1. |
Intro
00:43
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2. |
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Everything beautiful has edges
The safe boundary of ribboned love
The wish for continuity
Not to live the unbidden life
to stop by a field of grace
And regret you lost the key
To unlatch yourself at evening .
Everything beautiful has edges
The lady of Shalott
In her loveless tower
Unravelled by desire
Her prediction of demise
The wish for an embroidered life
A symmetry of stitches
Of light and shadow
The salvaging of closure .
Everything beautiful has edges
This page this table this room
Each a space of opportunity
This hand bounded by skin
Meeting surface of wood
Even the sea, phantom with azure
Has somewhere an edge
Somewhere a return
Somewhere surely an ending .
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3. |
The Art of Showing Off
03:28
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It’s just me – and the deep blue sea
Nothing more – nothing more except for...
My friends chanting my name rhythmically
And crowds of passers by who’ve stopped to see what all the fuss is about
Saying “Look at this idiot”
And I know
That they mean me - and the deep blue sea
And me – perched precariously
On a wall, on a pier and there is no fear
(Actually, there’s quite a lot of fear)
Heart is thumping adrenaline pumping waiting for the moment that I’ll be jumping
And I’ll take flight but I think I’ve lost sight of the fact that I am TERRIFIED of heights
(What am I doing?!)
But my mind is set and I won’t regret this is serious business
‘Cos this is a bet with one of my mates
And you don’t chicken out of a bet... with Boris
I must confess my initial distress is superseded by a feeling that I’m needing to impress
My first thought is to get it over and done with
But then I think to myself
“There’s a crowd here. I’m going to milk this situation – for all its worth”
(A little bit like I’m doing now).
My arms are spread and I’m on one leg I’ll make the audience beg and I say “Ommmmm”
And the crowd say “Ommmmm”
And the ominous “ommmm” like a bee gone wrong
Or a tone deaf mermaid with a REALLY rubbish song
Is beckoning me into the void
And it’s me – and the deep blue sea
And the crowd and the wall and the seagulls call and we are all as one
As I leap...from the pier and the audience cheer
Something is replacing the sensation of fear
For a millisecond, suspended in midair
I experience the illusion of flight and invincibility
Followed swiftly
By the inevitability
Of gravity
And a wall of freezing water which slaps me back into reality
As the crowd disperse I’m a bag of bones bobbing on the waves
It’s just me – and the deep blue sea
But for thirty seconds
I was a hero.
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4. |
Riau Archipelago
04:49
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Black water pooling
Silver-streaked, like haematite, like pain
Down among the mangroves silent
Slopping and the chug of river
Boat between emerald claws,
Dark tripods squatting in brine.
Thin palings rising
Netted trellises where the fish
Crimsoned by night jump in arcs
Of serpentine silhouette
Against bamboo, sea-oak, palm
Of paradise in the sea-eagle’s clutch.
Here among these unending verges
Of bark and coral depths are plumbed
By the shadowed sailor walking
Over the night taff-rail where
Memory laps the fishing-stakes
With circles of ebb and wrack.
Slipping along the northerly coast of Mapur
(Pale sand and towering casuarina)
A solid rain pebbles waves like
Jewel-heavy greaves in ranks
Across a metal landscape, the water
Ranged in pride above its coral secrets.
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5. |
The World Washed Clean
04:01
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After the wild darkness
Of that estuary weathered
Sailing- wind filled night
Rocking, caravanseried
In her weft of sleep
Beneath the crimson Mandala
Balmed by the Buddha
She’s deep down ,deep down –
And to awake then
To a world washed clean,
A gift unbidden
Simply there
The consequence of stratospheres
While the world spun
So fast ,she could not know
The feeling of it
Hefted in gravity
On that shore of light
She’s sure of light.
And so it came
On a gentle westerly
Birdfilled, early cusp of Autumn dawn
Dancing the trees to life
Returning to her
Consciousness of being
There , on that estuary of slow
Salty drift and flow
Light and dark
Love and light
Drift and flow.
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6. |
Gull
02:29
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We’ve got ‘em bang to rights, the noisy screamers
and harbingers of our oceanic discontent;
Jonathan Livingston, George Barker, Chekhov,
fish and chips, snatched sandwiches, a certain
stink of half-remembered, half-digested fish.
Forgetting how huge they are is one thing; worse
is forgetting how gull they are, how unlike
anything else in the many wild kingdoms we
pompously incline to regard as our home despite
the anarchy of mosquito, buzzard, lynx.
A white head endangered among rocks, scrabbling
claws spread to meet the gust, there is nothing
romantic about this unseasoned life, bare feed
and guano, profitless, enduring, cold
as midnight, we think, is cold; but always cold.
In moments we are gull, instances of dream,
flapping from the black precipice, swooning
in the down-draught, knowing no knowledge
except the squawking mouths, the endless need
revealed for a second in cowl of black and grey.
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7. |
Length of Tubing
02:12
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A length of tubing
Where does it go?
Where does it come from,
Does anybody know?
I pull it and I pull it,
Across the floor,
I pull it and I pull it,
And I pull it some more!
(repeat)
No.
They don’t.
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8. |
The Grace of Accuracy
06:01
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The grace of accuracy
Is to have no requirement for accuracy
Setting out on a path
Linear with eastern light
Return to this shore of pebble crunch
And finding all along the need
Was to stop, breathe , be
In silence
And memory turns this way and that
In wan sunlit air
Like a crystal roped
On plumblined light
Now this shine
Now that opacity.
