The night I honeymooned with Brisbane
she took me around like a sweetheart to meet the family.
We came upon places where McLennan had had her
before me. We passed Jacaranda trees gathering dusk
and she was friendly with old drunks and buskers.
When we passed City Hall, she reminisced about
Roy Orbison and The Rolling Stones, the night
they made love by the roar of trams, sparks flying
at the folds of her cotton dress. The night I saw her
for the first time, I saw she was a good girl – something
to fall in love with – fond of the young boys who’d stuck
by her; wild sons of a sort who’d go on to elegise her
claim their corruption by her. And quietly, all over
the world, her men return to that first night. Like schoolboys
stealing mangoes under perfect skies, they remember
with affection, the tough romance of their first bite.
Monthly Archives: November 2009
Tough Love
Filed under poetry
Mr. November
This year has been a good one musically, so many good releases, one of which was the double album, Dark Was the Night, featuring the Dessner brothers from The National. While I was hoping for a new album from the band this year, their contribution to the project, So Far Around the Bend has certainly been on high rotation. And anyway, great things don’t need to be rushed…
So, with the final month of the year hurtling toward us, the last weekend of Spring opening it’s skies, don’t be careful anymore… fall in love with Mr. November.
Used as the unofficial anthem for Obama’s election campaign, this song, from their 2005 album, Alligator opens me up like a tin of fish each time I hear it. The lush, chiming guitars, crisp snare sound and vocalist Matt Berninger’s deadpan, rising to a full-throated roar, careens on the edge of losing control. It has a wildness, a sense of abandonment. It is driving with the windows down, turn it up loud and sing till your throat hurts good.
I wish that I believed in fate
I wish I didn’t sleep so late
I used to be carried in the arms of cheerleaders
Check out this great live version…
Wind the clock forward to 2007 and the band release Boxer, a brooding masterpiece. It is an album of dark, asymmetrical rhythms scoring Berninger’s collage of poetry, dialogue and imagistic brush strokes. Apartment Story has an agoraphobic feel, something the band do quite well, but ironically, it sends you out into the world, wanting to share it with everyone you meet.
Oh we’re so disarming darling, everything we did believe
is diving diving diving diving off the balcony
Tired and wired we ruin too easy
sleep in our clothes and wait for winter to leave
And this, from their 2003 album, Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers. This is jagged, angular rock. A caustic tale, which ends with Berninger exploding into the question, ‘why did you dress me down and liquor me up?’ Where Mr. November careens on the edge of abandonment, Available plunges headlong into it. The climax steamrolls… but leaves you ready to do it all again.
Did you dress me down and liquor me up
To make me last for the minute
When the red comes over you
Like it does when you’re filled with love
Or whatever you call it
More from the band at their homepage: www.americanmary.com
Filed under who listens to the radio?
Rewrite your mind
The weekend is nearly here… time to give the mind back to the body. And what better way to begin the process, than dipping into the Mind Writing Slogans of Allen Ginsberg. So if you are in need of rebalancing the engine, here’s a few words to live by:
Notice what you notice
Catch yourself thinking
Observe what’s vivid
Vividness is self-selecting
– Allen Ginsberg
Filed under poetry & publishing
Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Leonard Cohen
I was looking around over at Pitchfork this evening and discovered, much to my joy that for this week only, you can watch, in full, the 1965 film, Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Leonard Cohen. The film takes us into the world of Cohen the poet and novellist and provides some extraordinary footage of Cohen reading from his early work and discussing the art of poetry. He is elegant and captivating.
So without any further ramblings… Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Leonard Cohen.
And if you can’t find the time to watch it this week, I also discovered you can watch the complete film here.
Filed under poetry & publishing
Black Rider Press drops issue #3 of The Diamond and the Thief
and it is making beautiful noises inside my head…
Issue #3 of The Diamond and the Thief features a real handful of gems.
One burning note rings its last in Nick Santos-Pedro’s opening poem Smoke. The Japanese jazz master’s rumble ‘gone, too soon’.
Ashley Capes’s poem comes to rest explores the liminality of the smallest places, where ‘each spore/ thinner than mist/ comes to rest’. The opening lines, ‘the dandelion clock roams/ like a heart-beat fairy’, pure magic.
Then there is the nihilistic explosion of a prose poem, Forest by Shane Jesse Christmas. It sweeps you up in its wild vortex and drops you with a headful of lightning at ‘the depressing drape of the forest’.
And Lily Chan cuts us a generous slice from her exquisite memoir-in-progress, Toyo.
Ephemeral, swirling, glorious, intricate… a handful of words to (begin to) describe The Diamond and the Thief.
