it is not the beauty...

It is not the beauty of your body,
the beauty shaped in your face,
the beauty blinding my eyes
though it has gone beyond thought;
but the beauty of the spirit
that took form in your face,
the beauty of the spirit,
the heart marrow of my love.

Sorley MacLean, From Wood to Ridge, p. 139.

small metal gods

The homemade videos of Manafon have begun appearing on YouTube - and I can't resist uploading some of them. Still awaiting my favourite tracks, though.





David Sylvian, Small metal Gods

It's the farthest place I've ever been
It's a new frontier for me
And you balance things
Like you wouldn't believe
When you should just let things be

Yes, you juggle things
Cause you can't lose sight
Of the wretched story-line
It's the narrative that must go on
Until the end of time

And you're guilty of some self neglect
And the mind unravels for days
I've told you once
Yes, a thousand times
I'm better off this way
I'm better off this way

Where's my queen of hearts
My royal flush
I have cleaned and scrubbed her decks
My suicide, my better days
There's nothing I regret

I've placed the Gods
In a zip-lok bag
I've put them in a drawer
They've refused my prayers
For the umpteenth time
So I'm evening up the score

Small metal Gods
From a casting line
From a factory in Mumbai
Some manual labourer's bread and butter
And a single-minded lie

Small metal Gods
Cheap souvenirs
You've abandoned me for sure
I'm dumping you, my childish things
I'm evening up the score.

Source: http://www.davidsylvian.com/texts/lyrics_and_poetry/manafon_lyrics.html

the mild mad dogs of poetry

Photo: Jim Brandenburg

Across eternity, across its snows,
I see my unwritten poems,
I see the spoor of their paws dappling
the untroubled whiteness of the snow:
bristles raging, bloody-tongued,
lean greyhounds and wolves
leaping over the tops of the dykes,
running under the shade of the trees of the wilderness,
taking the defile of narrow glens,
making for the steepness of windy mountains;
their baying yell shrieking
across the hard bareness of the terrible times,
their everlasting barking in my ears,
their onrush seizing my mind:
career of wolves and eerie dogs
swift in pursuit of the quarry,
through the forest without veering,
over the mountain tops without sheering;
the mild mad dogs of poetry,
beauty of soul and face,
a white deer over hills and plains,
the deer of your gentle beloved beauty,
a hunt without halt, without respite.


Sorley MacLean, 'Dogs and Wolves' in From Wood to Ridge: Collected Poems (Manchester: Carcanet, 1999), p. 135.

happy scientists

A brief, beautiful respite from the daily drudgery.
And can you wish yourself and your beloved anything else? Kites of red, feather beds, moments without sadness - all that really matters at the end of the day.

Joy Maker Machinery

© Tim Elsenburg (Copyright Control)

We will wake as light is draped
Like ribbons on the trees
With woven tongues and fingers spun
Between these dusty knees

The branches crack beneath my back
We sigh like sleeping tigers
The forest stirs and shrugs the birds
From shoulders stooped in silence

And they sing for joy

We are engineers and we are architects
Making better guesses and empty threats
It was all for something, and there’s nothing wrong
We know what is coming and what is to be done

Bones will arc and cradle sparks
From circuits smudged in bliss
The newborn blush that makes us drunk
On every little kiss

We are happy scientists
Our theories long abandoned
For kites of red and feather beds
For moments without sadness

We will jump for joy

And I’m helpless darling
Cause you turn me on


(Source: http://www.sweetbillypilgrim.com/lyrics/joy_maker_machinery.html)

yonderhead

Well, I certainly wouldn't define this as a 'sunny' musical landscape, but it isn't gloomy or somber either. I guess it exists, alongside the most interesting things in life, somewhere in the interstices, between (or beyond?) darkness and light, a sort of chiaroscuro - or 明暗 (meian), as you'd put it in Japanese. Yonderhead, yonderhead...





