The Private Eye: A Poem

I've always been fascinated by the figure of the Private Eye.

Particularly Philip Marlowe the fictional private eye character of Raymond Chandler who was set in late '30s and early '40s Los Angeles.

My profile pic is of me dressed as Private Eye Philip Marlowe on a Halloween night several years ago.

Anyways today I felt inspired to write a poem about a private eye.


The Private Eye
by Christopher Van Helsing

Walking in silhouettes
always walking in silhouettes
beneath the flash of the neon lights
lights and shadows surround
these alley ways and streets
that mark the battlefield of modern times.

No knights and dragons clash
only rap-listening gun toting gangstas
no castles home to fairy-tale princesses
today's ladies fair display their ware
underneath the lamps at street corners.

Skirts short and nylons sheer
spikes on heels
rather than spikes on armour
as the neon flashes
so do they
a blush would come to Guinevere's cheeks
should she walk today.

And so walks the Private Eye
'neath this misty neon sky
who or what is a Private Eye?
The true Private Eye
(be there truths in an age of falsehood)
is Don Quixote without Sancho Panza
for the true Private Eye must walk alone
holding ideas of knightly chivalry in an unchivalrous age
honour in a world without honour
seeking Justice in a world that has amnesia on the subject.


No helmet of gold upon his head
just a fedora hat tanned and yellow
no suit of armour glistening in the sun
just a yellow raincoat that reflects in the rain
no sword or lance to mark the charge
just a revolver in a holster
and a private eye badge.

Here there is no mistaking windmills for giants
just surveying the scene of the city lights
lights under whose dark shadows
lie broken hearts and broken souls
some turned to love, some turned to hate
and to walk such streets alone
this is the Private Eye's fate.

-A poem written by Christopher Van Helsing
Wednesday, April 28th, 2010.

Looking For Signs of Spring

Wind blows across the barren grass
The twigs of fall are still on the ground
And the trees seem to labour exhorbitantly to bud
this spring.
Jack O' Hare hasn't been around much
and the sky can't decide whether to be rainy
or clear.

The earth waits
it seems the whole world is waiting
is spring around the corner
or is a very dark winter
about to come from nowhere?


-A poem written by Christopher Van Helsing
Monday, April 26th 2010

Slow Boats To China?

Those who know me well know that I love old movies from the 1930s and '40s.

And one of the things I loved about those old movies were the scenes shot on old steam trains and old passenger cruise ships.

In those days, travel was something that was meant to be savoured.

Enjoying the scenery of land and sea at a leisurely pace.

Today travel seems to be standing in line at airports for hours and hours to eventually move through a booth where you're gawked at and strip searched by beady eyed perverts in uniforms as the leaders of our respective countries turn into Orwellian Big Brothers and neither they nor we seem to notice.

The line of the U.S.S.R. was, "Your papers, please?".

The line in today's world, "May I see some ID, please?".

Nouns may change but the intent remains the same.

At least the U.S.S.R had its Aleksandr Solzhenitsyns.

Where are our Aleksandr Solzhenitsyns?

Why, text messaging of course.

But a work like Gulag Archipelago would be marked and classified as so much spam in a world of quickie thoughts and quickie sex.

The greatest accomplishment of a totalitarian state would be to make the unfree think they're free.

Freedom is an illusion and I'm loving it- the welcome sign over the Matrix says.

What the Kremlin in Moscow and the Reichschancellery in Berlin failed to accomplish- the globalization of Madison Avenue has made it a fait accompli in 2010.

We have our Nike shoes and our Gucchi bags.

Our cell phones and our ipods.

We are hooked in and interconnected.

We want fame and adoration?

Simple.

We just need to grab Simon Cowell's attention.

Or kill our neighbour and then post it on YouTube.

The hits and the offers will come flooding in.

The medium IS the message.

We ARE the pieces on the board game of Monopoly.

Soulless.

But unseen masters roll the dice and we move.

And think we're free.

The only real outbursts of freedom seem to come from Icelandic volcanoes.

And the volcanoes stop our flying through the skies.

And we are grounded with no where to go.

But what happened to the slow-moving steam trains?

What happened to the easy pace passenger ships?

What happened to that old maxim, "We're going to find our way to heaven is a rough and rocky road if we don't stop and smell the roses along the way?".

What happened to that old song, "... taking a slow boat to China"?

I'd like to take a slow boat to China.

Or a slow boat to Malaysia.

Or a slow boat from Malaysia...

after picking someone up and then going off to see the world.

As the song Moon River put it, "There's such a lot of world to see."

Maybe if we looked up from our text messaging and looked outside the confines of the screen showing us American or whatever idol we're currently worshipping, we'd be able to see that.