Discard the getting it right
Measuring all distance between
Now and then , here and now-
Just to stand by water
Allow it’s ebb to lap
Your small child’s toes
High tide your heart.
Just to stand by water
Argent at heron lakes’ margin
Shadowed with reed
Just to stand by water
Phosphorescent with loss
Just to stand by water
The castled ferry heaving to leave
Just to stand by water
Savour samphire’s ozone bite
Just to stand by water
Pooled with estuarine light
Just to stand by water
With the certain knowledge
That this is the now of Life
Just to stand by water
This is the grace of accuracy
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9. |
Freedom of the Sea
05:28
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I’m egalitarian, wash to all shores
Embrace all customs continents
and offer bounty
My reliable moon drawn tides
Wash over , foam wash white
The detritus of Nations.
I’m relaxation and briney
Conviviality personified
And we do love to be beside the seaside
Don’t we ?
Don’t we ...
We crawled from that elemental
Liminal place , we
Formed of gills and scales
Gasped the air transformed by light
Scraped to survival
Evolved
Set Gods and Mythic creatures
Steadfast on those shores
To save our souls
whilst
we turned landwards
Foraged pillaged fished
Plentied
Filled the creels .
Yet I will always have my due
Will persist under
The moon’s argent
Apogee, perigee
To draw you closer.
You built craft, bridges
To span isthmus and estuary
As if one world was yours
As if to celebrate a oneness
You came to despise.
Now the freedom I once offered
All that bounteous plenty
Squandered once pellucid waters
With waste
And on,
To the dreadful terminations
Of frail life
Embarking disembarking hopeless
With loss to the shore .
Then,
Aeons of time and tide
Will wash and drift
Before my gift
Of freedom will appease.
Come to the shoreline then
Kneel in the intertidal space
Cast flowers of homage
Upon my wavelet forehead
Make art from death
Make penance
Fly a sea bleached
Freedom flag
Light beacons of welcome
restitution
Before it’s all too late
Before I take you all.
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10. |
Love and Water
05:24
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The clouds are piled like turrets formed of gold,
The silver water slides along the quay;
My morning body against your sleeping thigh,
The heron darts down from the moving tree.
Pale zebra-fish and green and purple wrasse
Trace rivulets of pattern on your arm
And incandescent colourings of delight
Break like defeated waves upon your calm.
Our love is like the water as it flows
Through channels to a landing-place unknown;
It imitates the starling as it glows
And brings forth all the glory in the bone.
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11. |
Mani (Interlude)
01:41
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12. |
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Your poem made that dog bark
I don’t think he enjoyed it
Your poem made that dog bark
I think you have annoyed it
Your poem is a bad’un
It is an utter mess
And now that dog is pitifully
Howling with distress
The audience is silent
No woops to claps no cheers
And that dog is on his hind legs
With his paws inside his ears
He’s dug a hole
But not to hide his bone because instead
He’s stooped down
And now he’s busy burying his head
That dog has just had kittens
He’s climbing up a tree
‘Cause he doesn’t want to have to put up
With your poetry
He doesn’t want to listen
He doesn’t want to hear it
If your poem smelled like dog food
Then he still would not go near it
‘Cause that canine is discerning
He’s a pooch with pucker taste
That’s why he’s found the exit
With the speediest of haste
My poem made that dog bark
He’s made his feelings clear
He’s woofed his disapproval
And he won’t be staying here
And now I am dumbfounded
I’m astonished, I’m agog
For I cannot believe it
I’ve been heckled by a dog
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13. |
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You say they're rubbish but I rise above it
It's a small grey rodent which I covet
Chin chin chin chin chin chinchilla, chin chin chin chinchilla
Chin chin chin chin chin chinchilla, chin chin chin chinchilla
It's a dog, not very big
Like a barking guineapig
Chi chi chi chi chi chi chi, chi chi chi chihuahua
Chi chi chi chi chi chi chi, chi chi chi chihuahua
As a pet it is impractical
As a gift it is unsuitable
Eh eh eh eh eh eh eh, eh eh eh eh elephant
Eh eh eh eh eh eh eh, eh eh eh eh elephant
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14. |
Maiden of Stars
04:29
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Let the gold antlers flash in the night
Let cold rivulets flow from the eye of the kite
As he navigates west from Apollo to Marss
When I marry the Maiden of Stars.
Let the juniper flourish its power
Let a hectic of youth jump through each velvet flower
Let the green deadlights float in their porphyry vase
When I marry the Maiden of Stars.
Let old rustlers and cardsharps declaim
Let strong grasses wave over each decayed name
And dry ghosts prop the counters in long disused bars
When I marry the Maiden of Stars.
Let a circle of diamonds explode
In the temple of Kali at the end of the road
Where oxen and buffalo sing in their cars
When I marry the Maiden of Stars.
Let the liquid all wash to the floor
In a land where we still wish to tarry once more
Let languages live which no tongue can parse
When I marry the Maiden of Stars.
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Echoes and Edges Bristol, UK
Echoes and Edges is a collective of Bristol based poets and musicians, working together on ideas that incorporate and merge spoken word with improvised and composed pieces of music. We aim to bring new ideas to the words and new imagery to the music.
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