Filed under poetry & publishing
Brisbane New Voices: Fiona Privitera
Today I am holding a copy of my latest publishing venture Brisbane New Voices, featuring two brand new micro-poetry-collections by Jonathan Hadwen and Fiona Privitera. It looks rather stunning and is putting a very large smile on my face! So to celebrate, here is a look at one of the poems from Fiona Privitera’s micro-collection, Peep Show.
Love cannot be measured
nor measured out like
caught breath or
dead weight; open cadaver
silk viscera as
lengths of rope knotted
in the Quipu language
of the Incas
the different colours
of my insides bright
as a rug woven
with a back-strap loom
one end tied to a tree
another to a strap around
my tensioning hips
threads from fingertips
spun floss pulled from body
I move my open mouth
from his shoulder
and a long line of spittle follows
Brisbane New Voices will be launched early in 2010, so keep your eye out for details in the new year. And don’t forget to check out the sample from Jonathan Hadwen’s micro-collection, Night Swim.
Filed under poetry & publishing
Coming Through Storm Clouds
i.
gulls kiss the clouds
and we walk the beach
afraid of the tide
the sky over
Point Danger sinks
into purple and black
ii.
coming through storm clouds
a butterfly surprises us
a survivor, perched on
a snapped branch
iii.
we drift apart
wet skin and sunscreen
coming through our storm
flightless
Filed under poetry
Free Tom Waits Downloads
Now I am sure that will get plenty of people’s attention…
For a limited time, you can head on over to the official Tom Waits website to download an 8-track preview of the new Glitter and Doom live album, due for release on November 24. Glitter and Doom collects the best of Waits’ 2008 tour of the same name and as a bonus, the release will also feature a second disc collecting the best between song banter from the tour, edited together into a 35min continuous monologue. Now there aren’t many artists who could even contemplate releasing a CD of their stage banter, but for an artist like Waits, this is often where the real magic is captured. So while the downloads are free (and approved by the artist) head on over for your slice of Glitter and Doom.
Filed under who listens to the radio?
long roads
This morning I took a trip over to the soon to be defunct 3lightsgallery. My mind has been craving haiku these last few days; their brevity, their clarity, their transformative power. And while haiku as a form is growing in popularity (if that is the right word?), the art still remains misunderstood by many and in terms of education, haiku is widely taught as little more than a counting excercise… as long as its 3 lines - 5 syllables then 7 syllables then 5 syllables - it’s a haiku. Not only is this a turn off for young writers, but nothing, and I mean nothing, could be further from the truth.
So what is the truth in haiku? John Bird’s work for Haiku Oz earlier this year is definitely worth reading when contemplating this question, but for me, the truth lies in discovering haiku that hit hard, stay with you and reveal themselves slowly, becoming part of your world.
Looking through Ron Moss’s gallery over at 3lights provided several of these moments. One such moment came when I discovered Moss’s poem and accompanying image:
deep into the mountains the road I’m lost on
We have all travelled such roads - both literally and figuratively. Moss’s ability to illuminate the inner and outer journey with just a handful of words is a great example of the power of haiku. And there are many more transformative moments that await in Ron’s gallery. I hope you carry some of these moments away with you…
And my own offering:
playing with matches in the long grass red moon
Filed under poetry, poetry & publishing
Sweet Come Down Saturday
Saturday is here in all its glory… gentle breeze, the old dog sleeping at my feet and a handful of quiet hours stretching out before me. And here are a few of the songs that will carry me through. Saturday morning come downs never sounded so sweet…
Sweet Come Down – The Black Ryder
The Black Ryder blend fuzzed out noise, hypnotic rhythms and a sweet country twang to create a sound all of their own. Sweet Come Down showcases the vocal interplay of Aimee Nash and Scott Von Ryper – Nash’s voice floating and ethereal, Ryper’s cracked and earthy. It burns slowly and then it is gone… crawling into a corner of your consciousness and asking to be played again. Don’t expect any hooks from this band… just settle in for the ride.
Soon It Will Be Fire – Richard Youngs
Richard Youngs is one of those incredibly prolific talents, recording more than 50 albums as collaborator or solo artist. And there is no sign of slowing down, his latest release Under Stellar Stream released this week through Jagjaguwar. Youngs hyopnotic folk sits deep in your belly, his at times fragile voice, and deeply meditative playing draw you deeper into the silences so carefully left. This is music to slow time and drift toward vanishing point. Soon It Will Be Fire is from his 1998 release Sapphie.
Minor Careers – Spokane
Spokane create music that reflect the moments in between events. Each song exquisitely crafted, achingly subtle yet strangely brimming with emotion. Rick Alverson’s murmuring voice hovers in the at times barely there instrumentation and loving stretches of ambience. Nothing is rushed. Like a sparsely furnished room, Spokane provide the necessary space for you to enter into their soundscapes. A fine place to inhabit in those increasingly rare, quiet hours.
Filed under who listens to the radio?
