Thursday, July 29, 2010

post the launch

Had a very interesting time experiencing the 60+ crowd that showed up for the new gallery launch, and getting a feel for the whole process, as bizarre, in its own way, as any other process; though, perhaps you expect (unfairly?) a little more from an institution that is involved in something called 'art'.

Plenty of characters and strange hangers-on - myself included. Have quite a bit of work happening based upon it - and related issues - the following two pieces are the closest to being viewable in their formative state.

art aureaucrat

A man who'se after his own heart
he waits for lecturing to start.
Grey dreadlocks, muted greens and browns:
artistic chic on him abounds:
The primitive, the tribal look:
an iphone under fingers put.

(Technology's an open book.)

In gallery he has a stage.
The people the unwilling page
To take direction from his mouth,
like birds delayed in heading south
We learn what's now, what's then, what's best
He is the proof: no more, no less.

(The question is the answer, yes?)

But wait a while upon his words
See how they form, see how they herd,
Particu'ly from he enthralled
Who—piss so high against the wall—
then points and shouts and says: 'Hey! See!
My culture's best, so says me!'

(But always, wind-assisted, he.)


poet in the house

Rouse! Rouse!
indigenous mouse
there be a poet,
in the house

There a panic
(a naughty word)
what might he say?
what have they heard?

look, he's gotta haiku
look, he's got a pen
I'm sure I saw a villanelle.
was that a sonnet, then?

So,
I called
my local politician
but she was out of the office
at the moment.
the last they'd heard from her
she'd fallen down a bottomless hole to everywhere
in the middle of a topless building estate centre-left to nowhere
and they couldn't find the right form
anyway.

could I call back?

I called my lawyer
and got his voicemail from Tahiti.
it made my ear wet
and my mouth dry

I called the police
they told me it was a domestic dispute
so fffffffffffffffffffffuck off

I called my therapist
and she said it was all in my head
take those skittles I gave you last year
NOT THE RED ONES
lie down, think of the impermanence of the soul
then dance on the head of a needle full of smack
I hung up and ignored her completely.

though that didn't work either.

I called the television station
and I was put on hold for exactly the next three eternities and three quarters
I missed the next evolutionary leap
the return of Christ
and over four million new iThings
though I did learn all about the coming summer line up
from a woman's voice who sounded like a porn star's real lesbian-lover
good news: I enjoy sitcoms

I called an exterminator
and he came for a call-out fee of $666
(including goods and services tax)
but all of his chemicals dried up
each time he crossed the threshold

he bought a sandwich and left

I spat in it

I called the local mafia
but they were scared of giving the game away
besides, they were to busy watching Sopranos
(reruns coming this summer)

then I called the poetry council
and BANG they shot him dead
since that worked better on stage
and, they told me—tapping their nose
to show their fearlessness in the face of cliché—
for the aesthetic energy of its
narrative denouement

and with his dying words, the poet was
forced to agree

with both them,
and me.

we got the bastard just in time
before he played around with theme,
shifted open verse to rhyme
and really truly fucked our scene

but he's still in the house,
indigenous mouse,
how do I get him
Rouse? Rouse? Rouse?

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Living deadly...

Had a very productive day with a brand-spanking-still-being-put-up exhibition at mga to poetically exploit. Particularly enjoyed chatting to people about the marvelous Taking pictures some time later exhibition by Concettina Inserra and Lyndal Walker. It is probably the most challenging narrative series of photographic art I have ever seen, and inspired the second draft-poem below entitled 'all those streets in photographs'. 'Worm Blood Stains' was from a James Morrison sculptue series that is also well worth a look.


Worm Blood Stains
by jeremy davies (with thanks to James Morrison)

The devil rotates slowly
in thin air
made stone taken from an altar somewhere.
There's a dagger of light running down his miniature dick,
thoughtfully scabbarded.
There's a howl caught in him,
under his tongue,
Gene Simmons-like,
and between his still-frozen teeth.
And the light and shadows twitch
and sway
and make their way
in silence.

'Primordial man' has male-pattern baldness:
he's an accountant, looks after himself,
goes to the Y and swims enough.
But his cock's too big
(the old women worry in the café…)
He doesn't complain, he stares
Palms hung low, facing forward, ready for nails,

reflective, refractive,
strangely interactive.

