This is a poem which is partly about my art history teacher, Larissa Hjorth, whose lectures were sometimes a little beyond my understanding.
The Hjorthian Reaper
April 25th 1998
Stephen Clark
Once again had a
Bit of trouble breaking away from ruminations
'Cause this history assignment is
Really killing me
It's like a big black figure
In a black robe and hood
Carrying a scythe
Pursuing me relentlessly
Push back the hood, and lo!
It's Larissa Hjorth with her
Beautiful but somewhat unnatural
Hair,
Stabbing at my eyes with
Someone else's
Enigma
Like a very sharp
Piece of paper, full of
Coded words
& when U decode them, the message is
"Everyone else understood it but you."
And Larissa Hjorth drags you to
Hell and back
And she tells you it's a hell of your own
D e s i g n
But the only hell I want to design
Is out there on the streets and I
Should be there now, 'cause it's so
Dark in the uncharted alleys of the night
And darkness is the absence of sight
And senselessness is the absence of life
And lifelessness is the absence of care
And apathy is the absence of trouble
Out there on the streets there is no future
And the Hjorthian reaper is
Pursuing someone else
I want to stop eating today
Because food makes me weak
And starvation makes me invincible
The Hjorthian literature is food from the
Design machine
It tastes like half-digested coffee
The kind of coffee that's
Already been thrown up out of someone else's
Bloated stomach
The food in history class is rancid and
Poorly disguised
It's enough to make me stop eating
And head out there into the foodless world of
dark corners
dying invisibly
like a man who has lost his sense of
Pain but I don't
index