Producer / composer / musician / visual artist
SOUND POEMS 2021
Inspired by James Joyce's 'Ulysses', these Sound Poems - abstract, semantically and grammatically meaningless poems - focus on the poetic and emotive power of sounds, rhythms, intonations and melodies.
I. Stifled decanter of known truths - a poxy, epoxy-eyed, half-moon and rising time.
II. In and of the are you.
III. Perceptualisement, agreediosity, tinctured flexibus omni-only-going with saltdrives piling, lexical set unbreaking first-last and past tweeting, Boogaloo hue thrombates, agrobates and disciological cake specimens.
IV. Flicked and flexed, flobbed and flussed, geriarium biklet icicles eyes unburning, stretch E.E. and green goblin makes humidiforousness complex against an irony of texmex. Zweltiople twenty apples later migrates-high-frames per square sheening.
V. Grenobilising, scant water runways weighs out the Brixton tutelage. Anarchaic angular announcement, activated, amply, the after-phi-my-housework-army re-etches themselves ochre and Agnew. Painterly fwamboisiers of a byproduct century, storage formulates, promulgates wheezing, squabbles and squanders, effort Leslie usurps thrust sweetly trajectorial nocturnes in the bitten-by-it-sounds-like-toy destitution.
VI. Murji harda lirrel alm. Miscomepto, misconceptuatononial means. This herebyafterthence commencement of forms retrogrades that which suffocates on the masses. Appeasing to this one-too-many suffragettes hyperglyphs of superior excellency, circumvents the naviscapes and arrives at the opinions through posession of fabric quotients, a quotidian einkaufszentrumium vanquished from a dream landscape. Understanding, apinionationing means hip mean ship parsnip or the beeswax, secunda to a coyn flick.
POEMS 2020
I.
Sip down another drop of the purple beside me,
Think about this moment.
Pause.
Take a breath and feel it squeeze body open, fill body with life.
Once you notice that, like Helios himself,
There is no way of knowing that this rise might be the last time it rises,
You start to think differently about the gap between a silence and a breath,
The gap between eternity and death.
We exist in an eternity every moment, motionless,
Floating in time, perched upon the gap between inhale and exhale.
It's a pity it doesn't last long enough -
(Our constant search for voidness).
Just like that I realise these last few months have been the space between
Humanity's last dying breaths.
Three eternities we're in; a breath, between a breath, between a breath.
Nothingness on all sides.
Profundity out the window now, the same old word is what I'm preaching.
If you speak too loudly you can't be heard = the power's in the silence.
Listen and take a breath.
It's funny how a sip can do that to you.
II.
Dust rising up from the sunlit path,
Mosaic patterns of green and yellow slowly covered by the cloud.
Their light provides a backdrop from which to see the cloud.
It magnifies and crystallises it,
Each little fleck gets its time in the spotlight.
If only we were all dust just floating in a gust of wind.
III.
Shiny jewel rings glisten on the water.
The trees, too, glisten.
A duck swims by straight through it leaving a triangle in its wake.
It's brought a companion, now coming to say hello.
Alongside, a blackbird from behind.
Sounds that hit me,
Sights that strike me,
Winds that move me...
...All waves.
IV.
Millions of green soldiers surround on all sides, hoisting.
How many soldiers on the field?
How many soldiers in the park?
The relationship of each one to the next, stretched
Out, with bumps here and there,
Is the perfect description of the laws and forces that make itself up.
Surprisingly I never saw that before -
That a field is a field.
V.
I'd like to try and be poetic
About these two birds on a branch that I'm looking at.
But I couldn't be arsed.
VI.
I see eagles floating in the sky.
Living life on a breeze.
As they drift on by , I ask myself,
"Would I change my brains for wings?"
I watch as the leaves burst forth to the Sun.
All they need surrounding them.
Nowhere to go, nothing to do
But breathe and grow and glow.
"Would I change my veins for roots?"
Blue, blue, infinite blue is the dome of our existence.
The arena where the game plays out.
Both players and spectators, all.
"Would I trade my seat for yours?"
VII.
Someone's cooking something good, cooking something tasty,
Cooking something that's mixing with the air and it's triggering some memories.
Extend my ear outward to the chirps and chatter,
To the pitter-patter and slow thrum of a city as it sleeps.
Waves of heat bring messages from further afield.
I feel like I can hear my home from where I sit,
Feel it in my bones from here.
Beads trickle as I recall,
"About this time last year, I was reading Heaney instead of working on my projects,
Dreaming of that wild land."
Then, a distance image of escape.
A year on thereabouts, much has changed.
