Random Crucifixions: Obsessions, Dolls and Maniac Cameras
reviewed by Sissy Pantelis
Many of the poems in this collection could evoke fairy tales. They feature a frail young girl, pure of heart and beautiful as a white moon. Like Cinderella or Snow White, the young heroines are unhappy. But what makes them miserable is not a vain and jealous stepmother or two frivolous sisters treating the young girl like a servant. The heroines in the poems by Peter Marra are burdened by the hardships of reality.
Actually, the melancholic and disillusioned young girls in the poems are a symbol – they represent the sensitive soul of a poet or the creative mind. Flawless and unsullied by evil and ugliness, like a lonely white moon, the creative mind wanders throughout the real world, trying to find a light that will match its own, but all its efforts are to no avail. Dogmas, social conventions and labels torment a pure soul, like an authoritarian step-mother. Lies, hypocrisy and prejudices poison creativity, so as her senseless and superficial sisters ruined Cinderella’s life.
Helpless toward the ugliness of the world, unable to bear the burden of reality, the creative mind can only find refuge in Darkness. But fairy tale heroines are not abandoned. A mysterious hand of a benevolent godmother fairy (or is it a malevolent witch?), reaches to the hopeless fugitive, generously offering a gift: A red moon. Either it will bring back hope or not; what is certain is that the red light of the moon alone can lead on the path of deliverance. "I still need something between the here and the real. i want to be open and take it all in. fulfilment. I don't care about the costs. filled. fulfilled. I must travel, if only in imagery. not real. no matter." The creative, sensitive soul starts her long journey to wherever the red moon will take her.
Like Cinderella’s magic chariot, the red moon takes the frail heroine to a ball. Not at a royal palace where a prince will choose his bride, but to an eerie masked ball of chaotic dreams, in a strange kind of wonderland. A long needle is cleaned, then it turns ‘into the skin of the heroine. She winces and “sensitive colors of
random design” start dancing behind her closed eyes, morphing into impossible shapes.
Tumultuous visions like paintings by Hieronymus Bosch, a world of dreams and nightmares, in which forms seem to flicker and change, appear to the young girl. They are so powerful that they cause electroshocks in her brain. Time and reality become fluid like melting clocks in a shape-shifting landscape. The heroine continues her journey in strange worlds, peopled with Daliesque creatures. Even though painful, the chaos of those frightening visions is also liberating. In the whimsical world of the Red Moon, the heroine will not be mocked, despised or crucified for dreaming.
She wants more dreams, but the red moonbeams now lead her to another place. A cabaret, quite similar to the Moulin Rouge, where she will discover “an apocalypse of a heart /a twitch of the brain/
a song of a night.” Jane April is dancing cancan, kicking her legs and lifting her skirts under the delirious applause of her admirers. After the dance, she joins the tables, drinking champagne, seducing, kissing and arousing men, without guilt or shame. She finally becomes the muse of Toulouse-Lautrec and her paintings cover the walls of the cabaret.
Sensuality and strong sensations are enjoyed at their full at this place where debauchery and corruption are the only rule. Like in Frank Miller’s “Sin City”, the ladies of the night fearlessly wandering the streets are like night flowers shamelessly sharing their intoxicating perfumes with those who will enjoy them. However, at any moment, the sensual flowers of the night will suddenly turn into fearsome amazons, ready to fight whoever threatens them.
Those fire-tempered priestesses of the night will teach the sensitive young girl how to indulge in hedonism and promiscuity without guilt. At this place, nobody is crucified for giving in to lust; however pervert, pleasure is always a blessing – not a sin.
Slowly, the frail young girl, symbol of the poetic mind, is transformed. She no longer looks like a frail and rejected fairy tale heroine, but rather like a powerful priestess, an irresistible seductress. She is now like Salome, charming the sovereign with her dance and claiming St John’s head on a silver plate. She can create dreams, captivating those who were judging her, keeping them under her charm. She can enjoy her sensations without feeling guilt or fearing to be crucified. Like a succubus, she keeps those whom she seduces enthralled. “Enveloped in animalistic sounds and scents”, she is “not composed of organic matter” and leaves “no shadow; just a color climax.”
And “being a rover made of shadows and a gatherer of sins,” she can now destroy her previous tormentors. “Those who enjoy the routine of everyday life,” fearing their dreams, hiding and oppressing their sensations.
