Review of Love Fails-Safe: poems and stories by Khail Jureidini

I planned to have written this review back in February, but then, well, everything happened, and here we are – but this book has never lost its parallel to the present moment. Perhaps that's a feature of all good literature of any kind; its feeling of present relevance, of it's ability to relate to us another version of our own story. It's not exactly that art is a reflection of us, but that we seek our reflections in art.

In the mirror of this book is another life, in another time, surviving the calamity of his present moment. He survived the trials of Cyclone Tracey, survived a lot of things. But this is not a stoic guide to rising above it all, no no, this is a subterranean spelunking of psychology. It runs into the room and lays it on the table and buddy if you don't get it then, ok.

Long time gone big willy willy up north

There was a very heady atmosphere of frangipani in the morning

for quite a few hours hours before the rots began to set in,

before all the power lines were really dead,

before the meat started to going off,

before the first body count started circulating

before the airlift began

before telegraph poles could be untwisted if ever

before washing under fire hydrants allowed then disallowed

before any smiling

before a full impression, other than total destruct,

could be gained from awestruck minds

just before

just before the need to realise deep survival instincts

to realise reel eyes real

eyes that one had, in the immediately previous twelve

hours,

had in fact utilised and refined all survival instincts

still alive

still alive

still a-live live

ticking turning over churning over and breathing

and breathing blinking blinking the eyes

breathing breathing a

very

heady atmosphere

of crushed frangipani

the mourning after

I tried to find a segment of that poem, a passage to quote, but with Khail's work, the big picture is so important, the context of each passage is a part of the whole. Taking little gems might not be the way this review goes. I'm not really in the driver's seat on these things – I actually do my best to just get out of the way and let the words write themselves.

I think that Khail might know what that feels like, what a lot of you who are reading this might also know all about. That part of us that speaks for itself. But this book is not some soft focus dream journal, no no, Khail knows just how to twist the knife, knows just when to cut from poetry to prose and drive a hammer down on the truth of his experience:

The very curative methods which these institutions purported to be offering the patient, these were the very things which were withheld. The reason? The power of drug administration, the shamanistic fear-ritual of the hypodermic needle, its proper use, its abuse from the point of view of unnecessary administration, its abuse from the point of view of threatening a person with its use (or abuse) as a behavioural control measure; the sometimes blasé barn-storming use of electro-shock treatment to the long term detriment of the patient because of inculcated fantasies rather than a working knowledge of what is being done.

Something I really like about Khail is his mixture of stream-of-consciousness style writing, with vitriolic prose, with MEGAPHONE BLARING PRONOUNCEMENTS!

and even rhyme,

though not all the time,

and not always with the same rhythm on each line...

he plays games with us even as he speaks with seriousness, even as he dares to speak about truth by its own first name, and to rhyme while doing it:

And truth to tell, it's sometimes hell

that truth will take you to

But if you dare to ring truth's bell You won't deny

how the truth's wind blew

Khail is, in his own words, not an obvious madman, and only knowing him by his writing, having only met him once, and seen him recite a single poem, it seems a fair description. His assessment of himself, (his poetry is such a confession I think) is forgiving, without being gluttonous of reprieve. He wants to tell a story, but he wants to tell the truth at the same time, not an easy thing to do, but I believe that he achieves it. Admitting that mistakes are inherent in any endeavour, ...for even a god can make mistakes; one might say who but a god!, he recognises no authority over others and neither is he judgemental in relating stories of the foolishness or bravery of others.

Simply put, he seems like a weird old man, a brave and expressive and creative old man, who's lived a weird old life, and if you've got the time to sit down and hear a story, you might just find something you didn't know you were lookin' for.

Love Fails-Safe is available through Sunshine Press and Lizard Skin Press.

https://lizardskinpress.webs.com