'What the fuck?' says he
to me:
not like a question, like
a plea

and all I know is
kinda how he feels:
so, guilty-as-charged.

He hasn't seen the devil yet.

Looks like he's gonna trip on a turtle.


all those streets in photographs
by jeremy davies (with thanks to Concettina Insena & Lyndal Walker)

in picture one, 1975

Long hair in sweep, tits out,
'tis Juliet, lit-bold, with
every knowing innocence and
foreground to

two Romeos, en-jungled,
tattooed, dark and hairless,
one hand upon a bony hip

with all the whimsy of The Bard
and youth
and watchful indolence
as if you were passing by and staring—
Tybalt, therefore art thou!—
from a brown slow-moving Kingswood

such age'ed black and white,
it's attic-like nostalgia,
musty, guilty air they breathe
between the patient leaves.

in picture two, 1976

Wearing picture one as halter top,
perhaps to stop
the heated hated herpes of your gaze,
our Juliet is centre stage
(exeunt Romeos, one looking for his clothes.
One chasing the photographer—
with ready rapier—
right into the back o' last year.

The Kingswood's in the shop)

She looks the same, so soon,
made flesh from art
stepped out, her hair: perhaps:more oomph—
some mousse?—There's

more space for jungle,
without the crush of men behind.
Even so, there's something
far less wild.

Already the statement of the statement being made
is unrepentant? Maybe so, but
just a little, also, squeaky-scared

in picture three, 2000

and now, Pole Street homagé.
Juliet, recast,
no longer naturalé,
arms tight across her chest
with painted prim, perfected lips:
it fits.
Pulled tight
so bright
despite
the sharpness of fresh black and white.

And Romeos, returned,
grown hair, tattooed again,
still in the shadows of the leaves
inviting a restraining order, or,
at least, an employer-sanctioned
sexual harassment seminar.
(nibbles provided, but bring your own lunch)

Aware, and so aware of it,
wanting you to give a shit
but…

in picture four and five and six and seven and eight and nine and ten and eleven, 2010

…awareness has a virus
asexually transmitted
and it replicates in colour now
in suburbs of Street Everywhere.
There's every Montague and Capulet—
the Prince has passed a law;
that's how you learnt the lesson of—
neutral faces holding Pole street
by the fingertips, as if
it were the givings of a household pet
on arvo walkies

In Loving Memory of
Romeos and Juliet

We are in John and Nicholson and Albert:
Turnbridge Manor?
Now so puritan,
now so floral frocks
ordered in from Ipswich
now so stairs and doors and windows
and balconies sans star-crossed anything but

no no no tattoos or tits:
please
be pleased—
and look them up in diction'ries—
that picture three
(if we may return without the frame?)
can paint for us a thousand words
we never saw before,
unless we could've seen it from a Holden
they don't make no more.

(Picture two we see again later
Picture one is now blank paper.)

And the younger they are
The blanker their eyes.

Friday, July 16, 2010

David Lerner's 'Mein Kampf'

Because I was talking about Lerner yesterday, and because he's so little known 'out there', thought I'd share one of his poems here. I'm sorry to use arty farty technical jargon here, but he is fucking awesome.

Mein Kampf

“Gary Snyder lives in the country. He wakes up in the morning and listens to birds. We live in the city.” – Kathleen Wood

all I want to do is
make poetry famous

all I want to do is
burn my initials into the sun

all I want do do is
read poetry from the middle of a
burning building
standing in the fast lane of the
freeway
falling from the top of the
Empire State Building

the literary world
sucks dead dog dick
I’d rather be Richard Speck
than Gary Snyder
I’d rather ride a rocketship to hell
than a Volvo to Bolinas

I’d rather
sell arms to the Martians
than wait sullenly for a
letter from some diseased clown with a
three-piece mind
telling me that I’ve won a
bullet-proof pair of rose-colored glasses
for my poem “Autumn in the Spring”

I want to be
hated
by everyone who teaches for a living

I want people to hear my poetry and
get headaches
I want people to hear my poetry and
vomit

