Frieday - 12:46 p.m.

Blimey…

Have you ever gone to one of those banner advertised diaries and been truly fulfilled? It’s just like New Coke - it promises all sorts of things but singularly fails to deliver. The banner ads are all just fizz and frivolity and the diaries nearly always turn out to be nothing more than angsty teen caterwauling.

Well, we had our attention tweaked by the promise of some hot lesbian action. We are proud supporters of girls who like girls and once signed a petition to support something to do with dykes when we are at University. Our interests were far from prurient, honest. Well, imagine our disappointment we discovered the following:

“I want to fill up my hands with wild plums and charcoal, to smear it over a wall I cannot yet imagine, pure and white as it is possible for white to become. I want to ruin things. I want to hold destruction in my mouth like a lump of licorice-tongued opium and spit it onto any expanse of purity I can find--a unicorn's haunch, a virgin's womb-walls, the altar cloth stained with invisible semen…”

Excuse Me Professor Teddy…

Perhaps Teddy can enlighten us. What does it all mean? Teddy, a Professor of Comparative Words at the University of the Central Coast, begins his lecture by clearing his throat, adjusting his tie and sipping a glass of water. After folding and unfolding his legs a couple of times, he begins…

“The opening line is clearly a wish for things that can’t be had, a yearning for purity,” says Teddy, waving his paws about. “The yearning – symbolized by the plums and charcoal – two things that would clearly make a terrible mess if not carried correctly – are both dark in colour. So while the author is clearly yearning, there are misgivings too, that is amply illustrated by the desire to smear over walls these very things they are wishing for…”

And this wall is white?

“Yes,” says Teddy. “It is white, that is correct.”

And is there anything significant about this purity and whiteness? As In the line ”to smear it over a wall I cannot yet imagine, pure and white as it is possible for white to become…”???

“I doubt it,” says Teddy. “The author is confused. White is a conceptual impossibility. Have you been to the hardware store recently and looked at the colour charts? There’s no such thing as a ‘pure’ white… You might find a nice Arctic White, but even that has blue in it…”

So what of the line I want to ruin things?

“Well,” says Teddy sniffing, “That’s just unfortunate and silly. Why would you want to deliberately ruin things? It may be that a soufflé tastes better if it has risen twice, but would one go out of their way to deliberately destroy a tasty desert? I think not.”

Would you smear a desert over a wall?

“If it displeased me, perhaps. But I think you are paying too much attention to the literal meaning of the words. The poet, Artemis Waxing, is clearly on to something. The tension between the lines is interesting. They are playing a surrealist gambit that is daringly au fait with the poetic resonances of the early 20th Century, not something that you would imagine a poet trying in this day and age…”

What of the rest of the poem?

“The poet wants to hold destruction in their mouth,” explains Teddy, his paw waving now more imperiously. “Like – and the simile is apt - like a lump of licorice-tongued opium. This is a curious image to use for two reasons – the first is that putting opium on your tongue is not the best way to ingest opium – smoking is clearly a better way to achieve cognitive estrangement – but, secondly, to flavour it with licorice is to conjour up images of sweet shops, not degenerate drug addiction. So while the poet likes the idea of taking a drugs but uses a childish flavouring to give it a subtle twist – something sinister but not sinister – like the use of a sugar cube with Absinthe…”

That is a very interesting point Teddy. And then they want to spit it onto any expanse of purity I can find--a unicorn's haunch, a virgin's womb-walls, the altar cloth stained with invisible semen…. What can it all mean?

“Hmmm,” says Teddy, stroking his chin. “I’m somewhat bamboozled by the conjunction of negating images. Here we find the poets second use of the word purity but neither a white wall nor the cavalcade of confused images that follows are particularly ‘pure’”.

How so?

“Well, have you spat on a unicorn’s haunch? I mean, it’s not like you can go down to the butcher shop and say, “I’ll have a pound of Unicorn’s haunch, my good sir, I have a desire to expectorate on it to symbolize my disgust with the modern era!”??? I know I haven’t. Nor have I seen a virgin’s womb walls, which with the combination of spitting as a vulgar euphemism for ejaculation, seems to be another self-canceling image. As to how an altar cloth could be covered with invisible semen I don’t know. Perhaps it’s a special sort of semen that you can’t see, like that of a gnat or similar insectoid-type creature? It’s all very mysterious.”

Now Teddy, what about the rest of the poem, about the boy who gets too many apples, and the ghastly image of…

“Stop,” demands the small bear. “I have grown weary of your incessant demands. I wish to rest now.”

But…

“Look, read it your damn self.

bears in history - future bears

“This diary cracked me up, completely, perhaps the oddest diary I have ever read. I'm not sure if it's a takeoff on something or someone that I have somehow missed. Regardless, TEZNEZCO! chronicles the adventures of two bears and describe them as if they are a minority of some sort. The writing is disturbingly matter-of-fact as if it is perfectly normal to be writing about these bears as people. I like it; it's pleasantly novel" - Diaryreview

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