United by another solitude we.
Once again I'm dreaming of that place,
Did I ever stop dreaming since the minute I left?
Time seems to move at a slower pace.
I can almost see the buds
Blossom on the trees,
See their faces spread
Themselves out to bask in the sun.
We are essentially the same, I started my Sun Salutations at
About the same time they did.
VIII.
Brisk glances from the hundred tired-eyes.
Train wheezes in and out of stations.
We are the crosses bearing down upon it.
To witness an apple escape from the tree
Jump for joy
Freefall towards its life.
Or is its life its death?
Seeing this, and knowing -
All falls.
Collected Poems 2014-2019
The Dawn After a Night to Remember
Man with furrowed brow, where do I belong?
Veils of veal and tangerine nights.
Shoot me! I'm alright. I'm straddling life
Just to get close to you. Who?
No point in answers, the question's all you need.
Stormy weather, normy leather.
(Cut your hand off, you stole my heart!)
Back bus pleasures, tattoo parlour treasures staring on in blank dismay.
1473, numbers.
"Hurry up boys, the Master's dying
Stand up and make your decision.
Master Your Faith."
Attempt to attend to a tent, or be forever cold.
Sinking, sinking,
Ink sinks in the blink of an eye ,words on page,
At some stage you will give yourself away.
"He hasn't a clue! Look at him go!
Polystyrene pants, a monocle and a mallet - quite the selection."
"Hold me closer, pull me in. These words are yours as much as mine."
I'm crawling under, jumping over the traps you've left behind.
It's all I've wanted, all I came for.
See what that does to the mind?
Twisted rags, and twisted torsos. Twist with me tonight.
Made from Play-Doh, I'll twist you in to
A circle.
Never ending, all or nothing.
A faint melody, trapped in eardrums, shapes the words I write.
I want the dawn to last.
Always darkness turns to light.
Like the falling Shephard's Tone.
My writing has to end, a furry visitor has come to make a friend...
... DEATH!
Selfishness
Don't look at me with those Pacific blue pools of eyes.
For if you do, I'm sure to meet my doom,
I'll surely die.
Like Narcissus, I'll never turn away
From the blessed/cursed waters of your face.
But if you take your gaze away from me,
Please beware.
That in your oceans, life is everything it needs to be.
So please be fair to me.
Oh my Goddess! to only you I pray
So please help me to live another day.
The Jam Jar
I broke a jam jar on my floor -
Half-empty (or full).
Glass spread all over the kitchen -
It fell from the top shelf.
Dog started to lick it up -
Mistook the jam for blood and nearly had a heart attack.
No brush to wipe it away -
Had to use a broken floor mop.
All because of the 'Squeezy Honey'.
Barking Up the Wrong
I like to think for a while.
Watching white and yellow
Dots jump through silhouettes
Of trunks.
Trump.
Is really a president...
But I don't want to get into politics,
I'm just tryna gaze my fix
At lights and leaves and sticks.
I like to think for a while.
Cycling
The sun takes the mountain in its stride,
Leaving the darkness far behind.
The trees, like soldiers, in the distance stand,
Dotted across the blue sky, hand in hand.
Rooftops and hilltops through the greenery meet,
As I gaze on from the winding street.
Sometimes You Just Get Those Vibes
Leave the Earth with me,
Show you all the sights there are to see,
Minds intertwined in ecstasy,
Love spilling out and bursting free.
Unlock the bond that we can have,
If you just take me in your hand.
Our love dissolves the cage of time,
Floating eternal, you and I.
You captivate me with your mind,
I'll wade through memories far behind.
Show you the beauty you possess,
Together, one, forever pressed.
Dainty Blue
Strange and wonderful!
Strange and wonderful!
That a lone flower should appear
Rising up through the rocks
At the apex of a bluff.
A dainty blue soldier,
The only one of its kind
Pops up and out
To say
"What's up?"
The fight for life in you,
Dainty blue,
Should mean something to us all.
To reach through the rocks,
All the way to the top,
To grace us with your presence -
A present for the venturers.
EWR, 9618
Terminal B, Gate 41.
Here I wait...
American radio presenters' voices
Against my ears grate.
The New Jersey accent is incredibly unique,
Though I'm glad it's not the way I speak.
NEARLY FUCKING CHOKED ON WATER!!!!!
....Anyway.....
Orange sunset in the distance,
A train passes by.
- And again
- Another
Where are these people going?
This has become a slam poem now.
Cynthia.
CYN-THI-AAAAH.
....The red umbrella,
Lara's sunburnt shoulder,
My shoes,
Me.
