Quincy MD.
Amazon dutifully delivered the Restored Ariel yesterday. (In a private car by the way). I know I have all the poems already and so I have just bought it for the facsimile and drafts but the comparison with the thin, red edition I have always had is striking. The foreword by Frieda is breathtaking yet measured and I am sure will provide material for the adjustment of all the old dissections. The main point is of course its analysis of Plath and Hughes as real people rather than the literary deities and focus for two different camps. It would be glib to say that the foreword could be summarised as "Calm down" for it is actually quite angry at points; as angry as the rarefied atmosphere of literary life appears to be for us outsiders anyway.
There is no point in any specific review of the poems apart maybe from The Swarm which as I may have mentioned has suddenly made itself know as one of my favourite Plath poems though it has not yet overtaken Electra On Azalea Path.
Friday, November 26, 2004
Friday, November 12, 2004
The Return of the Return of the Return of .....
Listening to Loveless by My Bloody Valentine
Strong-armed Sally broke away from her homeland and came to live in America. I'm not sure which part but the back yards of the houses on the edge of town were the last bit of human landscaping for hundreds of miles. You could walk in a straight line out of Sally's back door and not come to another house for days. I see an evil light in the sky here, a permanent sun-through-cloud type of light with no sunrise or sunset. I had the first degree awarded to an illiterate and it shows. How bad can it get?
Sally loved some man from here and that is why she moved but no one can remember who it was. Her love got lost in the loud music she liked, stuff that frightened most of the locals who thought it dangerous and foreign. She was reported to the authorities who decided she was harmless but annoying. They could not find any law to make her stop so she is allowed to carry on playing this noise as loudly as she likes. Sometimes a gap-toothed old-timer comes to her door and screams for some peace. She might turn the volume down for a bit but within the hour, when the old man has trundled away back to his Jack Daniels, she turns everything up to eleven again and the rattlesnakes slither for the hills.
Sally's back garden is sandy, just a part of the desert rolling over her property and into her emotions which are sandy also. She eats alone always and has no real friends inside the state boundaries. Years ago, when Sally was a teenager, she would sit overpowered by her love for this man from here. He might let her buy him a drink but he never really loved her back. Sometime later she may have moved back here, over the Atlantic. She liked to think she came home on a romantic liner but really she flew. And what is so spooky about this is that she never went back again. This dusty town is where she was born, and first fell for that loud-mouthed warmonger who never returned her calls. She thinks she still loves him but that doesn't matter because he is dead by his own hand in a roundabout sort of way. He killed someone he thought was bad and they got a gang together and came for him. Sally was there; she scratched a few people or maybe tried to calm everyone down but in the end he just died there in the dust. They never buried him. Sometimes he is still on TV when they want to make a point or sell something for old people. But he is definitely dead and not moving.
Listening to Loveless by My Bloody Valentine
Strong-armed Sally broke away from her homeland and came to live in America. I'm not sure which part but the back yards of the houses on the edge of town were the last bit of human landscaping for hundreds of miles. You could walk in a straight line out of Sally's back door and not come to another house for days. I see an evil light in the sky here, a permanent sun-through-cloud type of light with no sunrise or sunset. I had the first degree awarded to an illiterate and it shows. How bad can it get?
Sally loved some man from here and that is why she moved but no one can remember who it was. Her love got lost in the loud music she liked, stuff that frightened most of the locals who thought it dangerous and foreign. She was reported to the authorities who decided she was harmless but annoying. They could not find any law to make her stop so she is allowed to carry on playing this noise as loudly as she likes. Sometimes a gap-toothed old-timer comes to her door and screams for some peace. She might turn the volume down for a bit but within the hour, when the old man has trundled away back to his Jack Daniels, she turns everything up to eleven again and the rattlesnakes slither for the hills.
Sally's back garden is sandy, just a part of the desert rolling over her property and into her emotions which are sandy also. She eats alone always and has no real friends inside the state boundaries. Years ago, when Sally was a teenager, she would sit overpowered by her love for this man from here. He might let her buy him a drink but he never really loved her back. Sometime later she may have moved back here, over the Atlantic. She liked to think she came home on a romantic liner but really she flew. And what is so spooky about this is that she never went back again. This dusty town is where she was born, and first fell for that loud-mouthed warmonger who never returned her calls. She thinks she still loves him but that doesn't matter because he is dead by his own hand in a roundabout sort of way. He killed someone he thought was bad and they got a gang together and came for him. Sally was there; she scratched a few people or maybe tried to calm everyone down but in the end he just died there in the dust. They never buried him. Sometimes he is still on TV when they want to make a point or sell something for old people. But he is definitely dead and not moving.
