King Lear Tattoo
July 8, 2010 at 6:26 pm | Posted in poetry, writing | 10 CommentsTags: 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 CommentsTags: 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.
My Dear F.,
July 4, 2010 at 8:34 am | Posted in jazz poetry, poetry, writing | 5 CommentsTags: Ms Helpburn
Just a short note to let you know
the vicar’s visit turned out something
but not quite as expected
there is something quite uncouth
in these villagers.
Still, better,
than a nunnery.
Your handiwork continues to inspire
but I must say not quite
what you promised, the antidote,
does not work. Please send more tao
haha, these strange realms sterile and
the portraits looming, and all these damn
petticoats. Anyway, have fun. I’m not.
eden
July 3, 2010 at 5:06 pm | Posted in jazz poetry, sheer selfindulgence, writing | 5 CommentsTags: Ms Helpburn, writing, writing for fun
… 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 CommentsTags: fiction, writing
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 CommentsTags: Joseph Tawadros, performance, performance art, podcast, poetry
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 | 11 CommentsTags: jazz poetry, Joseph Tawadros, Oud, poetry, writing
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
(written as a first attempt at the National Jazz Writing Competition)
The Puzzle Box
gingatao, the podcast- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
- The Australian Poet Laureate
- another quote from Robert Adamson January 31, 2010
- Three Quotes from Robert Adamson October 22, 2009
- The copyright question (2) October 7, 2009
legal formalities
© P Squires, gingatao, 2007-2010. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Paul Squires and gingatao, with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
'And you have to deal with the terrible karma too.' Paul Squires.
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