gingatao

Restraint

July 25, 2012 at 8:12 pm | Posted in writing | 8 Comments
Tags: permanence tattoo, posthumous release, writing as time travel

“every artist’s strictly illimitable country is himself … and thus I readily conjured a gorgeous and dangerous play world”
ee cummings

My imagination is not a world in which I feel restrained. In fact, like ee cummings, I build the idea of ‘illimitable’ into the concept of imagination since that is how it differs from reality. Reality is a restraint, we are faced with the limits of the possible and the existing, the process of imagination is the act of going beyond perception into the realm of that which does not yet exist.

For a long time I toyed with the idea of imagining things into being. This is not a ‘magical’ concept but a practical one. All things human made, except those which occur by accident or chance, are imagined into being. Before they are created as objects or ideas in the world, buildings and bridges are imagined by architects, nations by founders, books by writers.

“The Way bears sensation,
Sensation bears memory,
Sensation and memory bear abstraction,
And abstraction bears all the world”
Tao Te Ching

Of course the reverse is also true, it is simply a matter of direction and flow. A kind of oscillation or expansion and retraction. The process, in this two way formation, is not so much abstraction as fictionalization. I was trying to write a poem in which a simple object, a glass bead, exists in total isolation from any context. I found it impossible.

The bead, as it exists in my imagination, instantly creates a context, so I placed it in a painting, the painting then existed in a frame, the frame in an easel, the poem in the world. The painter, distracted momentarily by thoughts of Louise, returns to his realm of imagination, and remembers Bede.

“This is only a connection because of the empty sound of the words,” he says. But the confluence of vowel sounds, ‘bead’, ‘Louise’ is a pleasure to him in and of itself. It seems that this process of imagining things into being requires some bridge and that bridge is not silence.

A word from admin.

September 24, 2011 at 7:25 pm | Posted in writing | 21 Comments

A remarkable body of work by Paul Squires is nestled here in the pages of the gingatao blog.

His last post, Gene Kelly Tattoo, has reached a landmark of 100 comments, something Paul would have been very pleased about. Of course the circumstances are different than they would be if he was here. But it was something he always wanted and would have been grateful for.

For readers who have recently discovered or stumbled onto the work of Paul Squires, we welcome you and hope to share something vital about this amazing man and his brilliant writings.

Paul Squires was (and still is) an influential force of energy, whose work fostered an awareness of potentials and possibilities widely in writing, arts and media, and through performing his prose and poetry. His work online added dimensions that further developed the internet form and scope for creative endeavor, and it is important to note how he diligently went out of his way to help other writers and artists expand and grow and become better. How his words of wisdom, humor, argument and insight encouraged and promoted creativity and communication. How a quality of light plays through all of his passages. Even the dark ones. How he gave so much to so many and how startlingly important his voice was.

Paul’s first book “The Puzzle Box” was published twice, the second edition is available in paperback from Lulu. A limited number of first edition hardcover copies are also still available from Lulu. All proceeds from the sales will go to his family and potentially toward a writers award in his name.

“Jewellery” was one of Paul’s metaphors for the words strung across the page. He envisioned the settings, stones, precious metals, all sculptural in dimension, all in sparkling fine quality and placed in a distinctive array.

We encourage new readers to come, enjoy and learn. We welcome his friends to revisit, remember, respond. We hope to eventually publish the last manuscript he left behind, and we hope you will come back and read Paul’s words again and again.

A special magic permeates this work. Once you have known Paul Squires, you can never forget about the magic that swirls from the belly of feeling to the crown of spirit and permeates our world.

“Have a fantabulous day full of tiny miracles like unexpected flowers blooming,”
Paul Squires

Gene Kelly Tattoo

July 16, 2010 at 8:01 pm | Posted in poetry, writing | 106 Comments

that which you can see
coming
you already have

it is the unexpected
stumblings over (airborne joy with tumble roll)
which constitute the treasure

into outstretched
sunsets
merriment and dance

cruising

July 14, 2010 at 3:49 pm | Posted in jazz poetry, poetry, writing | 13 Comments
Tags: jazz poetry, poetry, writing

gaily traipsing road crossing
daffodils and dandelions fluttering wakeward
as he passes
and a scent between miner and metal
hobnailed
playing ‘dancing with cars’

This bus is very quiet he thinks
And Tuesday!
Spectacularity!
Yet another icecream sky

why is a letter of the alphabet
who the noise of owls
how a pleasant greeting
when a minor chord
what a measure of electrickery

Ducks down the alleyway
Waddle and a quack
Fruit salad breakfast
Back to formularity

rainbow graffiti trailing beauty
curlicues of exuberant joy crisscrossing
as he passes
and a music between oscarrrpeterson and
the brickwork
playing ‘reality, it’s a great place to be,

still life with irony

July 12, 2010 at 6:24 pm | Posted in poetry, writing | 9 Comments
Tags: poetry, writing

not flowers who live and bloom in splendid
florid overt context
nor feathers shed which drift
snake skin, cocoons, containers,
fruit’s obvious temptations

irony since even the word
stasis moves but the breeze
is less than momentuhmmm
as the thought drifts verbless
involuntary
hello response complete with
echolalia la laughter

left drawing a bead
on pre-stretched canvas
Louise while waiting

King Lear Tattoo

July 8, 2010 at 6:26 pm | Posted in poetry, writing | 10 Comments
Tags: Edgar, King Lear, poetry, three card, writing

behind the mirror shades
the zap of flash bulbs
fades
three card slips into the back of the limo
exhales the long held breath

the Edgar engine purrs the street scene blurs
he drifts between the his the hearse
this strange and aweful awesome curse

where are we going to sweet Mamu
“when sudden lit beneath
a spotlight mooon,
he chuckles, wiggles
his Lear tattoo pay day
soon, accelerate,

Just

July 6, 2010 at 4:21 pm | Posted in australian poetry, contemporary poetry, memoirs, poetry, writing | 9 Comments
Tags: Brisbane, poetry, writing

walking to West End from Stafford
in a cycle of recrimination and
justification a church sign plastic
letters clipped
neatly
‘to avoid criticism
say nothing
do nothing
be no-one’

hours later a strange misplaced nostalgia
at the sound of a Scottish Marching Band
as it escaped the shadow of the Big Wheel
with a bass drum ponder call to attention
and the rattle of steel carefully orchestrated

On the Art Gallery wall -
‘It’s between representation and the other thing,
whatever that is,
and it’s difficult to keep one’s balance.’
Ian Fairweather, 1963
the year I was born
coincidentally like the young
man’s soft nervous trilling triplets
before the march began, loosening his wrists and
thinking about the architecture of sound.

Lastly the river
a breeze not even birdsong
accompanying me
just the sun dancing
silver sparkling
from the water,
literally
a memory of stars.