009-06-24T12:00:00.000-07:00

“What time is it, Jørg?”

Schütze Jørg Mortesson turned over onto his back and raised his arm just enough to catch a glint of blue light from the burning building a hundred meters to the north.

“Five minutes before midnight. Now be quiet or the Ivans will hear us.”

“What day is it?” asked Erik Wallender.

Mortesson grunted and said, “You know it is the 22nd.”

“How do I know that?”

“Because I told you an hour ago that it was April 22, 1945.”

“Is it the Führer’s birthday?”

“That was two days ago; don’t you remember? They gave us Schnapps.”

Wallender turned away and shrugged.

Mortesson scratched the thick stubble of his red beard. Lice hopped around his dirt encrusted finger nail and he sighed. “Erik, do you want to make it home to Stockholm?”

Mortesson waited as Wallender thought the question over. “I’m not sure. How will they treat us now that the Germans have lost the war?”

A shot rang out and Mortesson calculated it came from one of the government buildings to the east. The Ivans were tightening the rope and he could feel it scratching his neck. He swallowed and then answered, “They will probably hang us but you don’t have to worry about that, Erik.”

“Why is that, Jørg?”

Mortesson laughed and then spat onto the bare ground where a few feeble blades of grass struggled to survive. “Because, my dear Erik, the Ivans are going to cut our throats first.”

There was a cough and then the lieutenant called out from his slit trench south of their hole: “shut up over there.” In answer a Russian machine gun sprayed the brick wall that formed the northern line of the Nordland Division’s defenses on the edge of the Tiergarten, south of the river Spree. Mortesson pressed his body against the damp soil and held onto his helmet. Bursts of machine fire continued for several seconds and then stopped.

Mortesson crawled to an opening in the wall and peered out across the wide avenue that bordered the Tiergarten on the north. Several new fires had broken out in the building across the way and he could see silhouettes of Russian soldiers running in the ruins.

“Erik, prepare yourself. They are coming.”

Mortesson picked up his Mauser and entrenching tool and moved to a bit of raised earth that he used as a firing stand. Suddenly, he stopped because the usually vociferous Wallender was silent. “Christ,” he muttered as he quickly crawled back to their hole.

Wallender lay face down in a puddle of blood.

Mortesson rubbed his chin with his left hand and nervously spat again onto the ground. Shivering from exhaustion, fear, and pity, he checked to see if Erik lived. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he closed his friend’s eyes with his right hand and then slowly relieved him of his ammunition, grenades, canteen, three cigarettes, and a bar of chocolate.

The Eye of the Mage

2009-06-16T08:54:00.000-07:00

a gray mage
with one blue eye
spins within
the image

no matter
the gray-ness
of the mage
or the blue-ness
of the eye

in our age
of sin
the image
wins

because mindless
talk tells
tales
that silence
thought

Death Visits Kilgore on Sunday

2009-06-15T08:45:00.000-07:00

deadness
surrounds us

interrupts us
from our rounds

nestled
in nests

it flies
in our face

surprising us
even though

we knew
it was there

waiting

now
and for ever

-∞ space in self

2009-06-05T06:34:00.000-07:00

in time

from right
to left

we turn
toward home

our advance
retreats
into self

a minor mirror
of nature's
preeminence

and negative
space

Review Of Steve Parker's "Rebel Winter"

2009-06-02T08:49:00.001-07:00

I rarely cry. It is usually at the end of a war movie where a person has given his or her life for the good of the squad and bagpipes are playing. Like at the end of "Gunga Din" or "Wee Willie Winkie," or even "Saving Private Ryan," although there were sadly no pipes.

While reading Steve Parker's first military science fiction novel, Rebel Winter, I found myself tearing up several times. Each time a well-drawn character sacrifices himself for the unit or a group of men die in a burning Chimera or a beloved colonel runs pell-mell into a mass of orks I felt a tear rolling down my cheek. Consequently, I have to say early in this review that the writing is damn good, the characters are well-drawn, the battle scenes are intense, and Parker's knowledge of Warhammer 40,000 fluff is dead-on accurate.

The novel involves a regiment of Vostroyan Firstborn fighting both rebels and orks on the ice-crusted planet Danik's World. The Vostroyans are similar to Russian Cossacks and their culture is tribal and militaristic. According to their laws, every firstborn son of every household serves in the Vostroyan regiments. Vostroyan soldiers and officers maintain an archaic appearance and their history can be traced back to the Horus Heresy. They pass their weapons down from firstborn to firstborn and are usually worth more than the guardsmen who carry them. They serve ten-year terms but most re-enlist because their persona is based on their identification with the regiment and the company in the regiment in which they serve.

