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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781847777027 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Carcanet Press, Limited |
| Publication date: | 12/01/2012 |
| Sold by: | INDEPENDENT PUB GROUP - EPUB - EBKS |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 76 |
| File size: | 273 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
The Ninjas
By Jane Yeh
Carcanet Press Ltd
Copyright © 2012 Jane YehAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-84777-702-7
CHAPTER 1
After the Attack of the Crystalline Entity
There were escape pods everywhere.
There was rasping.
Craters, shards, rivers, and voids.
Everywhere people were running into tunnels.
Voles weren't in the tunnels.
Where did all the voles go?
There was a shoe on the pavement, a metal hand,
Unreplicated litter, some kind of space-mat.
Only half of me still exists.
The next day, I swept up in the lab,
Made myself a new charging station out of scraps.
As a masterless man, I have more responsibilities.
This is an experiment I just devised:
Fireball and rat in a glass tube,
First one to reach home wins.
Behind home plate is a catcher made of stakes.
I can see outside if I bother to look.
Outside looks like the inside of everyone's houses
Dumped inside out. Outside, the air
Leaks bad particles into people's blood.
Luckily my self-filtering larynx keeps me safe.
Inside the lab, I can talk to myself
Without anyone noticing. I can make a rabbit
Turn blue, then back again. I took the limbs
Of a cat and moved them around
The room. This is an experiment on
Myself: how many days does it take
To give up waiting for anyone to come home?
Sargents's The Daughters of Edward D. Boit
1 Four Sisters
Each girl has got her best dress on.
At dawn, they were washed and brushed and tied
Into pinnies. Then the long wait
Until afternoon, when their florid mamá
Peers in for a moment; is off to the coiffeur's.
The one on the floor wants to know what her doll
Thinks about being painted. The one in the door just wants
To cut her hair short. The one on the side is trying
Her hardest not to fall over. The last one
Dreams herself into colour a limb at a time.
Her eyes look dubious. If the world
Makes us pay for our pleasure, how much will she owe?
Her aberrant shadow trails her like a servant.
Her beruffled wrists know no compulsion.
Her indolent sash is a cascading sigh.
She won't marry for love, or money.
She'll found a museum for unmanufacturable inventions.
She can't let them find out where, or why.
2 One Sister
I still play with dolls, but I know they're just pretend. My best friend
Is the housekeeper's cat. We are both exceptionally
Refined: he only eats mackerel, from a porcelain bowl.
I only wear silk taffeta ribbons on my head. He sounds like
A small growling dog when he purrs. I sound like a lady
Dog yapping, Mrs Locke says. If I were a lady cat
I could use my claws to unhook the pink strings
Of my sisters' stays. I could slowly wave my tail in the air
To mean Give me some cream pie or What is the height
Of Faneuil Hall as measured in cats? My triangular skull
Would fit exactly into Mrs Locke's hand. She thinks
Our family's a silly thing, like putting a pug dog into
A party dress. She doesn't know I sometimes put her cat
In the bathroom sink – he likes it there.
What I think: when my sisters are grown up
I'll still be at home, not old enough yet.
If I close my eyes for a second, the world seems to end.
If I had a brother, we could run up and down
The hall all day, then build a castle for the cat.
When all of us are old, nobody we know now will be left.
3 Recipe for a Painting
A pair of giant blue and white vases.
Darkness.
Four corners of a square.
Red ribbon looped in an intricate bow.
(The carpet makes a pale base for his operations.)
Preposterous blocking.
Between shadows, shadows.
Uncertain atmosphere of mirth, ennui, suspended doubt, and likeness.
Eight eyeballs looking around the room.
Horsehair and metal on a wooden stick.
Curled hair going limp.
The sound of day falling.
