Improvisation (Girl)

A month or two ago, I was feeling pretty down and decided to watch the movie Antichrist.

As you might guess from the title, this was not a wise decision. I went from being sad to disgusted and scared. The movie is saturated with hellish images of nature, like a fox disemboweling itself. There's also a lot of gruesome bodily harm, like Charlotte Gainsbourg cutting off her own body parts. And that's the least explicit description I could muster. There's also a fine scene in which Willem Dafoe, whose leg is attached to a grindstone, crawls into a foxhole to seek refuge from his grief-stricken, bloodthirsty wife.

In summary, this movie is messed up. Worth watching, if you like being unsettled and perplexed and physically uncomfortable. It's also got some deep commentary on femininity, loss, religion, and the like. Just prepare, if you do see it, to be a little fraught and grossed-out.

The final shot

So anyway, the imagery in the below poem reminded me (much less disturbingly) of Antichrist. I don't mean to impose my own associations, or to dictate your interpretation of this poem. I'm just blathering, as usual.

Regardless, may you read and appreciate this.

"Improvisation (Girl)"

I think she wanted to explain

                                      the silence

             hidden

within her voice—

blue egg in the nettles.

            She wrote something

on a rock, used the rock

                        to bash in the skull

             of an injured deer.

Bloodied swan-neck arms.

                                        She

slinks into her own viscera,

a baby fox

             backing into its trunkhole.

The wordbone's connected to the

                         gutbone.

Meanwhile, her desire

           for nobody now

bucks like a rabbit

                           under her ground.

by Rebecca Lindenberg, from The Logan Notebooks (2014)