Cold Organs

I cross my fingers

on his lips

I put them

into his cold organs

where nothing lived

and never

will

unless we hastily

confront it.

I did him lover.

We enjoyed.

I cared no more

he wasn't better

I shared no more

he hardly did

we kissed apace

(who can forbid it).

No cherished memories,

no ruins

I ruined nothing

of them all

and nor did he

as I assume it

with no salute

no farewell.

Margo Kirlan

Heli Review

Wednesday afternoon, I was scrolling down the Facebook page after the evening classes at the university, idly sitting on the river bank with a pack of almonds and dry fruits. A few minutes later my momentary slackness was interrupted by the idea to visit Fabio Fest to watch the peculiar masterpiece by Amat Escalante, a Spanish-born film director. I briefly took a look at the plot summary posted on IMDb telling that this was some “love story between a young girl and a police man”. Not really caring about that non-inviting intro, I called my friend to join me and we headed for CineStar. Later on, after the film ended, I didn’t really get the connection between this fabricated description on IMDb and what I saw on the screen.

First, the film was immediately touching yet silently violent, although there were hardly any sickeningly violent scenes the feeling of them was hidden between the shots. Second, it is conceived freshly and acutely. Not cruel, but “reality capturing”. Not loathsome, but captivating. You are, in the middle of everywhere, you cannot even think to leave the cinema hall to go to the toilet: not because it is so uncivilized but because THE FILM made you watch ceaselessly. You watch the kids being raised within that subconscious harshness derived from the deeds of natural savageness around them. You are aware of something bad to be forbidden but they are born without that morality. You can judge it and be affected yet you can’t move while you stare at how the young boys are suffering in front of their non-responding peers; while the genitalia of the former is sadistically set on fire by the older ones, while the girl with lacklustre eyes is drawing the map to some place since she can’t even talk after the sexual violence she experienced. The film never tells you directly how it was and what it was but the effect you get watching it is even more potent, indeed. 

Uneasily, you accept it. It is natural as someone is brought up watching severity, whose organically trained innards are able to stand and reconcile it. Some people in here, near you, right now, suffer. It is ok. It is how it is. Eat your dinner. Some of them suffer on purpose, some do so with no reason mentioned. Cruelty is born not to comment itself but to spread itself among those who do not consider it abnormal. Who is born to take your sister’s virginity and separate families. "Natural born” brutalized men happen, born not against nature but to make that baby squirm. Eat your dinner. No shame. You can do nothing. One dies, one lives, one kills. Everybody is bound to its congenital messiah. Eat your dinner.

Margo Kirlan

Nymphomaniac’s Art: Who Says Sex?

“I will be against all odds standing like this deformed tree on the hill”, says Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) in Nymphomaniac:Volume 2 just before her very sweet friend and interlocutor, Seligman (Stellan Skarsgård), starts kindly persuading her in having a sexual intercourse with him. She screams, shoots the poor old man and leaves the damn apartments. Too perplexing for the body and too dashing for the soul, Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac: Volume 1 and 2 (together only) is a fascinating non-sexy novel with four hours of complete poetic distortion and sensual investigation. Extensive discussions about the film were brought up long before its first opening night. No wonder: the director, who has given a lifetime ban from the Cannes Film Festival an account of his sympathy with Adolf Hitler and whose films are always provocative and (or) sexual stories, was expected to bring a new portion of uneven shock in his new dark drama.

When I got the first lovely volume I was much confused that this film was intended for the public eyes. Or better to say, adopted for them? It struck me as something that played a joke with my own expectations. Its intimate privacy went too deep inside my own privacy, so to say.  However, I do not mean sexual scenes at this point. Who was looking for sex hardly found any there. Yes, a modest sadist, a screaming betrayed wife and Joe’s multicultural sexual exploits with different types of penises are super detailed but von Trier’s might be that kind of a director who tricks its audience fiercely. Thus this was art or the hint at art at the minimum. At least for me. What kind of art? It is the art that annoys. Remember? Joe is travelling across her extended chapters and looking for the signs on the walls in the apartments while virginal Seligman with blissful face reduces (or extends?) all her provocative creeds to mathematical laws and ecclesiastical dogmas. It is the art that triggers. Something under my skin to be squeezed, something inside my brains to think silently about the movie on the way home in a crowded lonely tram. No fantasies here: just a story of how to be who you are, enjoy it yet pay for it soon after.