In Rebel Winter Parker plays with the Vostroyan "fluff." First, the Vostroyan leadership is picked from the nobility. Our protagonist Captain Grigorius Sebastev is not a noble; instead, he is a sergeant, elevated to leadership on the battlefield. Second, Vostroyans pick the first-born son to serve the Emperor; Stavin, another important character, possesses a secret, which haunts him: he is a second-born son. Third, the Vostroyans are a close-knit tribal unit. The Commissar of Fifth Company is not a Vostroyan but from Delta Radhima. He is dark and tall and obviously a foil for the short and stocky Sebastev.

Parker begins the novel with a framing device: Captain Sebastev is on trial in the Exedra Udiciarum Seddisvarr for some unspecified crime. The story, then, is a remembering rather than an unfolding. In my opinion, a framing device is a two-edged sword. It either creates suspense by engaging the reader with the question: why is this man on trial, or it dissipates suspense because the reader knows the protagonist will survive. In this novel, the framing device accomplishes three things: one, it is simply a sketch and does not explain who any of the bizarre characters in the courtroom are; therefore, it creates an element of suspense and expectation; two, it begs the question of why this captain is on trial; and, three, at the end of the novel it provides the springboard for a sequel (which I suspect is its primary purpose).

Once, we enter the "remembering," we are plunged head-first into the action. The Vostroyans are fighting a battle of attrition against both rebels and orks. Here is where Parker shines. The battle scenes are brutal and beautifully constructed. Very rarely is an author able to manipulate a squad, let alone a company, and Parker does it well and efficiently. Something else that he does well is to describe the strategic elements of a battle. I particularly appreciate the map at the beginning of the book. By referring to it during the reading I was able to see and understand both the strategic and tactical decisions made by the combatants.

In conclusion, I found the novel a brilliant first effort. I enjoyed the mixture of pathos and bravura in the characters and when I say characters I mean many characters, each one is well-drawn and memorable. I have two minor criticisms though: one, the framing device distracts from the strength of the plot and, two, in an attempt to fully handle his "company" of characters, Mr. Parker switches point of view several times, which I found disturbed the smooth progression of the narrative. In that regard,I prefer either a single or at most a double point of view.

As a final word, I would recommend this novel to both Warhammer fans and military science fiction readers. I think Steve Parker now shares the stage with other great militray science-fiction writers like Dan Abnett, Andy Remic, Paul Kearney, Chris Roberson, and Steven Pressfield.

I am looking forward to reviewing his latest novel--Gunheads.

Wolfgirls Dance under June's Moon

2009-05-28T08:50:00.000-07:00

Caesar nominates
the lion month

its blonde
rays retain
the sun's
son
within a jar
sealed
with beeswax

it contains
oyster beds
marinated in Mexican
brine

groves of palms
spitting purple dates

and their astral
love preserved
during the white nights
of die Deutsche Zeit

but finally
it is time
to spike the seal
and shuck
the shells

blue
he refrains
from flight

and howls
beneath June's
green moon

Heliocentricity

2009-05-27T08:51:00.000-07:00

aten is god
of the sun

the son
of big mind
outside the tent

in his heavenly
mathematics
the sense
that oneness
exceeds many
shines

however
clowns divide
the circle
twice squared
and their gods
abide

within
a panoply
resides

while without
the circle
revolves
and the tide
subsides

Polytheism during the Time of Akhenaten

2009-05-27T07:13:00.000-07:00

the stars
revolve
and shine
on the maker
of the mannered
statutes
and pyramids

gods of bronze
silver and gold
with stone
present
a plural
panoply
of imbued
steel
natural rock
and made fabric

god-ness in single-ness
outside the outer

both relinquishes
and supports
many

Circus Arrives in Munich in Oktober

2009-05-27T07:11:00.000-07:00

the ring
beneath canvas
invites
clowns
in tiny cars
and ladies
with big whips
to perform
daily

big mind
waits
without

Short Review of Dan Abnett's "Traitor General"

2009-05-26T09:39:00.000-07:00

In 1967, Alistair MacLean published "Where Eagles Dare." The book was made into a film with Richard Burton and a young Clint Eastwood in 1968. The plot involves an elite force of British and American Commandos who go behind enemy lines to rescue a United States general captured while enroute to Crete to meet with Russian counterparts. The story is replete with secrets and betrayals plus wholesale mayhem.