I want people to hear my poetry and
weep, scream, disappear, start bleeding,
eat their television sets, beat each other to death with
swords and

go out and get riotously drunk on
someone else’s money

this ain’t no party
this ain’t no disco
this ain’t no foolin a

grab-bag of
clever wordplay and sensitive thoughts and
gracious theories about

how many ambiguities can dance on the head of a
machine gun

this ain’t no
genteel evening over
cappuccino and bullshit

this ain’t no life-affirming
our days have meaning
as we watch the flowers breath through our souls and
fall desperately in love

this ain’t no letter-press, hand-me-down
wimpy beatnik festival of bitching about
the broken rainbow

it is a carnival of dread

it is a savage sideshow
about to move to the main arena

it is terror and wild beauty
walking hand in hand down a bombed-out road
as missiles scream, while a
sky the color of arterial blood
blinks on and off
like the lights on Broadway
after the last junkie’s dead of AIDS

I come not to bury poetry
but to blow it up
not to dandle it on my knee
like a retarded child with
beautiful eyes
but

throw it off a cliff into
icy seas and
see if the the motherfucker can swim for its life

because love is an excellent thing
surely we need it

but, my friends…

there is so much to hate These Days

that hatred is just love with a chip on its shoulder
a chip as big as the Ritz
and heavier than
all the bills I’ll never pay

because they’re after us
they’re selling radioactive charm bracelets
and breakfast cereals that
lower your IQ by 50 points per mouthful
we get politicians who think
starting World War III
would be a good career move
we got beautiful women
with eyes like wet stones
peering out at us from the pages of
glassy magazines promising that they’ll
fuck us till we shoot blood

if we’ll just buy one of these beautiful switchblade knives

I’ve got mine

Read more about the life and work of David Lerner and buy his books from Zeitgeist Press.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

My Virginial Day

Official residency (installation?) began today. It was a great luxury to be able to play with words all day in a public place. It almost felt like legalised indecent exposure. The cafe was quiet: the gallery was between exhibits, which created a subdued but expectant vibe. It was useful creatively, since I am also beginning, so shall have a fresh exhibit next week to play with.

Had a Nice chat with Robert about David Lerner and Rimbaud, and the general decline of the Academy into academy Inc.

Here's some work to come out of today though.

empty café

Voices of the empty café echo, with
laughing, downy-gentle, the present punctuation.
Dreamy,
the sun has caught the silver surface sleepy:
burns a cold hard shaving rash.
And there above reception, simply heads
that bob and bounce between the melody of
automatic doors and the beat of
automatic air.

Time is always liquid at the start,
tipping in the tinkling of long neck glasses
while I wait for coffee
the chalk boards whisper coloured words
of the coming day:

chicken and sweet corn soup

and I believe in it like God would on the seventh day.

The girls behind the counter
are photographs in black and white,
the starkest type,
not sepia, not here,
in the empty openness of Early.

Then the laughs get rough, competing
with each other, wrestling, rising,
pushing in the chest like the Demons in the ruck, but:
the smell of coffee beans are referees
from Arabican refugees

each flat black hand, with salt and pepper,
sweaty, the anticipated letter,

then, the number '3', all upside-downed
always smooth, an' wrongly round:

it must be true, but
here, before the whistle, one can never
really be so sure.


empty gallery

Where there was floor, there is now stone,
With pips an' paps o'criss-crossed fads and fixes
in laceration red.
But cryptic, crafty words,
an 'Ex' and intercoursing lines
spit-spattered,
outlines of ideas caught up in craft,
struggling, breathing,
still bleeding but alive,
willing on the

living

deadly

Art.

The walls are bones, still lit for end results
and blanker than the whitest page I've never seen
as if (and only if!) some cyclonic storm
had torn the walls down flat
and they still stand.

Rolled up, red bodies, casualties so casual against the walls
And men in overalls and baseball caps kick them about,
And roll them out
and point and stare

And wait and leave
And then return.
And point again.
And kick.

Such lazy murder going on…

The talking heads that peak around the 'puter screens
Are full of information sweeter than the counter cookies.

Next week, the resurrection:

for now, the tomb is full.