Jeff Klooger


Paranoid Credo

I am
like God
(disintegrating)
self-sufficient.
Lacking
(multiplying)
nothing,
I will be
(I am)
my own enemy
(an epidemic).

A Category Error

That splash of yellow
in the top right corner
of the canvas
does nothing
to advance his argument.

How does he expect
to win
with a move like that?

A Kind of Nut

Pastiche? Isn’t that a kind of
nut?

When the piece was written it was not yet
clear.

This part is replaced by a rhythmic
quaver.

Technology is both progress and
regress.

Soon we will arrive at the Island of Wishes, there to
rumba.

He wanted to take his thoughts and desires out of the
mix.

A short scherzo-like transition leads to the final
furioso.

Der Geist in der Flasche yearns to become more
modern.

Because he saw her, the goddess changed him into a
stag.

That woman was never in a
harem.

She fell in love with her stepson, who rejected her
offers.

The horses shied and bolted, dragging him to his
death.

We appreciate ambiguity but not utter
meaninglessness.

She killed herself; she shot him with an
arrow.

A syncopated ostinato underlies the
tone-row.

No one knew in how short a time this might become
true.

We believe writing devoid of image is devoid of
art.

The journalist wore a yellow glove to measure his
manhood.

Those fucking gods are a law unto
themselves.

The tone-row appears again, a cathartic
pianissimo.

No, that’s pistachio. I thought that was ice-cream. Then what’s
pastiche?


Jeff Klooger’s poetry has been published in his native Australia and internationally. Recently his work has appeared in Otoliths, Island Magazine, The Argotist Online, Halfway Down The Stairs, Sketch, dotdotdash, and Cordite Poetry Review. His other interests are music and philosophy. His book on the ideas of the Greek-French philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis was published in 2009.

 
 
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