eden

July 3, 2010 at 5:06 pm | Posted in jazz poetry, sheer selfindulgence, writing | 5 Comments
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… a reality whose connection to the actual world of the imagining reader is tenuous at best. The truth becomes gloriously irrelevant, postulations on orchids,

How old fashioned thinks the vicar, louche on Ms Helpburn’s divan. Now we are in the post-Victorian in which all is quaint decoration and pop but he remains tightlipped on the outside of whatever’s slightly outre.  Rain, he suggests aloud as she pours his tea, and struggles to find a tiny niche in which to survive like some strange insect. Happy for the shelter of a waxy leaf from which water drips, snoozing through the day with a low buzz which may just be tired lungs and excessive humidity,

She sits, decorously, Vicar, it is such a wonderful word, don’t you think. Sorry, he says, I was just looking at your garden, so gentle and pretty in the afternoon rain, Ms Helpburn. Do you have a gardener?

Soraya

July 1, 2010 at 7:45 pm | Posted in memoirs, sheer selfindulgence, writing | 7 Comments
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Soraya’s new toy came in a lovely package. There really are no other words to describe it, nor are any necessary. I wanted to write something that I had never written before, new adventures as it were, but only those two sentences came to me before I was rudely interrupted by a brusque knocking at the door. It was the debt collectors. They had come for the previous resident but one of them recognized me from the club. They saw the open bottle of whiskey on the table and it turned into a bit of a session.

Half way through and quite pissed, I told them of my plan to write pornography but from a female perspective as a kind of challenge and see if I could get away with it. One of them wanted to back the project and the other said it was disgusting and left disgruntled. I doubt I will ever be able to look him in the face again. Still, that is the price you pay as a writer. There is always a certain risk involved or you are not doing your job properly.

The next morning I woke up on the beach, alone, and wearing my four hundred dollar Hong Kong suit, covered in sand, the occasional small crab exploring my hair. I remembered the plan and thought about Soraya, how much trouble she would get in to, and how little chance of surviving it she would have. Went back to the motel and wrote this instead.

the gentle art of soft landings (podcast)

June 29, 2010 at 7:42 pm | Posted in australian poetry, contemporary poetry, jazz poetry, music, podcast | 2 Comments
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I have podcast the piece below “the gentle art of soft landings’ below this linkage.

I did it in one take with no rehearsal because I wanted to practice live work which I feel kind of fits with the idea of improvisation.

Now I will have to ask Joseph Tawadros for his permission to use the music as a background for the performance. But only if I don’t write a better one for it in the meantime.

the gentle art of soft landings

June 28, 2010 at 7:28 pm | Posted in australian poetry, jazz poetry | 9 Comments
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Suddenly his hands forgotten,

Take one moment to see my work he said breathing dirt
and holding out an open hand tis true one develops
a heart of stone when one sleeps rarely
and only in certain uncouth company, yesterday
a gilded cage
then under bridges
fallen

Sketched you in Morocco
standing naked hips tilted,
at the window in the morning
thinking about breakfast.

with a twist on ice, if it’s not too Dean Martin, omerta
principles with an end to occam Picasso was an immaculate
draughtsman before he was a Cubist without
being sweeney practiced my grammar, recap
italising the ‘I’ and using ‘one’ as in one may assume?
between the keeping of secrets and the breaking of promises
insert ocean metaphor here teddy as I explored your consent
to my manipulations of the roots of language and gloried in my power.
remember that car exit bridge alternate endings either way and both shot down
left you standing by that river shivering and her dying
hyannis port, white sails blue horizon,
on the occasion of another passing
found at the centre Matsuo Basho
giggling over a still pond no frogs nor
the sound they make when they land

(composed to the music of  Joseph Tawadros -”Hand in Hand” which you can listen to here, with Alister Spence (piano), John Napier (cello) & James Tawadros. )

(written as a first attempt at the National Jazz Writing Competition)

The Puzzle Box (2nd Edition)

June 24, 2010 at 3:34 pm | Posted in australian poetry, poetry, writing | 4 Comments
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I would like to take a moment to introduce “The Puzzle Box” 2nd Edition. I was never really happy with the layout and presentation of the first edition, it had a very ‘first edition’ feel. So I employed (and at very reasonable rates I should add) the services of an experienced freelance editor, the inestimable Kiersty Boon. The book is now completely typo free, it has an index, acknowledgements, new font, a stylish cover, frontispiece, is perfect bound and is, in every way, new and improved.

Importantly, the first edition has now been removed from sale, so if you own a copy of it, you are in possession of a rare and valuable asset. However, with the second edition and the application of the incredible style and precision of Ms Boon’s editing expertise, I finally feel that the frame enhances and accentuates the work. If you are preparing a manuscript, a skillful and independent eye is an absolute necessity and I do not hesitate in recommending Kiersty’s services as an editor to all and sundry.

There are many ways of supporting the gentle art of poetry but none more effective and realistic than buying the work of the poets. Please consider this small investment, I guarantee you will not be disappointed.

liberation

June 22, 2010 at 3:46 pm | Posted in ekphrasia, poetry, writing | 9 Comments
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would that it were possible
to write pure instrumental lines
an imperceptible dissolution
into a henry moore shaped whole
like grass pondering dandelions
or two children holding hands
light variations
to untie the sublime from this humanness
of language, the moral, the spirit,
tethers which dull the glisten
of wordless beauty vaulting
the harmonic between open sky
and the softness of skin,

faith is not required

June 5, 2010 at 7:54 am | Posted in poetry, writing | 18 Comments
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between the it is (always) dark(est just
before the (dawn) of her
blink andthe
busyness bustle of
mind the day
there’s an infinitesimal
time the sky
,exact

blue
shade of smiling
eyes

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