"We were searching for a place of refuge for our love,
but instead, the road led us to the land of the dead."
The Color of Pomegranates
The Color of Pomegranates is a Soviet-Armenian art film made by Sergei Parajanov in 1969. It tells the story of the King of Song, from childhood to death. The Color of Pomegranates was poorly received by Soviet authorities, who banned the film on grounds of being "inflammatory," and completely lacking in socialist realism. Socialist realism was the official cultural doctrine of the time and place in which Parajanov lived, and it required art to depict an idyllic vision of life under the regime.
Like the socialist fantasticalism of the modern West, in which art is required to depict inane, ridiculous, and unbelievable things as though they were true, socialist realism forced artists to depict brutal villains (such as socialist world leaders) as heroes, and to pretend that life was great in a political system that denies the fundamental needs of individual man.
The Color of Pomegranates is not in this realistic fantasy camp, so Parajanov was arrested and thrown in another kind of camp, where he served 4 years of a 5-year sentence. Apparently, Communist officials didn't approve of the "stylized, poetic treatment" of the life of the King of Song, and "complained that it failed to educate the public about the poet." No poetry allowed in the story of the poet. Only math problems. Numbers strewn along the path of the universal narrative, the linear conveyor belt to hell upon which no human beings are allowed to roam. Words scattered like metallic bread crumbs only robots and machines can eat.
Not unlike today.
"My desire to plug into the machine
has been interrupted by a dream!"
Death is Not a Part of Life
"Death is Not a Part of Life" is a bonus track from my album Holy Smokes. It traces the moral path of the King of Song along the edge of the blade that balances like a drunken ballet dancer between Heaven and Hell. It also makes a pretty good soundtrack for the trailer I made for The Color of Pomegranates.
Don't you think?
I am a firm disbeliever in the widely-held notion that "death is a part of life." I reject the idea that we're supposed to resign ourselves to the compromise and ignore the soaring bird of life flying deep within the soul. A bird that is obviously supposed to live forever. I believe it's a cop-out and a crime to subject living birds to the cage of socialist realism (and fantasticalism alike!) and tell them that "death is a natural part of life." Death is obviously not a part of life. It's the opposite of life.
It's death!
"A poet is called upon to provoke a spiritual jolt
and not to cultivate idolaters."
Mirror
So open the cage of death and let the bird run free. Watch the wild lions fly
Away on wings of surreal, inspired
Nonsense.
Why not?
It isn't going to kill you.
Death is not a part of life.
Remember?
Death is Not a Part of Life
Beautiful night,
beautiful light
beautiful stars
burning bright
empty heart
tired mind
I thought I could see
but I am blind
Love is in the air
but I don’t know where
I’d ask
but I don’t care
my desire to plug in-
to the machine
has been interrupted
by a dream!
I’m dancing like a fool on the edge of a knife
death is not a part of life
Culture is fake
people are real
there is no limit
to the terror I feel
how to repent
with a heart of dust?
set it on fire
if you must
Let’s have a celebration on the edge of a knife
death is not a part of life
We’re walking hand-in-hand on the edge of a knife
death is not a part of life
Life is a gift
from beyond the grave
death is the master
I am the slave
I’m not bearing my cross
so much as staring it down
cuz I’m a crime
and this is my crown
So go on & send me to Hell with a twist of your knife,
death is not a part of life
And I’m walking to Heaven on the edge of a knife,
death is not a part of life
©2013 Nathan Payne