It's About Dublin
The Palm pilot is a might emptier this morning because I have finally finished reading Ulysses. It has taken me longer to read that it took Joyce to write it. Well it has been longer since I started reading it. I started again for this cycle but from some of my Blog entries you can see when I re-started. Reading through all of Molly Bloom's speech at the end I struggled to get over the 'what on earth is she on about' feeling but that soon became a powerful image of the inside of someone's mind. It ended exactly right and as the Preface says, despite many suggestions that it is unfinished it is probably the most concluded book ever. I was tempted to start on Dubliners but I think a break from Joyce is required. Actually, I was tempted to start Ulysses again after purchasing one of those companions which explain all the references and locations. Staring again should really be reserved for Finnegan's Wake shouldn't it? The bottom line is that often I was not quite sure what was going on (a bit like the John Peel show) but perseverance is worth it for the easy roll down the hill to the end. A great book. Read it in your lunch breaks and be amazed.
Talking about John Peel has reminded me of something I wanted to check. One of the great treats on his show was a session by Ivor Cutler who must surely feel a bit cut off now.
Listening to Dead Can Dance by the way. Very Loud.
Like some small gig at the Flying Picket it is, when the music was so loud it hurt and the band I knew stood in the spots making them burst over the walls. I took photographs and they were good, like the ones in the NME. They used one of them on their flyers. The bassist joined Electrafixion for a bit. We saw them in some small place in Liverpool. My friend was in the last few months of being pregnant and the music was too loud. She had to leave because the baby (now ten) was dancing along or maybe protesting. But Ian McCulloch looked good in his shades as always. I wasn't allowed to take photos then and the drink came like water until the eardrum buzz made the music like some repeating mantra, losing all its meaning and even melody, just feedback in the night and intoxicated students.
Take those headphones and press them into your ears to get the bass into your skull. It seems to blank out not only sound but vision as well, a rattle that becomes sight and sound.
The Palm pilot is a might emptier this morning because I have finally finished reading Ulysses. It has taken me longer to read that it took Joyce to write it. Well it has been longer since I started reading it. I started again for this cycle but from some of my Blog entries you can see when I re-started. Reading through all of Molly Bloom's speech at the end I struggled to get over the 'what on earth is she on about' feeling but that soon became a powerful image of the inside of someone's mind. It ended exactly right and as the Preface says, despite many suggestions that it is unfinished it is probably the most concluded book ever. I was tempted to start on Dubliners but I think a break from Joyce is required. Actually, I was tempted to start Ulysses again after purchasing one of those companions which explain all the references and locations. Staring again should really be reserved for Finnegan's Wake shouldn't it? The bottom line is that often I was not quite sure what was going on (a bit like the John Peel show) but perseverance is worth it for the easy roll down the hill to the end. A great book. Read it in your lunch breaks and be amazed.
Talking about John Peel has reminded me of something I wanted to check. One of the great treats on his show was a session by Ivor Cutler who must surely feel a bit cut off now.
Listening to Dead Can Dance by the way. Very Loud.
Like some small gig at the Flying Picket it is, when the music was so loud it hurt and the band I knew stood in the spots making them burst over the walls. I took photographs and they were good, like the ones in the NME. They used one of them on their flyers. The bassist joined Electrafixion for a bit. We saw them in some small place in Liverpool. My friend was in the last few months of being pregnant and the music was too loud. She had to leave because the baby (now ten) was dancing along or maybe protesting. But Ian McCulloch looked good in his shades as always. I wasn't allowed to take photos then and the drink came like water until the eardrum buzz made the music like some repeating mantra, losing all its meaning and even melody, just feedback in the night and intoxicated students.
Take those headphones and press them into your ears to get the bass into your skull. It seems to blank out not only sound but vision as well, a rattle that becomes sight and sound.
