Month: February 2009

Ibanez & Matt

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With the help of Little Stevie-G Matt picked out an Ibanez Electric Guitar starter pack from Musican’s Friend. Like every parent I am exceptionally proud at how quickly he is picking up the guitar. Having been taking lessons he is now reading tabs and playing a number of songs by ear. I think I am about as excited as he is. For those of you reading this on my blog (http://poet.spaces.live.com) here is a picture:
 

Name That Song…

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Step 1: Put your iPod/iTunes on shuffle.
Step 2: Post the first line from the first 30 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing the song.
Step 3: Post and let everyone you know guess what song and artist (or show :P) the lines come from.
Step 4: Strikethrough when someone gets them right
Step 5: Looking them up on Google or any other search engine is CHEATING! I give you permission to do that if you really really REALLY want to.
 
Here are mine –
 

1.       God was there, always had the best of drugs

2.       The room’s green, it’s got writing on the wall

3.       They can’t touch me, we break off

4.       She’s a girl with a problem and there ain’t no cure

5.       There once was a swagman camped by a billabong under the shade of a Coolibah tree

6.       The first love of my life she said two things right

7.       London calling to the faraway towns, now war is declared

8.       When there’s trouble you know who to call – Teen Titans

9.       Standing in the rain with his head hung low

10.    When you were young and your heart was an open book

11.    I tripped, fell down, naked

12.    When a menthol hit, hooks a spatial girl in her summer clothes

13.    When I get older losing my hair many years from now

14.    Watch my back so I’ll make sure you’re right behind me as before

15.    There’s a war inside of me, do I cause new heartbreak to write

16.    It’s hot in the night, lonely black and white on a hot summer night

17.    Though the night be dark as dungeon, not a star to be seen above

18.    A strange kind of love, a strange kind of feeling swims through your eyes

19.    Gold lion’s gonna tell me where the light is

20.    She’s got legs, she knows how to use them

21.    Here I am, where I’ve been, walked a hundred miles in tobacco skin

22.    There she goes, there she goes again, racing through my brain

23.    Your love is better than ice cream

24.    Oh we were born within an hour of each other

25.    Reach out touch faith

26.    She put $900 on the fifth horse in the sixth race

27.    It’s nine o’clock on a Saturday the regular crowd shuffles in

28.    I wanna ask you – Do you ever sit and wonder

29.    Oh I love, oh I love, oh I love what you do to my head

30.    Express yourself, create your space you know you can

Blink

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one second of light
is life in the bright
life in the blinding
 
one second of dark
is the neverending
the gone and the empty
 
why this life
why this death
 
but every sun’s glimpse
is worth forever in the dark
till the endless end’s
again

Atlas

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Atlas went walking
and the earth held him well
 
but
 
maybe not so well as
he wished
’cause somewhere
on the way
what once held
was held in hand
and poor old Atlas
walks no more
but journeys round the world
every moment
every day
 
the burden borne
now bears the burden
and treasure once sought
is now clenched close
to Titan’s great regret

There is Sun this Morn

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There is sun this morn
though no light yet
no banding bright
wells past land’s end
but the air and the sky
and the world I see
is a great deep blue
silent
like 7 feet under water
and prayers lift skyward
like thin wisps of smoke
from the winter chimneys
of every frosted roof
crisp as ice
while every day’s path
is already laid
and God overflows
blessing along each way
for those with eyes
and those with ears
and
there is sun this morn
though no light yet

Plush Plum Tomato

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mum had a little plush plum tomato
and into it she pressed
every small pin she had
till small silver stars were all you saw
and colored planets too
they clung like burrs upon its skin
 
i liked to hold it
small and soft with
places of immediacy
pressing into my palm
begging to be removed
 
and so I did…
one by one
steel shafts removed
but
I’d put ’em back again
I had to
couldn’t help it really
 
mum had things like this
things I would notice
insignificant things
that somehow won’t leave
their memory pressed deep
within my mind
like steel shafts
with silver star heads
and colored planets…

