Rohan Buettel: ‘The Message’, ‘House Under Construction’ and ‘The Dolphin’

The Message

Home again, red light flashing on the machine

Press the button and a woman’s voice

 Neutral, electronic, strangely slurred

We need to change

Why this need for endless change?

your connection

I would prune a few connections

within 24 to 48 hours

not urgently, just every day

as your IP address has been compromised

too many compromises

from several countries

when one is enough

So we need to change

I would keep things as they are

your IP address and router

although meaningless

which will be free of charge

we always pay in some way

So please press 1

I press 1

to be connected

nothing connects

to the technician

no signal, function complete

Rohan Buettel

House Under Construction

(after the painting by Kazimir Malevich)

there is not much warmth

under a red sun, deconstructed

in separate rectangles

the roofline, solid blocks of colour

diagonals brown, black, blue

lightly affixed

to a thin black wall

early intimations of a wobble

this house under construction

in 1916, abstract, geometric

with a supremacy of feeling

a revolutionary influence

closer to the taste of Trotsky

than another leader

abstraction too dangerous

too ambiguous

formalist and decadent

as Malevich found

arrested, in 1930

afterwards painting

only representations

the house suffering

from the very start

the dilapidation

of dry rot

in the foundations

Rohan Buettel

The Dolphin

One morning drive, a lonely ocean way

The blinding sun dazzling from monster swell

I glancing saw grey shape emerge through spray

Down precipitous slope tail thrusts propel

To quickly execute a bottom turn

And power up the face of glassy wave

Then reach the crest and dive over the churn

To disappear into the roiling lave

A dolphin surfs inside a mounting surge

With streamlined shape to minimise the drag

Slide through laminar planes, waters diverge

Seen once, human surfers no longer brag

Superb mastery, a dolphin at play

Being itself, the most perfect display

Rohan Buettel