Thursday, November 11, 2004
Saigon
It was so long between me seeing those bombers and what did that all mean, those falling, black tubes? At five before the end of the sixties, that was the only news I knew, that everywhere was at war and yet here was always peaceful. Nearly always! What war lasted for so long? They must have it wrong for I was either at school being told to be quiet or running about in the fields and parks with no worries at all. My dad sheltered me from all that; he hid any trouble from me and coming home was a retreat from the black world of the B52s into a safe blanket-lined den. It was only later that I knew they were B52s and much later that I knew that a B52 was also a hairstyle and a rather strange group who took no part in the Vietnam war. And then that general shot the crying boy and we all thought he had something missing. Know the real story and maybe some sympathy will switch positions. We are illiterate and proud, knowing just enough to be here and logged in. Knowing just enough to know that we know just more than anyone. All those years when I thought I was dumb and here we are and me so arrogant as to really believe that I can spell better than anyone. Really it is the machines which keep us going, checking the spelling and the grammar as we go like so many fairies in the background. So many people and so little intellect, just enough education to breath and bang the rocks together.
They hadn't heard of electric folkies then. Maybe Dylan had wound up the Fisherman's jumper brigade with his electric performance but you had none of the fey techno stuff that skitters round the ipod earphones these days. Everyone trying to be Nick Drake rather than Nick Cave. That was murder. Soon I will have everything I have ever listened to or written stuffed on some grain of dust implanted under my skin and I will be happy. No more stuff to buy, ever. There isn't anything left to do and so maybe we will just shut down and listen to all our music in one go. 2500 CDS; that's nearly a year's worth of music in one go but then again so many are listened to over and over. You must know what they are by now and how are we coming along with that project to database the lost. Those Tibetan ones may be coming out of the garage soon.
And all those teenage dreams come crashing down in a fit of embarrassing memories, of missed opportunities and being turned down by beautiful girls. She was in white and would have broken had I touched her, spinning away in pieces leaving me in some scenery red-faced and wanting to be eaten by the hell beneath. The ground never opens up when you want it to. The real ones are hidden in your friends, the foul-mouthed ones who teach the kids to swear while mother is out of the vehicle. It is all so hard to beat and what do you want on your tombstone?
I am so sick now. The room is not quite right, maybe not spinning yet but guttering back and forth in preparation. In Limbo with Virgil and the other boys it is so sad but still a permanent existence, peaceful with time to read but so alone despite being with excellent company. Is it real despite not believing? The whole world at the end of this keyboard, not a thing hidden, the president's shoe size, maybe just a haircut and how stupid is that? This dream is short and happy.
Lapsed? Me? With my reputation?
It was so long between me seeing those bombers and what did that all mean, those falling, black tubes? At five before the end of the sixties, that was the only news I knew, that everywhere was at war and yet here was always peaceful. Nearly always! What war lasted for so long? They must have it wrong for I was either at school being told to be quiet or running about in the fields and parks with no worries at all. My dad sheltered me from all that; he hid any trouble from me and coming home was a retreat from the black world of the B52s into a safe blanket-lined den. It was only later that I knew they were B52s and much later that I knew that a B52 was also a hairstyle and a rather strange group who took no part in the Vietnam war. And then that general shot the crying boy and we all thought he had something missing. Know the real story and maybe some sympathy will switch positions. We are illiterate and proud, knowing just enough to be here and logged in. Knowing just enough to know that we know just more than anyone. All those years when I thought I was dumb and here we are and me so arrogant as to really believe that I can spell better than anyone. Really it is the machines which keep us going, checking the spelling and the grammar as we go like so many fairies in the background. So many people and so little intellect, just enough education to breath and bang the rocks together.
They hadn't heard of electric folkies then. Maybe Dylan had wound up the Fisherman's jumper brigade with his electric performance but you had none of the fey techno stuff that skitters round the ipod earphones these days. Everyone trying to be Nick Drake rather than Nick Cave. That was murder. Soon I will have everything I have ever listened to or written stuffed on some grain of dust implanted under my skin and I will be happy. No more stuff to buy, ever. There isn't anything left to do and so maybe we will just shut down and listen to all our music in one go. 2500 CDS; that's nearly a year's worth of music in one go but then again so many are listened to over and over. You must know what they are by now and how are we coming along with that project to database the lost. Those Tibetan ones may be coming out of the garage soon.
And all those teenage dreams come crashing down in a fit of embarrassing memories, of missed opportunities and being turned down by beautiful girls. She was in white and would have broken had I touched her, spinning away in pieces leaving me in some scenery red-faced and wanting to be eaten by the hell beneath. The ground never opens up when you want it to. The real ones are hidden in your friends, the foul-mouthed ones who teach the kids to swear while mother is out of the vehicle. It is all so hard to beat and what do you want on your tombstone?