Signal Heart

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signal heart
beats beacons upon this shore
and warns
silent on the seas
of hidden dangers
buried beneath
 
siren song
sings sweet behind the light
and calls
sail through
and damn the dark
deny the depth
 
signal heart
weaves laughter on the waves
plays music in my mind
live there in ocean’s arms
no rocky coast
no far flung safe haven
 
tremble on the line
and know life
is lived between the two
while signal heart
casts stacatto shadows
cross my field of vision
and tread,
              just tread

Sodden Woolen Time

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Sometimes
an ill wind blows
unsettling
burdensome on the heart
as though a dirge is playing
just out of earshot
 
small weights are cast
little hooks in each
 
one
      two
            three
 
not
h e a v y
…yet…
 
but soon
thin wisps of cloud
steal slow across the sky
no threat felt
till sun once there
has faded from view
and the dull grey
blends up and down
 
what a sodden woolen time
heavy as jeans in the lake
and boots filled with water
pulling
 
d
o
w
n

Chicago

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Tonight we had some good friends over for dinner. Afterwards we sat down and watched the musical Chicago. I’ve watched the film a few times and have some thoughts. To the casual observer the film is depravity, greed and blatant sexuality mixed with music and scantily clad dancers writhing out the story line. But – you don’t have to dig too deep before you realize that this film is about far more. The sexuality and depravity presented are vehicles to carry along a well written, incredibly choreographed story designed to hold a mirror to the face of the audience. A mirror which shows us for who we really are.
 
Who are we? We are 21st century western culture. We are the post WW2, post Korean War, post Vietnam War, post Gulf War, post OJ Simpson, post 9/11, post Iraq, post Afghanistan, post God culture. We are soaked in disillusion. Immersed in cynicism, hopeless and fatally fatalistic.
 
To watch Chicago is to watch ourselves and laugh. It is as though we, the crowd, were put into the midst of the colliseum, cheering in gleeful blissful ignorance as the lions tear us to pieces. It is no accident that turn of the century Chicago is chosen to present a modern audience with a view of itself as it stands at the turn of another century. In some ways it is a warning – "this is what you are becoming" it seems to shout. "You are becoming cynical. You no longer believe in justice, except that which you can buy." The movie tells us through music and dance that we laugh at the good guys. The man who stupidly sticks to a an "outdated" morality is viewed as a moron and ultimately dismissed – invisible as cellophane. The one innocent in a crowd of guilty is executed as the rest purchase and lie their way to freedom.
 
We suspect, as we are laughing at Richard Gere’s character the corrupt, money-hungry defense attorney Billy Flynn describe how simple it is to manipulate the press, that the writers and directors are laughing at how easy it is to manipulate the audience. That they can make us laugh unknowingly at a caricature of ourselves. At one point Flynn (who has never lost a case) cuts straight to the heart of what is wrong with our culture – he says that if Jesus Christ Himself had his fee of $5,000 things would have turned out differently.
 
The point? Sacrifice is to be laughed at. There is no value in it and it is to be avoided at all costs. But without sacrifice what do we have? We have damnation, we have death, we have hedonistic humanism, we have – Chicago.
 
I love this movie because it reminds me of how easily corrupted we are. I love it because it reminds me of how desparately we need a value beyond ourselves. It’s a fantastic movie – but not for the reasons most people think.
 

Under the Wing’ed Shadow

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What rock this cold granite
stands stone and still
no sun,
          no cold,
no heated breath
nor perched bird
or crying wind
could move dead stone
no life but that trapped
deep and dark
too far from piercing eyes
too far from reaching heart
 
still
 
this day
sole pearl is there
not far but far
till glint is but a spark
and shine a dream’s dream
enough to crack old crag
till light and warmth creep
like secret ivy
breaking away the shell
and breath begins
a living pulsing sign
under the wing’ed shadow
of old Valentine