4 Playing Dead
The girls crowd round his easel like frilly pigeons,
Chattering. The allure of children
Escapes him – they seem
To be everywhere. He waits
For them to stretch, scratch, yawn, pull on
Each other's hems, then puts them back in their places
Again. They like this game
Of posing, just like they like to play
The game Playing Dead – one of them
Lies flat on the settee,
Holding her breath; two are the mourners
All dressed in black; the last is the ghost come back
From the grave, like an extra twin left over
In a womb. They wait for someone
To stop them, for the clocks
In the house to turn, the laced
Fingers of the afternoon to undo
Their sentence. An incomplete sentence
Is missing its feet. An unfinished painting
Has only heads and groundstrokes where the world
Should be. The painting ends with the girls released –
They vanish, leaving their faces behind like masks
On the empty canvas. He starts to bind the night
Into the size of a room.
He can't sleep because of the pendulum in his head.
His favourite medium is twilight.
He doesn't know if he'll find a mate in time to save him.
On Being an Android
My positronic hair never grows an inch.
(It looks like hair, but it's made of wires.)
My brain doesn't look like a brain, but it doesn't matter.
My friends think of me as reliable because I never get sick.
My hands can be used to unscrew bolts and pull things from the oven.
How I was made: equal parts mystery and on-off switches.
Age 5: driving lessons, triathlon, med school, embroidery.
Everyone says looks don't matter, as long as you've got personality.
My first crush was a Roomba I mistook for a person.
Second crush: a person, but don't even go there.
I could live in a cupboard, but where's the fun in that?
The cat keeps me company whenever I cook.
(I don't need to eat food, but I like to practise anyway.)
It's easy to be lonely when all your friends are human.
The cat laps up my meals, but then she's always hungry.
In my dreams, I am charming and good at making small talk.
(There's no program for that as yet.)
Being human means the whole world is made for you like a cake.
Being an android means you get some cake, but you can't eat it.
I don't know how to flirt, so the bears at my local are teaching me.
The lightning in my head means a brainstorm is coming.
If I think hard enough about anything, my hair starts to curl.
It's easy to predict the future when there's a timer in your neck.
The instruction manual says my knee can be used as a utensil.
Everyone admires my artificial skin, but nobody wants to touch it.
Deception Island
This ice crag looks like a tiger's jaw
As seen from below, just before the snap.
The climb seems like nothing until your legs
Give way, as weak as milk. The faltering
Rope-bridge holds, just. Up the murderer's track
To a diabolically booby-trapped
Clearing – his lair – where you lie in wait
Like a Christmas eel with a sting in its tail.
There's no going back. From here, the coast breaks
Off like a bent arm, the way down as steep
As guilt. The glittering bay smiles up at you
With jagged teeth, a trick. No one can survive
Deception Island. Even the ice beneath
Your feet starts to creak ... The snow falls as fast
As the heart pounding in your chest, until
Something comes to arrest it like love, only worse.
Stag, Exmoor
His mighty grimace
Astounds the orthodontic
Consultants at the animal FBI: the enormous
Streaky brown incisors, the histrionic
Curl of lip; the gnashing, molto furioso –
He doesn't want
To be disturbed. The paparazzi
Of the moors carefully
Arrange shrubbery on themselves, peep only
Between his suspicious glares. Their
Heathery cover doesn't fool him for long,
However. He bellows
With a thunderous élan – his succulence
Is of Jurassic order. The gonzo proportion
Of his thoracic cavity
Entrains even the molten-eyed
Does; their delicately speckled
Pepperoni-like hides
Flutter with devotion. Shaggy of pelt, of horn
Astronomical, he defies the arboreal
Collectors of rarities. He doesn't give
A vena cava whether
They stalk him. With a haughty
Toss of his head
He dazzles the poachers, then hoofs it
Back to his bachelor's glen. A solitaire
With a hypothetical
Hat-rack attached – a real catch for
The annals of taxidermy – he
Folds up his bony
Legs for la nuit, arches his unattainable
Neck. His pre-eminent scent drifts
Through the furze as
He snoozes. His unignorable snores ripple
Across the wiry sedge. Night covers
The moor like
A photographer's curtain. Out in
The dark lurks another buck, rubbing
His antler nubs
Together; he's busy practising
His 'disdainful' stance.
