band names for rent
Blue-footed Booby
Cymbalism
Duty of Car
Elizabethan Ears
The Last Dodo
Skrim
Loving in Fall
The Cold Fingers of Dawn
Breathing like Frogs
The Antigens
Zooble
The Turbulent Priests
Phantom Toll Booth Tarkington
Apply Within
01/02/2021
a Saturday that feels like a Sunday
with the hint of a lazy echo of
celebration
under a non-celebratory sky
of mottled paper
give thanks for trees
and for birds
for fine actors
and for the funny
slowly a new year has begun
but has barely yet opened its eyes
it was just lying there
there it was
just lying there
waiting to be seen
to what use it could be put
I tried it as a belt
when it was done as a belt
I tried it as a hat
when it was done as a hat
I played some music with it
when I was done playing music with it
I rode it to the river
and when I got to the river
I rowed it across the river
on the other side of the river
it was some cooling shade
under the hot sun
and then it was a cold beer
and then it was another
and as the afternoon started
to close its shutters
I rowed it back across the river
and I rode it home
and it found a place to rest
right down here at the end of the page
in a poem
omenic dreams
omenic dreams
the splitting of time
into a series of sequences
stretched across space
from the city to the seaside
through windows and
around logical obstacles
and fragments of memories
remind me how I am aging
while still remembering
the odd things that I am remembering
snippets of songs
offhand passing comments
collage of entanglements
banging around in my head
along with half-written melodies
and half-remembered dreams
omenic dreams?
that is still to be determined
but encircled with the swirling thoughts
of art and its importance
and how to be close
and to share
are they a return to
recurrences of the past
these few unconnected points
that have in common that
they’re happening in my head
next to each other
in this particular week
that is masquerading as Christmas
visions of flight from
the city to the seaside
or the seaside to the city
landscape choices
I choose the city
but flying would be nice
I do not long for much these days
and maybe I’m nostalgic for longing
and maybe I’m just patient
and enjoying the waiting
at fifteen years of age
some sanctimonous lunk
on seeing me moving
stacks of plastic chairs
pronounced:
your reward will be in heaven
for so many years
I guess I believed that
until I realised he used too many words:
my reward is heaven
so once again
so once again
sitting back
creating memories
the response
that manifests
in a desire
to go but follow
so once again
the straw-into-gold of
strings and fingers
a few strands
that tell
just enough
to entice
so once again
but wiser
or so it is professed
the sound
that curls up
in the ear
to happily dose
so once again
maybe starting
to get it right
James Honeyman-Scott
last night my mind came to rest
on James Honeyman-Scott
and how he left too soon
for us to know whether
he could be as great as his name suggested
well, before we could be sure
one of those old photographs days
seems like it’s one of those
old photographs days
where a friendship may be celebrated
just by sharing an image
that reminds of the sharing of
time and space
and how far it has come
and how long it’s been going on
approximation
a series of interlocking
intertwining incidents
along an apparent
corridor of spacetime
a handful of jobs
and midnight words
and mind sweepings
and lit dawns
a set of dynamics
an approximation of stereotypes
a couple of bucks
and flights
thus engulfed
without script
the crossed line
further into ambiguity
on the day
on the big day
of The Election
waking up on Wednesday
the internet was out
maybe it was a sign
the world had ended!
but no…
and so the days dragged by
tonight I came home early
from my nightplace of work
and shortly found
OMG (as we say nowadays)
Harris is VP. and the other thing
and the other other other thing will be gone
and ten minutes later
here in Phnom Penh
the cleansing replenishing reviving rains
fall
and the next fight begins
tune
tune
late on the familiar balcony
I spy a musician
– cannot see –
as he turns the corner
and plays his whistling riff
over the beat of his ponderous steps
a beautifulsad phrase
on an ancient whistle
I know as a recorder
and I rush downstairs
to honour
– with small money –
a working musician
and he stops
– is gracious –
then ambles forward
in stately blindness
at the furthest left of the street,
one motorcycle length from the curb
he is passed at pace
by sellers of village food
– creepycrawlies so challenging to the outsider –
and the more sophisticated street food
idles and sizzles by,
seafood and other exotica
feeding the workers of the night
the musician shuffles on
his tune blending with the
YouTube of the bars,
and it fades slowly as he proceeds
slowly east towards the river
the floating, sad, delicate melody
can still be heard
from the balcony
15 minutes later,
as he still shuffles on down the block
he takes his music with him
but leaves a little behind
as we all strive to do
are we heard 15 minutes later?