I am so sick now. The room is not quite right, maybe not spinning yet but guttering back and forth in preparation. In Limbo with Virgil and the other boys it is so sad but still a permanent existence, peaceful with time to read but so alone despite being with excellent company. Is it real despite not believing? The whole world at the end of this keyboard, not a thing hidden, the president's shoe size, maybe just a haircut and how stupid is that? This dream is short and happy.
Lapsed? Me? With my reputation?
The Dirty Mouth of Edmund Burke
I took an alternative route to work this morning. I have recently found myself extremely dismayed at how many different ways I have of getting home in the evenings and yet each of them takes about the same time. I then get further depressed by the need to actually make these journeys. This hatred of the journey home regularly has me through the floor, stuck with all the other commuters in some traffic jam. In contrast, the few times I have had to take the train and bus have made me quite happy. I actually used to write poems on the bus which risks some derision in this city I suppose. Despite the tradition of musicality, I can avoid the generalisation made by Boris Johnson and say that poetry is still seen as slightly fey and suspect. Years ago, I used to write manual (i.e. using a pen) poetry during lunch hours, what was described by one of my colleagues as 'Wandering Lonely'.
Strawberry Picking
Treasures for us have to make me remember all that takes place this day. There is me so many years ago, wishing in the sunshine as that sweet fruit dipped and sugared made me happier. We were friends together in those fields at the start of your diary, two boys singing Gino and throwing strawberries at each other while the cold-war raged and fell apart. The farmer’s rich children came out in their whites for tennis and I thought they thought of me not much, a rural accent made glassy at the limit of my hearing and I am better than them, sharing this moment with what becomes literature.
And then it rained, rotting the fruit in the plants and they paid us to just pick, by the hour, how to save the field from mud and mush. It was flat but twice the piece rate to just extract that mushy red rot and burn it. Think of the sound of the rain on the dayglow coats, the pat-pat on the hoods. And the Gino boys were not there today. I thought of them, cool and rich from many punnets picked and rated highly by the matronly overseer, laughing and drinking in some city bar. I thought everyone was a poet then, not just spirit fiends and avaricious drunkards. Strawberry liquor ferments in the pools between the plants, a sticky glue that burns with the discarded fag ends, a slow drug promising an oblivion in the clotted congealed mess that flows against some lunar gravity, down my arms like scars.
Those fields are all flat now. We drove by the gatehouse the other day, a burned out flaky painted wreck that seems to say that the whole farm has folded. What happened to those bright girls in their whites? They have their bald husbands now or maybe some in tow for maintenance at least while they drink and spend the last penny I made for them in the fields. Taxed by tax and paper work, the farm failed and returned to the moor and deer. My children are still to young for this story but one day I will show them the comparison that hit me the first time I opened this book, this three-bookmarker that takes a year to read.
and so yes those boys came for me that night breathing fumes of rough cider I lived for just one night up to my ears in the smoke and music the walls of mud and straw just like they were for older kings against the smoke four hundred years ago no commas in any conversation marion made older in that bar we fell slower over the tables until the lock in came the landlord trying to throw us out gave up and gave us more drink until we slept as dawn came grey light over the trees and strawberry fields coy mistress in the upper clapboard kissed them teasingly and ran home laughing to the telling off for staying out she expected from the second i saw who came that night before mythology and ghosts in the woodwork teeth around the doorposts and then we were away to college alone again giving up naturally and starting again with a new set of friends boys who tried to be the gino singing angels and failed in the city rain fruit made sweeter by its rarity gave me pause and how we loved everything that was to come and is now
I took an alternative route to work this morning. I have recently found myself extremely dismayed at how many different ways I have of getting home in the evenings and yet each of them takes about the same time. I then get further depressed by the need to actually make these journeys. This hatred of the journey home regularly has me through the floor, stuck with all the other commuters in some traffic jam. In contrast, the few times I have had to take the train and bus have made me quite happy. I actually used to write poems on the bus which risks some derision in this city I suppose. Despite the tradition of musicality, I can avoid the generalisation made by Boris Johnson and say that poetry is still seen as slightly fey and suspect. Years ago, I used to write manual (i.e. using a pen) poetry during lunch hours, what was described by one of my colleagues as 'Wandering Lonely'.