As minutes passed by it has become clear that all that actually makes sense. The darkened flashy drama with a brilliant cast, energised settings in Cologne and juicy shots has brought real physical bruises on the screen and mental ones for my mind. It is always more important what your deeds have done to you that what you actually has done. The deformed tree is vital by itself. Even if you f*cked thousands of men. 

- Margo Kirlan

Untitled

I'm holding crying babies

I'm fucking dying dreams

I will never make you smile

you will always

you will always

you will always

take your pills.

Once I broke their little fingers

and my doc said it's ok

you can fix their bones

but honey

not your heart - alas! no way.

Grayish skies and watermelons,

I hit my boy and smiled at his pain,

his eyes today are slightly brown-yellow,

you drank

I drank

so fucking much today.

What we have is pure and nothing

Though we gonna be alright

and I will be never closer

and you will be never closer

than when we were

in films

of black and white.

- Margo Kirlan

Dear Nothing

Dear Nothing, 


if it even matters 
my cluttering heart 
chatters 
in company of a wounded warrior 
stumbling over his own emperor 
with no place to go 
and no day to change 
working too hard for minimum wage 
masochistically licking the boots 
of his own chronic disease 
keys 
are drowned somewhere in my 
intoxicated kidney 
and me 
fighting for peace 
and bouncing to the rhythms of Sidney - 
yes, that is my apogee 
please 
record this my last farewell 
and dehydrated craving 
for my inner refugee 
who wonders somewhere on the road 
in between 
the repugnance 
and the pleasure of the sublime.

- Margo Kirlan

30.5: The Day You Could Adore or Prague Fashion Night

Finally. Prague. The historical centre of the city turned glossy and glamorous that Thursday, 30th of May, welcoming guests from different places of residence. Despite the bad weather, the night gathered hundreds of visitors and all the shops at Pařížská street were presenting their new collections and newly opened exhibitions. The one and the most stunning Monroe-inspired shoes exhibition was held in Salvatore Ferragamo  store where the guests like Giovanna Gentile Ferragamo, the designer`s daughter, and Petra Němcová, the Czech gorgeous model, were spotted and admired. The limited shoes collection had been released for sale and was that night first presented by this elegant lady Ferragamo.

Yes, a chilly late spring rain didn’t keep fashion addicts and any kind of enthusiasts from coming out to celebrate the first Fashion Night in Prague. All the people attending the event were hiding under their umbrellas as they were visiting the luxurious stores and travelling along the busy and boisterous streets. Lots of private cocktail parties and amazing dresses and tunics, pants and shirts, high heels and flats – simply all parts of the guests’ outfits were much on display.  So, as it turned out, the weather didn’t keep the guests from dressing in the best colours – from seashell and light-salmon to saddle-brown and bright orange ones. 

The fashionistas witnessed the current collections of foreign brands: Dior introduced its pre-fall collection created by Raf Simons, Dolce & Gabbana offered its colourful Sicilian campaign and the chic and splendour at Tiffany’s with its new Gatsby-inspired jewelleries.  But don’t forget about the parade of exciting Czech designers: Beata Eden, Natali Ruden, Ivana Mentlová, Klára Nademlýnská and Tatiana Kovaříková.

The evening ended in an emphatic outcry: “Fashion Night: repeat please!” the crowd roared. For the partygoers interested, it was indeed the perfect late spring evening. But I don’t want to foreshadow the events; only time will tell if one can witness again all that gloss and glitter.

Burning with Purity.

My blissful words

will praise your sanctity

in my despair

then I die

and so be fair

since copper wind

blows us off

and rusty sea burns my throat

when I start whispering

my spell

and coral red my gnashing teeth

and I

enchained by that your name

can hardly wear

your soar kiss.