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Thinking about music again. A good friend, Stew, has lent me his blonde Telecaster and I've taken it home and plugged it into the little 15W Peavey amp that he sold me years ago.. now the thing is to obstruct the audio path with all sorts of equipment, starting with a "pollyanna" from MI AUDIO. I was reading about the old Boss pedals.. those indestructable trucks whose overdrive and distortion defined the 80's metal soundscape. I remember them lying about the floor of my old mate Emmett's house in Queanbeyan, I think we mucked about with them when we were 9 or 10. Those memories - of the pedals' yellow chipped paint, of the old carpet, tangled guitar leads, broken up circuit boards and dog hair - combine to define a scene that is still indescribably cool and a bit scary to me.
What is it about that sound? Valves popping, transistors fuzzing. There is a lot of talk online about fuzz: Fuzzface vs. Mig Muff Pi vs. this and that other. It's like poets discussing the elusive delights of a classic champagne. When electronics get driven like that - what other utility actually wants the circuit to bust up? And to amplify every miniscule fluctuation of power, like an audio microscope, listening in on some experiment in particle physics. It's like when all the rules break down in poetry, just leaving random words and letters and then spots splashed among the roped fibres of the page.
15 12 08
My 'post card' of poems "Accidentals" is now printed. Look out for it fluttering in the breeze down a lonely street or poking out of the reference section in your local library. I'll be getting the accompanying website www.accidentals.org online as soon as Verio make it possible.
Off to old blighty again for a few weeks. The pen has dried up recently but perhaps a second autumn will shake loose some of those leaves.
Update: Took the opportunity to scatter a few accidental leaves around whilst travelling.. visited the great Poetry Bookshop in Hay-on-Wye and had a tea at the Poetry Cafe in Betterton Street. The Poetry Cafe was one of the first places in London you could hire internet time back in the late 90's.
18 10 08 updated 15 12 08
Bowmore - tasty. Thinking of Scotland and the air, maybe 'cause it is winter here and I remember. Bean is asleep. Working for a few days in Parliament house - the smells remain - dishwashing liquid, new carpet, hardwood, ducting. I liked Walter Secord, with his pink tie & an armfull of papers. Meanwhile Accidentals is coming along: - 200gsm, coated paper, 200x200mm, 1mm margin, 4pt palatino linotype - every detail is thought about again and again.
23 07 08
This won't mean much to many people, but last night I managed to split Antares, and I am quite foolishly excited about that!
(this is Antares - by split i mean separate visually from its companion star through a telescope)05 07 08 inchki
New poem "To a distant unnamed Quasar" is in The Wardrobe in the Cupboard. Its a product of reading Igor Karachentsev's Catalogue of Neighbouring Galaxies and some of his other papers on nearby galaxy groups. NGC 4945 is also the first galaxy I set eyes on when exploring centaurus.
There is not enough outer-space poetry about. My favourite poem on the subject is Fleur Adcock's 'The Ex-Queen Among the Astronomers'. But it is more about the human side. What poet wants to write about all that cold emptiness? I believe that obscured by the dry catalogue of numbers there lurks a mystery that can only be revealed by the poet's pen and the artist's eye. It was an error not to send Ginsberg to the moon.
I am almost finished the twelve poems that will make up Accidentals.
26 06 08
Dim nights, howling gales, awful tea throat, paralysed dream. Spiders, robots, universities. Stockings.
Still writing absent mare it is taking forever and not getting anywhere.
04 05 08
Hello friends new, friends old. Made a website for a worthy cause of an aunty and neighbour friend of mine Sylvia's Walk. Have a look and donate to Cancer Research!
I think I am going to write a poem at a rate of one letter a day. The first letter will be 'a'. Whilst I'm writing it, i'm not going to write anything else.
The Long Poem [long in time] < read it now
16/3/2008
anti-poem
so here's something -
I hate poetry
most of it
not that i've read much
tired of tired words
lying on the page
trying to be clever
- whatever
I don't write poems
either I just
put down
whatever comes to me
6/2/7
I like to think that there is a central place where nothing changes, and when I go there the space between things in time is erased. Once I visited a lot of places in such quick succession that I did lose a sense of the distance between them, and I felt like I had been close to that central place. The people I met on the road also became closer, even chance aquaintances.
SS
I wrote this poem
that it may find you
and when it does
It will eat you
You left your teacup
in my house
I broke the handle off
but it's still got
your ego in it
And that tooth
that bit when you smiled
in my sleep
for that i need your antidote
- quickly! the poison is fast
don't waste a second
a second is long
but come straight
I am on the the same still road
lined with poplars
sometimes I think I can
hear you coming
this time
don't let me be wrong
2008, new year and a new punch in the card.
www.I-am-not-the-body.com is beginning to look a bit outdated. I've written all the code by hand (or by key) so no suprise! Anyway, a rebirth is one of things planned for this year. Also on the card:
- A new forum called the 'half poet" for attempted poets, chamber poets, shy and all and sundry poets to mix their muse and sell their wares. A beta version is up and running here - more functionality to come soon!
- Another self published collection is on the way, should be ready by mid year, working title is "accidentals" (a synonym for 'poem' in that it falls into my head and off my pen as if by accident) - and some early sneek previews can be seen on the working desk (if you have permission).
- I've started a blog at www.halfpoet.blogspot.com which is a slimmer, slicker presentation of some of the poems found on this site.
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