Strawberry Picking
Treasures for us have to make me remember all that takes place this day. There is me so many years ago, wishing in the sunshine as that sweet fruit dipped and sugared made me happier. We were friends together in those fields at the start of your diary, two boys singing Gino and throwing strawberries at each other while the cold-war raged and fell apart. The farmer’s rich children came out in their whites for tennis and I thought they thought of me not much, a rural accent made glassy at the limit of my hearing and I am better than them, sharing this moment with what becomes literature.
And then it rained, rotting the fruit in the plants and they paid us to just pick, by the hour, how to save the field from mud and mush. It was flat but twice the piece rate to just extract that mushy red rot and burn it. Think of the sound of the rain on the dayglow coats, the pat-pat on the hoods. And the Gino boys were not there today. I thought of them, cool and rich from many punnets picked and rated highly by the matronly overseer, laughing and drinking in some city bar. I thought everyone was a poet then, not just spirit fiends and avaricious drunkards. Strawberry liquor ferments in the pools between the plants, a sticky glue that burns with the discarded fag ends, a slow drug promising an oblivion in the clotted congealed mess that flows against some lunar gravity, down my arms like scars.
Those fields are all flat now. We drove by the gatehouse the other day, a burned out flaky painted wreck that seems to say that the whole farm has folded. What happened to those bright girls in their whites? They have their bald husbands now or maybe some in tow for maintenance at least while they drink and spend the last penny I made for them in the fields. Taxed by tax and paper work, the farm failed and returned to the moor and deer. My children are still to young for this story but one day I will show them the comparison that hit me the first time I opened this book, this three-bookmarker that takes a year to read.
and so yes those boys came for me that night breathing fumes of rough cider I lived for just one night up to my ears in the smoke and music the walls of mud and straw just like they were for older kings against the smoke four hundred years ago no commas in any conversation marion made older in that bar we fell slower over the tables until the lock in came the landlord trying to throw us out gave up and gave us more drink until we slept as dawn came grey light over the trees and strawberry fields coy mistress in the upper clapboard kissed them teasingly and ran home laughing to the telling off for staying out she expected from the second i saw who came that night before mythology and ghosts in the woodwork teeth around the doorposts and then we were away to college alone again giving up naturally and starting again with a new set of friends boys who tried to be the gino singing angels and failed in the city rain fruit made sweeter by its rarity gave me pause and how we loved everything that was to come and is now
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
Hi Honey! I'm Home.
This review of the Restored Ariel by Vanessa Curtis almost made me cry. The wonderful, happy-childhood images suggested by the new ordering are quite overpowering. Of course this doesn't mean that Ariel had become a kids' collection but all those bleak poems at the end so obviously did not belong in the collection. The Swarm, which is included as an appendix is actually one of my favourites though all the beekeeping poems are good. Still can't wait - still have to.
This review of the Restored Ariel by Vanessa Curtis almost made me cry. The wonderful, happy-childhood images suggested by the new ordering are quite overpowering. Of course this doesn't mean that Ariel had become a kids' collection but all those bleak poems at the end so obviously did not belong in the collection. The Swarm, which is included as an appendix is actually one of my favourites though all the beekeeping poems are good. Still can't wait - still have to.
He Buried Cheese and Important Papers
It was nice to see Ian Hislop on Who Do You Think You Are? After last week, when Jeremy Clarkson did nothing to disprove that he is a prat of the highest order, it was good to see a restrained but reverent programme. The final section involved a trip to Uig, on the West coast of The Isle Of Lewis which is where we had our honeymoon. Ian Hislop found it wet and miserable though he struggled through the wind with a massive golf umbrella to visit the few remaining stones, all that remained of the house of one of his ancestors. Our memories of Uig are of almost tropical sunshine, huge expanses of white, sandy beach and total peace and quiet. Even on the late summer bank holiday we saw few cars and fewer people walking. We had no TV and had to make to with the radio. One night we listened to a piping competition where one entry was what seemed like twenty minutes of drone - see ABoneCroneDrone for comparison. Now listening to Quiet for relaxation. Anyway, back to Uig. Despite the rain, I was suddenly extremely anxious to get back to Lewis; life in this part of the world seems pressured at the moment and there are rumblings of emigration from a few people I know. I have a problem with flying so for me any trip would probably have to be one way.
