Category: Images

Herr Kasperle

Every man is a Faust (Dr Zhivago)

Near the gushing Jordansprudel
and the high green hair of the ginko
is an antique shop
set in palatial grounds

Herr Kasperle sits next to the Polyphony turntable
on a black wooden box
Watches tourists pass by the score of Schubert
as cut glass tulips sparkle in the window

Layered Deutsche Mark faces, cheek to cheek
shiver with dust rain as the door creaks
Kaleidoscope hides the meaning of life in peephole spiral jewels
Encyclopedic postcards of People-Proving-Their-Joy with a rushed hand

Woman coughs as she descends the spiral staircase
Russian sickle jacket hides behind the door
The owner adjusts his pince-nez

Ghosts hear echoes of red hammer taps
Carved head tilts, stares
Herr Kasperle blinks
dreams of his string ancestors
Shadow, Tabletop, Glove
Finger, Stick, Ventriloquist
The entertaining races
Curriculum Vitae displays appearances in Faust
Street theatre in a frayed patchwork waistcoat
Glued beard en pointe
Makeshift stages conjure children’s gazes

Herr Kasperle repeats his line:
A man sees in the world what he carries in his heart

Desperate clutch of memento to prolong pilgrimage
I hold your wooden hand
I have to take you home

Copyright © Deborah Edgeley

Folge Mir

VOICEOVER
Meine Damen, Herren und Kinde
Folge mir…

AERIAL SHOT
Under the belled tower
We wait for the clockwork Rattenfänger

ZOOM
Staccato chug
Brass feather in cap
Cold flute lips call coloured shadows of what was…

Our past has tails
that swish in the mud

Shaky Super Eight sketches of the 70s
Our Past Existed (PG, 118 minutes)

A splice of plastic eidetic
Encode, store, retain, recall
Have you got capacity?

Splice
Brain as projector to an outdoor screen
Orange flames from neurons
fire original vignettes
from a haphazard storyboard
STOP AT 5:31:
Graceful Mutti
Chiffon siren swish
Smoke screen of Uncle Georg’s cigar
Chime of the first bell
Backlight of Vater’s steady hand
Black onyx glints

SLOMO
Eyelashes flutter as manicured nail flicks ash
Pigtailed girls hold hands and look up to the belled tower
Leiderhosen with embroidered edelweiss

MASTER SHOT
of the Rattenfänger
Folge mir…

Our Present Exists (18, Infinity)

STOP AT MEMORY #85647923788…
We watch the cartoon in Hameln
Synchronised whiskered faces poke through holey käse
Choreographed ballet-pointe gallop
I like cartoons, you said. I didn’t know.
Is he a good man or a bad man?
EYELINE MATCHING ON RATTENFÄNGER
I didn’t know.
Where do all the lost neurons go?

Hypnotised kinder skipping
towards
Koppelburg mountain cave
CROSS CUT
To the crippled boy
who slings his crutches
Cartwheels to…

MONTAGE
-Candy Heaven (away from carpentry bondage)
-The Grim Reaper (rescued from plague, under his cloak, like stolen watches)
-The Teutonic Land (Landowner gathers orphans, like hay bails, legs flailing)
-The River Weser (drowned with the rats because of anger issues towards the cowboy mayor)

Is he a good man or a bad man?
Folge mir…

Now, imagine our What-Was-Vignettes as others saw
Not from your eyes, from his eyes, then her eyes, then their eyes
Aerial, behind, extreme long shot
from a bird
1974 Hameln town hall
RUMBLE THUNDERSHEET
Six family members’ vignettes of the same moment
Stretch our sketches into patchwork perspectives
Fact and fiction splices
Swishing tails in mud

Create you own theater
Clapperboard snap
That’s a wrap.

Copyright © Deborah Edgeley