Poem by Geoffrey Gatza: I Hate Capitalism but I Want to Fuck Santa Claus

from A Dog Lost in The Brick City of Outlawed Trees

 

Introduction

“The art of change ringing is peculiar to the English, and, like most English peculiarities, unintelligible to the rest of the world. To the musical Belgian, for example, it appears that the proper thing to do with a carefully tuned ring of bells is to play a tune upon it. By the English campanologist … the proper use of the bells is to work out mathematical permutations and combinations.”

—Dorothy L. Sayers, The Nine Tailors

My love of change ringing came about many years ago, when I first read Dorothy L. Sayers’s Lord Peter Wimsey novel, The Nine Tailors. The basis of the detective’s hunt revolved around a message encoded in the changes in a peal, a three hour long series of bell ringing containing 5,000 or more changes without breaks or repeating a row. I would listen to Bells on Sunday on BBC Radio 4. In the short burst of church bells I began to love the sounds and patterns and how they flustered the spirit; and after many years, I began to think on how to use this for poetry.

These poems are based upon change ringing. This is an English method of ringing church bells to produce a rich cascade of sound set in a predetermined series of order. This order is based on weaving basic sequences of ringing, set in rounds, by moving down the scale of bells. Change ringing produces very different sounds than the hymns and songs played on carillon bells. The bells are hung dead, in a different style of frame allowing the bells to swing through an arc of 360 degrees, to produce a rich sound called a good strike. And unlike hymns or songs, these pieces evolve as they dissolve, open as much as they close in on the ideas initially started by the first line.

The ringing of a set of bells in a precise relationship to one another creates a transcendent sounds upon which one can meditate. The sequencing of the bells are numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5… from the highest-pitched bell to deepest ringing bell. After each sequence, or round, the order of the bells is changed slightly in a prearranged way. With 5 bells, there are 5 × 4 × 3 × 2 × 1, or 120, possible changes, which take about 4 minutes to ring. With 6, 7, or 8 bells, the number of unique changes is 720, 5,040, and 40,320, respectively. To produce different variations, bells are made to change places with adjacent bells in the row, for example:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
2 1 4 3 6 5 8 7

These rows are the musical notation of change ringing. No bell moves more than one place in the row at a time, although more than one pair may change in the same row. In order to ring a different row with each pull of the rope, ringers have devised methods for changing pairs in orderly ways. These place changes produce musical patterns, with the sounds of the bells weaving in and out.

These poems are set up for performance. They are scored for people in place of bells. How to read these poems on the page is entirely up to the reader. They are based upon the scoring of a series of changes, using the method as a starting point in which to make a poem. There are improvisations, deviations, and out-right errors if these are viewed by a real Change Ringer. But to that group I offer consolation by saying that this is an entirely different form of art, like a movie is to screenplay as a screenplay to a novel. To the rest of the audience, it is just poetry, enjoy.

— Geoffrey Gatza, Kenmore, NY

 

 

I Hate Capitalism but I Want to Fuck Santa Claus
Yorkshire Surprise Major — For Eight Voices

I hate capitalism but I want to fuck Santa Claus
I but to want Santa Claus fuck

I to but Santa Claus want fuck
to I Santa Claus but fuck want

to I but Santa Claus want fuck
to I Santa Claus but fuck want

to I Santa Claus fuck but want
to I fuck Santa Claus want but

to I fuck Santa Claus but want
I to fuck Santa Claus want but

I to fuck Santa Claus but want
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I to fuck Santa Claus want but
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to Santa Claus I fuck want but
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to Santa Claus I fuck want but
Santa Claus to fuck I want but

Santa Claus fuck to I want but
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fuck Santa Claus want I to but

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I hate capitalism but I want to fuck Santa Claus