I have been away from regular blogging so long that I can't seem to get back into any proper flow. The poems aren't coming as quickly as they used to either. This may reflect the noticeable changes in the atmosphere here at work or just the pressures of an extra child who can no longer be put down without worrying about where he will get to. My daughter has taken a sudden and compulsive interest in history and keeps telling me things I didn't know like who started the Great Fire of London and exactly what delightful punishments were 'awarded' to Guy Fawkes. She shouted down the stairs last night to ask us how to spell 'bubonic' and then drew a picture of a smiling girl with spots in the midst of the Great Fire. I pointed out that anyone with the Plague would certainly not be smiling so she labelled the girl as having freckles. She also has an obsession with TS Eliot as a result of listening to Cats though we have managed to keep her away from The Wasteland.
What books have I missed mentioning?
Where Did it all Go Right? by Al Alvarez
Only a few hundred pages from the end of Ulysses, which after a struggle with the chapter going through the history of written English, has become a lot more interesting if a little slow. I am nearly at Molly's monologue/stream of conciousnness/observational, stand-up comedy (which by the way was the basis for the words to The Sensual World by Kate Bush.)
The big one coming up is the Restored Version of Ariel with facsimile drafts, notes for readings at the BBC and a foreword by Frieda Hughes. Can't wait but will have to.
Just to prove that there are some poems, a good one for you. I haven't posted many anyway but this is by way of sacrifice to the Gods of The Blogs who must have been getting uppity.
It was nice to see Ian Hislop on Who Do You Think You Are? After last week, when Jeremy Clarkson did nothing to disprove that he is a prat of the highest order, it was good to see a restrained but reverent programme. The final section involved a trip to Uig, on the West coast of The Isle Of Lewis which is where we had our honeymoon. Ian Hislop found it wet and miserable though he struggled through the wind with a massive golf umbrella to visit the few remaining stones, all that remained of the house of one of his ancestors. Our memories of Uig are of almost tropical sunshine, huge expanses of white, sandy beach and total peace and quiet. Even on the late summer bank holiday we saw few cars and fewer people walking. We had no TV and had to make to with the radio. One night we listened to a piping competition where one entry was what seemed like twenty minutes of drone - see ABoneCroneDrone for comparison. Now listening to Quiet for relaxation. Anyway, back to Uig. Despite the rain, I was suddenly extremely anxious to get back to Lewis; life in this part of the world seems pressured at the moment and there are rumblings of emigration from a few people I know. I have a problem with flying so for me any trip would probably have to be one way.
I have been away from regular blogging so long that I can't seem to get back into any proper flow. The poems aren't coming as quickly as they used to either. This may reflect the noticeable changes in the atmosphere here at work or just the pressures of an extra child who can no longer be put down without worrying about where he will get to. My daughter has taken a sudden and compulsive interest in history and keeps telling me things I didn't know like who started the Great Fire of London and exactly what delightful punishments were 'awarded' to Guy Fawkes. She shouted down the stairs last night to ask us how to spell 'bubonic' and then drew a picture of a smiling girl with spots in the midst of the Great Fire. I pointed out that anyone with the Plague would certainly not be smiling so she labelled the girl as having freckles. She also has an obsession with TS Eliot as a result of listening to Cats though we have managed to keep her away from The Wasteland.
What books have I missed mentioning?
Where Did it all Go Right? by Al Alvarez
Only a few hundred pages from the end of Ulysses, which after a struggle with the chapter going through the history of written English, has become a lot more interesting if a little slow. I am nearly at Molly's monologue/stream of conciousnness/observational, stand-up comedy (which by the way was the basis for the words to The Sensual World by Kate Bush.)
The big one coming up is the Restored Version of Ariel with facsimile drafts, notes for readings at the BBC and a foreword by Frieda Hughes. Can't wait but will have to.
Just to prove that there are some poems, a good one for you. I haven't posted many anyway but this is by way of sacrifice to the Gods of The Blogs who must have been getting uppity.
Guitar Tech 01/10/2004
Make me a new mother
here with the spots behind us
and I will have you,
your mind wrapped up
in this dress,
smelling the date I bought it,
the time I stop and fail.
I will soothe your fingers,
suck away the strings and blood
you lost for me.
I am gauze for you,
a sheeted window
for your kinks and risings,
or me, just mine.
I am in the dark stuff,
some uncrossed T
behind the smoke and cellars,
a margin, blank and desireless
like all the vacant ice
of fame for fame,
love in the wallpaper,
a sweat and stare for care
and antidote for leaving home.
I took the buzz from Blues
and sent it to the moon
in time to end the decade;
sold it for my talents
A misery, a noun for my neuroses,
has me city-wide,
a walker, a single eye and camera.