As a young man in 1968, I was enamored with the film and even today I will happily re-watch it. What does this have to do with "Traitor General," you may ask? Just this, the plot of the Maclean Book and Abnett's book have the same plot. Is that a bad thing? Absolutely not. The two works may have the same skeleton but Abnett makes the material definitely his own.

In "Traitor General" Gaunt and twelve of his "Ghosts" drop onto a planet controlled by the enemy. This planet, Gereon, an agri-planet within the Sabbat system is brilliantly and I would say beautifully rendered through Abnett's almost perfect prose. In addition, Abnett looks behind the curtain and begins to develop the Chaos world. In a recent interview, Abnett shows that he has been contemplating the workings of the forces of Chaos carefully. He has puzzled out the irrefutable conclusion that in order to function, it (the Chaos worlds)needs organizations, bureaucracies, and technologies. In this novel he illustrates the working of the world and the mind of the people trapped there and living there.

I cannot praise this novel enough for its execution and its depth. Abnett creates believable characters throughout. It doesn't matter if the character is a Ghost, a Chaos Space Marine, or a partisan; they are all roundly and soundly developed.

Finally, no one writes about the mechanical and technical aspects of modern war better than Abnett. I could smell the oil on the barrel of the las-guns while I was reading the novel.

Seven Steps in Sense Sequence plus Two

2009-05-20T08:56:00.000-07:00

we have
explored
the primal word
and magic numbers
but do not forget
the sense of color

Wittgenstein and Goethe
knew its worth
and the cabalists
its symbol

expect now
both number
and color
when we do
what we do

to make
or un-make
poetry of
nine levels
three squared

Reading John Dee in the Bath

2009-05-18T08:49:00.000-07:00

the primal word
reacts
to expansion

emotional flutters
within my ear

a buzzing
of silk wings

and muttering
of a gibbering ghost

a précis of
John Dee

proceeds
to the next
numen
perhaps Bes

therefore Lull
lull me
into an alphabetical
mysticism

count ten
on my fingers
and label them
B to K

A Sunday Fight Ends Now

2009-05-18T08:36:00.000-07:00

now

we have
now

and
the memory
of the not now

the next now
is not yet now
and maybe
never will be

our now
continues
until there is no now

a point
marked
posthumously
as the final

now

Tiny Bats

2009-05-07T11:09:00.000-07:00

hang like green grapes
beneath Congress Street Bridge

at dusk
they drop

gulp air
and jettison
guano

their numbers
paint the sky
black

they spread
like treacle
through ebony
night

on Bollingen Island
fox bats
fall free
under ebon
limbs

at dusk
they eat
pomegranates
with simian hands

at dawn they sleep
suspended

swaying
in sour wind

Freud's Pillow or Lot's Lot

2009-05-06T09:16:00.000-07:00

soaked

in her juices
for six decades

he now awaits
her second nonage
to air his fate
and faults

maybe chalk
from Dover cliffs
is his place
to crumble
into white waves

but before the stone
hardens into sulphur
and flakes into salt

he looks back
and sees flames
engulf city walls

and salamanders
dance in red

cloaked

Order in the Time of Ramses

2009-05-05T08:51:00.000-07:00

twelve hours of day
balanced against twelve of night

the rule writ
on papyrus

work in light
sleep at twilight

but to be safe
light the oil lamp
at dusk
to drive
daemons away

The Futility of Strategems

2009-05-04T11:56:00.000-07:00

gardens grow wild
within the squared
circle
of big mind

throughout its spheres
nature orders
chaotic growth

and cosmic mechanics
whirl metallic wheels
as daffodils drip
drops of oily dew
onto blind eyes

Review of "The Serpent and the Moon" by Princess Michael of Kent

2009-05-04T09:40:00.000-07:00

I agree with several reviewers that the book is repetitious but I never found it tedious. I also agree that Catherine de'Medici gets lost in the telling. The book might have best been posed as a love story between Henri II and Diane de Poitiers or a sociological look at Renaissance life.

The book seems to be written in discreet chapters with little concern for the overall narrative structure, although the book does progress sporadically from the rule of Francois I to Charles IX.

Now, you might ask, why have I given it four stars? The answer is simple: I liked the book for its digression into the minutia of the daily life of the Renaissance Courts of Francois I and Henri II.

God is in the details (Le bon Dieu est dans le detail-Flaubert)and reading Princess Michael of Kent's imagining of the French court is to be dazzled by the details.

