Field Recordings

Listening to From Gardens Where We Feel Secure by Virginia Astley.

Why is Virginia Astley only on such things as Stuart Maconie's Specialist Corner? I was very uncool at college for admitting to listening to From Gardens .. but then I didn't care much. To be honest I can't really remember what my contemporaries were actually listening to at the time anyway. This always brings home how complex listening habits are. If your tastes are wide then you at least avoid becoming one of those genre prisoners who listen only to Appalachian Rockabilly or Hi-Energy Japanese Washing Machine music. (No sites I can find for either of those). From Gardens Where We Feel Secure just sounds like what summer should be. I can't say why but then I still don't care much. It might explain the poetry, which started about this time as well.

On that subject, I am trying to decide whether to put some up or not. Some of the recent stuff has tended to be diary-like noodling. Here is an example.

Rattle 17/08/2004

Surfacing this morning, blowing tanks,
I arrow tides, a metal whale crowning
in this blue arena, this murky seaway.
And I am in the stream,
the lanes of oil and junk,
some random lines between the tips and dumps.

To see refugees, sunk seamen, dry for days
in rain and storm that covers all their enemies.
And I regret my missing of them,
how I leave all of them to dessicate.
The stopped soldier climbs a net
to tumble into shallow camber
where the water spills its ink.

I have the day as mine, all things in it
made real by how I choose them,
how I wish to kill a cat
or sink a ship and save the crew

The sad city is laid out here, insensible,
flat and open for dissection,
washed out with the temperance of ages,
the rain of summers to be forgotten.
The cat complains of weather,
how she may not leave the house,
may not play in sunny corners,
where the green cools the yellow sun
spotted over concrete of the garden.

Eaten, satisfied I drive this magic road,
this runway to a paradise of work.
Gas station scene, a Western Romeo,
brought down by lighted gasoline
has thrown himself three thousand feet
straight up to hell or heaven.
And over us the Hueys clatter,
a draft on us to damn our conflict.
Out of us the storms of worship,
come like venom spat by snakes,
a poison dinosaur of on-foot battles
raging years before we dig up skulls
and reconstruct the face.

Today is obtuse rattle,
a mix of split memory,
a neurone analogue
to show all the world as flow.

I wanted to document the day in a poem but it got away from me slightly. I should really concentrate on writing verse that sticks to its theme. I try to not use common phrases and that just makes things obscure. Oh Listen! There's the donkey.

And now a swing translated into a two-note piano phase. I could end up gibbering on the floor if this gets any better. You have the whole world and I have this.