....I was going to leave it here
But thought I should push on.
It's getting harder to think straight,
Too much radio and jeers
From people.
To Fort Lauderdale they go, or so I assume,
Everything and everywhere else being empty.
Airports, a peephole into
People's lives, their relationships,
How they react to stress.
It only takes one fragile chip to come loose
For the entire system to crack.
We are prone to chaos.
Cahuita
Bloated orange,
Cloud-like mushrooms,
The wrinkles of brown like grey matter folds
- atop.
Jet black.
Spiked.
Organs.
From a futura gothic handbook
Embed themselves between our matter and our mushrooms.
Across this collage of colours and forms
Absorbed in an azure field,
Pulse beams of currents in all directions.
Green Mountain
Happy little dancer
Body of gold,
Legs of pink curled back in joy.
To hang upon a silken thread.
You move so freely little dancer!
Your mass of pink and gold swings
Effortlessly.
With each softly blowing wind.
It the lead,
You float and drift with its steps,
You dance as if you were not dancing.
What was your enemy you have turned into a friend.
Its gusts, power they do have
To knock you from your floating home.
They do but give you power,
To dance, and dance some more.
Ringa Rings Ringd
"Stop lying to me!"
Said the mouse to the cat.
"You know I've had enough of that!"
Creepy little paws, in constant pursuit
Of these mousy little toes in their mousy little boots.
As right as me is as left as you, it's all the same
at the end of the night.
Who knows what to do when circles are squares?
Dots and lines!
I think it's time we realise how empty they are.
Shit pens make hard work.
An Observation
Two lizards on a branch
Slowly creep towards one another.
Me, drunk, in a hammock,
Waiting for the explosion that will ensue.
City Park, Sitty Park, Shitty Pork
Back in my old city but it feels like a new city,
What with the summertime hues.
Blue, blue, pale blue is the dome.
Green hands and fingers, piled,
Upon each other, tall as buildings,
Wave at each passerby.
Not one hand moves the same.
Sitting where public transport vehicles get pulled out of holes in the ground.
(Buswell's, just to clarify) -
I see the city
Alive.
You know the times are good
When everyone is wearing peach.
So many people, even on the quietest back-alley streets.
Who are they? Where are they from? Why are they not in work?
Summertime is always buzzing with people
But how does it survive?
If everyone is out, then no one's working
But then people wouldn't be able to be out because nothing would be open.
The government creates fake humans every summer
To make the place look busier than it is.
This ain't no conspiracy man!!
Looking out the window on the 46a
Great yellow door,
Two pillars.
Tiny square house.
A pyramid of pyramids,
Images of snowflakes.
The Nature of Nature
Wait...
While the wind washes waves
Through
The everlasting green expanse.
Listen, as the stream
circles round the valleys,
Bouncing and echoing
Its existence everywhere.
The blue, green, aquamarine sheen.
Endless jigsaw
Puzzle pieces
Worm their way to the horizon of my eyes.
I've changed my timing.
As the stream flows faster
The chirps of my neighbours
Droned out.
I find a position further along the sheet,
The mirror,
Giver of life to this our home.
Tweet, chirp, buzz, shhh, plop, hummm, smack, crack.
The flitters of dialogue that pass across the stage.
Heart-shaped
Bulbous
Clouds rise from the house.
Growing in the distance -
Buddha's droning OM
ॐ, ಓಂ, ഓം, ఓం, ওঁ, ଓଁ
Alerts me to the existence of another.
I rise, raise my paddle,
Begin to pierce and slice Nature's canvas.
Each stroke
Sprays a smattering of glass,
Tiny crystals,
Universes enclosed.
Though I pierce one, I create many.
Another Poem About Water
Lake-waves reflecting
The sun - our global disco ball.
We dance our lives on the floor that is this Earth.
Everything and anything moves its own way,
Together in a cosmic flow.
Dance on!
Later that day.....
I guess it's easy for me to say that the Earth and stars and people and life and good and bad dance their own way,
When life goes easy for me.
So I guess that's pretty selfish of me, but I'm just trying to stay positive.
The rock plops make me think there's...
FISH!!!
Some Words of Advice
No matter how many times your granny
Says you look like Drew Barrymore,
Drew Barrymore you ain't!
HAIKU 2014
Yellow sunflower -
How do you know where to grow,
Thought or instinct?
Spring has woken up
Their chirping - And as of late
The world seems brighter
Blue sky above me
That same old smell come again -
Summer has arrived
Written in these lines,
Holding only these few words,
Oneself can live on
Sitting down to calm
The forever thinking mind -
Not an easy task