Yonderhead (Thomas Feiner)


My spine and leverage
Were not mine
Some items borrowed
And now gone

Pick me up, animate me, render me
Take me back, to the ghosts
Of the day

Lend me a life
Put me on a loop again
Define, define me ‘yonderhead’

My plots and purposes
Were not mine
Just items borrowed
And now gone

Hook me up and ignite me, play the coarse
Bring me back, to the ghosts
Of the day

Lend me a life
Put me on a loop again
Define, define me ‘yonderhead’

Lend me a life
Put me on a loop again
Just spine me up for liberty and hopes
Liberties and hopes, and liberties and hopes
Define me
And bind me
And I’ll crawl the pretty path
I’ll crawl the pretty path...

grievances...

To those friends fed-up-with-the-smiths who have kindly suggested that I vent my grievances through sunnier musical landscapes, here you go...





Queixa / Grievance (Caetano Veloso)

Um amor assim delicado
Você pega e despreza
Não o devia ter despertado

Ajoelha e não reza
Dessa coisa que mete medo
Pela sua grandeza
Não sou o único culpado
Disso eu tenho a certeza

Princesa, surpresa, você me arrasou
Serpente, nem sente que me envenenou
Senhora, e agora me diga onde eu vou
Senhora, serpente, princesa

Um amor assim violento
Quando torna-se mágoa
É o avesso de um sentimento
Oceano sem água
Ondas, desejos de vingança
Nessa desnatureza
Batem forte sem esperança
Contra a tua dureza

Princesa, surpresa, você me arrasou
Serpente, nem sente que me envenenou
Senhora, e agora me diga onde eu vou
Senhora, serpente, princesa

Um amor assim delicado
Nenhum homem daria
Talvez tenha sido pecado
Apostar na alegria
Você pensa que eu tenho tudo
E vazio me deixa
Mas Deus não quer que eu fique mudo
E eu te grito essa queixa

Princesa, surpresa, você me arrasou
Serpente, nem sente que me envenenou
Senhora, e agora me diga onde eu vou
Amiga, me diga...

being a tree

If you want to know what it's like to be a tree, sleep with a cat on your bed and feel it manoeuvering and exploring your curves and hollows for the most comfortable nest.

Roger Deakin, Notes from Walnut Tree Farm (London: Penguin, 2009), p. 136.

"I'll never make that mistake again..."

... not until the next one, of course.





Girl Afraid

Girl afraid
Where do his intentions lay?
Or does he even have any?

She said :
"He never really looks at me
I give him every opportunity..."
In the room downstairs
She sat and stared...
In the room downstairs
She sat and stared...
"I'll never make that mistake again !"

I'll never make that mistake again...
I'll never make that mistake again...

Boy afraid
Prudence never pays
And everything she wants costs money

"But she doesn't even like me !
And I know because she said so..."
In the room downstairs
She sat and stared...
In the room downstairs
She sat and stared...
"I'll never make that mistake again!"


The Smiths, Morrisson/Marr

sake in the snow...

Old sake brewery

Imai, Nagano

3 January 2010

apple in the snow...

Imai, Nagano

3 January 2010

almost gone

My friend who loves owls
Has been with me all day
Walking at my ear
And speaking of old summers
When to speak was easy.
His eyes are almost gone
Which made him hear well.
Under our feet the great
Glacier drove its keel.
What is to read there
Scored out in the dark?
Later the north-west distance
Thickened towards us.
The blizzard grew and proved
Too filled with other voices
High and desperate
For me to hear him more.
I turned to see him go
Becoming shapeless into
The shrill swerving snow.

W.S. Graham, from "Malcom Mooney's Land."

Imai, Kawanakajima

Nagano

1 January 2010

The struggle to communicate, to reach beyond yourself and your ghosts. The ice slowly melting, the promise of warmth, proximity. The entailing sense of loss when the ice returns, unexpected, and distance wins again the upper hand.

It is between the two territories that friendship & love are negotiated and eventually flourish, I guess. But not when through neglect or inertia or insecurity you let the ice insidiously accumulate.

Negotiating with the snow has never been easy and there are some painful lessons to learn - just ask the dwellers of the snow country, observe them in their daily struggle.