No fact is too trivial for her to catalog and discuss. For instance, She delves into the social and sexual practices of the nobles with a eye for the mundane and quotidian. She discusses the utensils they use at dinner and the clothes they wear or don't wear--such as undergarments.

She also looks closely at the the familial relations and the political machinations that arise from those relationships and she discusses the wars between the Renaissance Kings and their petty and brutal bids for power. There are any even side-roads into English politics and appearances of Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, Mary Tudor, and Mary, Queen of Scots.

And within this broad historical panorama, we learn about dog breeding, hunting, best sexual positions for conception, use of cosmetics, hygiene (or lack thereof) of the royals, de Medici's use of alchemy, soothsayers, astrology, and poison, expansion of Paris, Renaissance gardening and architecture.

In the end, as I read the work, I felt I had an understanding of one aspect of French society--the court. Perhaps, a criticism is that we don't see the filth and poverty of the peasants but, of course, that was never her aim. All-in-all I found the book to be a pleasant, breezy, romp through a complicated and brutal period of French History. And in that description lies both the weakness and strength of the book.

Bolano's "The Romantic Dogs"

2009-04-30T10:12:00.000-07:00

With "2666," Roberto Bolano is now a sensation in the United States. "2666" is a remarkable book, full of engrossing narratives; however, I find "The Romantic Dogs" in some respects more satisfying.

It is common knowledge that Bolano considered himself first and foremost a poet and I believe he is right, although his fame here in America will derive from his fiction.

Many reviewers have spent all their time talking about Bolano and Chile, as if "The Romantic Dogs" is only a political book. However, I wonder if the reviewers made it past the first poem. Yes, there are poems that make reference to political events but how can a Latin American not be political. However, politics are only a part of the soup of existence. Bolano writes about being in the sense that a philosopher writes about being.

"The Romantic Dogs" is an amazingly cohesive work. This is not a collection of poems written as one-offs. Instead, the poems hold together through various rhetorical devices: repetition of images, symbols, and themes.

The overall theme of the work is the shortness of life, the cruelty of illness, the fragility of existence, and the the beauty of poetry.

Unifying images are dreams, blackness, white worms, snow, cars, motorcycles, burros, films, detectives.

Bolano announces in the first poem of the collection that the dream of poetry opened up the void of his spirit and accompanied him through his life.

The first poem of the collection, "The Romantic Dogs," announces this theme. "I'd lost a country/but won a dream." He adumbrates the importance of poetry in the penultimate poem of the collection "Muse:" "she's the guardian angel/ of our prayers./ She's the dream that recurs."

"The Romantic Dogs" presents a brave story--because ultimately Bolano is a dramatic poet--of a dying poet fighting to remain here in being "with the romantic dogs."

Tick-Tock

2009-04-30T08:35:00.000-07:00

to SarahA

the real
you deal
is not here

the real
I see
in my liminal
state
is not
your here

here I hear the deaf
and feel the blind

you feel the deaf
and hear the blind

your here
is there

however
our worlds
are there
in the big mind

the singular mind
revolves like a silver
cog
within a brass wheel

guided by the north star
it turns

tick-tock, spin-spin
spin-spin, tick-tock

Sulphur

2009-04-28T13:29:00.000-07:00

sulphur
the driest salt
sprinkles
from her fevered brain

her projection
is her protection

but it makes
no sense
that sulphur
as salt
possesses savor
only after fault

Working on proofs for "Cave Gossip"

2009-04-19T11:08:00.001-07:00

My new novel "Cave Gossip," the follow-up to "Vogel and the White Bull," relies heavily on iconography--both sacred and profane--to express its meaning. Here is a sacred image from a church in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the setting for the finale of "Vogel and the White Bull."

The title--"Cave Gossip"--comes from my poem in"Petroglyhs," of the same title.

Eye

2009-04-18T00:26:00.000-07:00

he wanted
to be seen

but he had
not read
the rule

seeing
requires light

but light
burns skin

so he
withdrew

within

once again

Primal Patriarch

2009-04-17T09:25:00.001-07:00

he appeared
then her

his son died
murdered by his brother

eventually he died
from her
to the earth

it was his end
but not the end

the hierarchy
arose
from a cut
pruned
from a yellow rose

now he ascends
and descends
toward transcendence

Fact of the Doing Thing

2009-04-16T08:52:00.000-07:00

the job
that works
us
is not
the one
we waited
for in fact
the work
we do
is not
the one
we dreamed
of nor trained
for nor interviewed
with nor even
wanted
instead we do
what we do
because we
can do
no other
thing