The Robots
They meet in secret in electrified rooms.
They are under surveillance ... by themselves.
They sneak food out of our kitchens, even though they can't eat it.
The password for their meetings is 'Please admit me, I am a robot' (in robot language).
They like to interface with ceramic-coated transistors for
recreation.
They keep robo-dwarf hamsters as pets.
They have a financial interest in the Arena Football League, Amway, and Red Lobster.
Howsomever you find them, they will appear ready to serve.
If a robot crosses your path, it means your grandmother just died.
In robot language, 'I' and 'you' are the same word.
How many robots does it take to build a suspension bridge over the Grand Canyon?
If you see a robot with its hands folded, it's planning something.
They use our grammar to mock us.
Cicero once wrote, 'Roboti non possunt fundi' ('It is not possible to defeat the robots').
If they smile at you, it means you just died.
The city of robots will be concentric, well-polished, and paradisiacal – for the robots.
In the city of robots, they will celebrate the holidays Bolting and Zincfest.
Their love of rabbits will come to the fore.
The rest of us will be snuffed out like vermin.
Happy will the robots be when they can practise kung-fu in the open.
Manet's Olympia
The orchid in her hair won't fold or furl.
The string at her neck is tied in a knot for safekeeping.
The stack of pillows she leans on is a towering pouffe, stiff
As a meringue; it means liberties won't be taken.
(Her maid hears everything there is to hear
From the other room, which isn't often.) The bouquet
Stays in paper, the silk-fringed shawl lies untouched
On the back of the chaise, the bedlinen keeps its disarray.
Her eyebrows frame a question that hasn't been asked. In her face,
Discontent and patience. The rest of the morning dangles
Like the opaline drop on her cuff – fire clouded over.
When will anything happen? The waiting
Goes on like a vat of amber being poured
Out slowly, coating them. The clock chimes faintly
From the other room. The cat in the corner rises
To the occasion – it hears something coming.
The maid thinks of cream cakes and breaking the rules.
Her voluminous apron conceals a multitude of plots,
None of them hers. She'll replay them later.
Her eyes betray nothing of her nascent rebellion.
Her hands shape quenelles into uniform spheres.
She doesn't want to sit in state like a pope, or simper in parlours.
Her attention to detail is wasted on mending.
She'd like to seize the day, but the day won't let her.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Ninjas by Jane Yeh. Copyright © 2012 Jane Yeh. Excerpted by permission of Carcanet Press Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Title Page,Acknowledgements,
I,
After the Attack of the Crystalline Entity,
Sargent's The Daughters of Edward D. Boit,
On Being an Android,
Deception Island,
Stag, Exmoor,
The Robots,
Manet's Olympia,
An American Panda Leaves the National Zoo,
II,
On Ninjas,
Scenes from My Life as Sherlock Holmes,
The Wyndham Sisters (after Sargent),
The Birds,
Walrus,
Breaking News,
The Witches,
Sherlock Holmes on the Trail of the Abominable Snowman,
On Sorrow,
The Ghosts,
Case Study: Cambridge, Massachusetts,
Deception Island II,
On Phenomenology,
Scenes from My Life as the Abominable Snowman,
Last Summer,,
Sequel to 'The Witches',
Jellyfish,
Five Years Ago,,
The Kittens,
The Wyndham Sisters II,
Pet Rescue,
III,
The Lilies,
The Balbi Children (after Van Dyck),
Pendant to 'The Balbi Children',
The Night-Lily,
Last Spring,,
Musk-Ox,
On Service,
The Body in the Library,
Deception Island III,
This Morning,,
Notes,
About the Author,
Also by Jane Yeh from Carcanet Press,
Copyright,
What People are Saying About This
"Jane Yeh's shifting and unnatural world may not be a bad guide to the one the rest of us inhabit." —Times Literary Supplement