And I slip back, a dusty building stone
made living by some wild god,
a thrash against your standing
in some fantasy, some movie.
We fall back from verse to bridge,
technicality in this strobed act,
broken down to elements by light,
against the wall, and fragments,
of my love in pieces,
me made stupid by the rush of blood,
and you here now, sole capacidad,
a sinking raft, yellowing the deeps
with flares and chocolate as we fall
to dust made mud, made salt.
I write and love like taking notes,
missed adjectives and pronouns
make this letter like a command
to those I rule and hate.
Hold me here, and lower me
to sleep and high rise,
all we need in gutted cities.
I have taken centres out before,
killed landscapes with a fire
and freaked out whole towns
with the scream I practise nightly.
Make me a moment out of touch,
a sweet embrace out here
and cold on me has me breathless.
Witchy me!
Wednesday, November 03, 2004
Home Truths and bangin' Techno!
Listening to Throwing Muses 2003 - VERY LOUD
It seems that John Peel's Death has sparked a few lapsed bloggers back to work (you know who you are and don't blame the kitten). I am devastated in a way that I cant describe. I used to listen to Peely's show on a battered clock radio after I was supposed to be asleep. It faded in and out on Medium wave with Radio Moscow sometimes blocking it out on the worst nights. Can't say that I enjoyed everything he played and there was a time when the only stuff I thought worth listening to was the Reggae but over the years I grew to like more and more. Anyone who has heard of the Comsat Angels only knows them because of JP's show. Da da dum. Gone and never forgotten.
If only the devastating news of the US Pres. Elec. result prompted as much writing. Maybe it will.
We have been back in Malvern for a week, well actually in Upton-upon-Severn really. The new camera took a beating but I haven't got things together enough to post anything yet. I can't actually send files to the site I use from here so it has to be done from home. Maybe some next week. We were accompanied by my nephew for a lot of the time and for an eleven-year-old, he seems to chosen the role of protector-in-chief of number one son. We visited the Avoncroft building museum and he pushed the buggy round all the mud and hills without complaint or prompting. Avoncroft houses the National Telephone Kiosk Collection (restrain yourselves!) with each one linked by a working Strowger exchange. Now I know all about how Strowger works; this site is still know as the Strowger works; but I have never seen a live exchange in operation. I really need to put the picture I took up don't I? There is also a Tardis which was disappointingly slightly smaller on the inside than on the outside. Still, it did light up if you called it and there were plenty of people of a certain age humming the Dr Who theme or making Tardis schwusharghschwsharghhhhh noises. My daughter loved it - only slightly less so that I did.
All is still VERY LOUD.
Listening to Throwing Muses 2003 - VERY LOUD
It seems that John Peel's Death has sparked a few lapsed bloggers back to work (you know who you are and don't blame the kitten). I am devastated in a way that I cant describe. I used to listen to Peely's show on a battered clock radio after I was supposed to be asleep. It faded in and out on Medium wave with Radio Moscow sometimes blocking it out on the worst nights. Can't say that I enjoyed everything he played and there was a time when the only stuff I thought worth listening to was the Reggae but over the years I grew to like more and more. Anyone who has heard of the Comsat Angels only knows them because of JP's show. Da da dum. Gone and never forgotten.
If only the devastating news of the US Pres. Elec. result prompted as much writing. Maybe it will.
We have been back in Malvern for a week, well actually in Upton-upon-Severn really. The new camera took a beating but I haven't got things together enough to post anything yet. I can't actually send files to the site I use from here so it has to be done from home. Maybe some next week. We were accompanied by my nephew for a lot of the time and for an eleven-year-old, he seems to chosen the role of protector-in-chief of number one son. We visited the Avoncroft building museum and he pushed the buggy round all the mud and hills without complaint or prompting. Avoncroft houses the National Telephone Kiosk Collection (restrain yourselves!) with each one linked by a working Strowger exchange. Now I know all about how Strowger works; this site is still know as the Strowger works; but I have never seen a live exchange in operation. I really need to put the picture I took up don't I? There is also a Tardis which was disappointingly slightly smaller on the inside than on the outside. Still, it did light up if you called it and there were plenty of people of a certain age humming the Dr Who theme or making Tardis schwusharghschwsharghhhhh noises. My daughter loved it - only slightly less so that I did.
All is still VERY LOUD.