Take the hand of this fierce priestess – the poetic soul freed from guilt, the creative mind in all its resplendent majesty. It will lead you to paths of Beauty and Freedom, such as you have never known. Like Rimbaud’s “Drunken Boat”, sail to “the Poem of the Sea,/Infused with stars”, then follow “the milk-white spume that blends grazing green azures” and descend deep into a world of lascivious sensations and ravishing dreams.
reviewed by Sissy Pantelis
Many of the poems in this collection could evoke fairy tales. They feature a frail young girl, pure of heart and beautiful as a white moon. Like Cinderella or Snow White, the young heroines are unhappy. But what makes them miserable is not a vain and jealous stepmother or two frivolous sisters treating the young girl like a servant. The heroines in the poems by Peter Marra are burdened by the hardships of reality.
Actually, the melancholic and disillusioned young girls in the poems are a symbol – they represent the sensitive soul of a poet or the creative mind. Flawless and unsullied by evil and ugliness, like a lonely white moon, the creative mind wanders throughout the real world, trying to find a light that will match its own, but all its efforts are to no avail. Dogmas, social conventions and labels torment a pure soul, like an authoritarian step-mother. Lies, hypocrisy and prejudices poison creativity, so as her senseless and superficial sisters ruined Cinderella’s life.
Helpless toward the ugliness of the world, unable to bear the burden of reality, the creative mind can only find refuge in Darkness. But fairy tale heroines are not abandoned. A mysterious hand of a benevolent godmother fairy (or is it a malevolent witch?), reaches to the hopeless fugitive, generously offering a gift: A red moon. Either it will bring back hope or not; what is certain is that the red light of the moon alone can lead on the path of deliverance. "I still need something between the here and the real. i want to be open and take it all in. fulfilment. I don't care about the costs. filled. fulfilled. I must travel, if only in imagery. not real. no matter." The creative, sensitive soul starts her long journey to wherever the red moon will take her.
Like Cinderella’s magic chariot, the red moon takes the frail heroine to a ball. Not at a royal palace where a prince will choose his bride, but to an eerie masked ball of chaotic dreams, in a strange kind of wonderland. A long needle is cleaned, then it turns ‘into the skin of the heroine. She winces and “sensitive colors of
random design” start dancing behind her closed eyes, morphing into impossible shapes.
Tumultuous visions like paintings by Hieronymus Bosch, a world of dreams and nightmares, in which forms seem to flicker and change, appear to the young girl. They are so powerful that they cause electroshocks in her brain. Time and reality become fluid like melting clocks in a shape-shifting landscape. The heroine continues her journey in strange worlds, peopled with Daliesque creatures. Even though painful, the chaos of those frightening visions is also liberating. In the whimsical world of the Red Moon, the heroine will not be mocked, despised or crucified for dreaming.
She wants more dreams, but the red moonbeams now lead her to another place. A cabaret, quite similar to the Moulin Rouge, where she will discover “an apocalypse of a heart /a twitch of the brain/
a song of a night.” Jane April is dancing cancan, kicking her legs and lifting her skirts under the delirious applause of her admirers. After the dance, she joins the tables, drinking champagne, seducing, kissing and arousing men, without guilt or shame. She finally becomes the muse of Toulouse-Lautrec and her paintings cover the walls of the cabaret.
Sensuality and strong sensations are enjoyed at their full at this place where debauchery and corruption are the only rule. Like in Frank Miller’s “Sin City”, the ladies of the night fearlessly wandering the streets are like night flowers shamelessly sharing their intoxicating perfumes with those who will enjoy them. However, at any moment, the sensual flowers of the night will suddenly turn into fearsome amazons, ready to fight whoever threatens them.
Those fire-tempered priestesses of the night will teach the sensitive young girl how to indulge in hedonism and promiscuity without guilt. At this place, nobody is crucified for giving in to lust; however pervert, pleasure is always a blessing – not a sin.
Slowly, the frail young girl, symbol of the poetic mind, is transformed. She no longer looks like a frail and rejected fairy tale heroine, but rather like a powerful priestess, an irresistible seductress. She is now like Salome, charming the sovereign with her dance and claiming St John’s head on a silver plate. She can create dreams, captivating those who were judging her, keeping them under her charm. She can enjoy her sensations without feeling guilt or fearing to be crucified. Like a succubus, she keeps those whom she seduces enthralled. “Enveloped in animalistic sounds and scents”, she is “not composed of organic matter” and leaves “no shadow; just a color climax.”
And “being a rover made of shadows and a gatherer of sins,” she can now destroy her previous tormentors. “Those who enjoy the routine of everyday life,” fearing their dreams, hiding and oppressing their sensations.
Take the hand of this fierce priestess – the poetic soul freed from guilt, the creative mind in all its resplendent majesty. It will lead you to paths of Beauty and Freedom, such as you have never known. Like Rimbaud’s “Drunken Boat”, sail to “the Poem of the Sea,/Infused with stars”, then follow “the milk-white spume that blends grazing green azures” and descend deep into a world of lascivious sensations and ravishing dreams.
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