Get all 7 Mike Cavanagh releases available on Bandcamp and save 50%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Fittin' In, Works in Progress (old and new), Hebridean Suite, Simple Days, Chosen Few, Holiday Cliche, and Every Day Has Its Dog.
1. |
Bogong Moths
05:16
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BOGONG MOTHS
Bogong moths at the window panes
behind slimline venetian's blades
caught up in the intricacies
that suddenly appeared
these last two hundred years.
Bullet winged and compact
adhered to shadows well backed
away from brash efficiencies
that obdurate in discord rise
over the true earth’s blood red and richly wrinkled hide.
Sounds of fluttering futile wings
against windows somehow brings
me images quite unexpected
of winds and spring and melting snow
on kosciuskan peaks - far and long ago
and of dark eyes burning bright
in the camps fired glow, alight
with dreamings tales renewed;
at the gathering of the dark moths again,
so the night, so the telling, so the men.
Same stars aloof in raven night's
still glimmer, moon-full, coal bright;
but now in vain entrapment viewed;
never again to be what it once has been -
moths and men alike agleam,
and shared translucent dreaming.
Bogong moths at the window panes
behind slimline venetian's blades
caught up in the intricacies
that suddenly appeared
these last two hundred years.
But now in vain entrapment viewed;
never again to be what they once had been -
moths and men alike agleam,
and shared translucent dreaming.
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2. |
Chicken Wings
03:36
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3. |
Barabas
04:38
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BARABAS
I dreamed of a blue sky
and found a world of black in white
I dreamed of stars at night
and fell blindly for the dark
I dreamed of a full moon
and drifted aimless with the tide
I dreamed of a summer’s promise
and found only a winter’s divide.
I dreamed of one candle’s flame
and found nowhere I could pray
I dreamed of a new world
and found an endless day
just like today
just like today
just like today
just like today
I dreamed of the seas’ white shells
and found a seagull’s dead dried wings
I dreamed of the desert spring
and found a dead man’s well
I dreamed of a hero’s blade
and found only that I could bleed
I dreamed of a potter’s wheel
and found all things unmade
I dreamed of truth on stones
and found idols with feet of clay
I dreamed of an open palm
and found a ring of endless days
just like today
just like today
just like today
just like today
I dreamed of heaven’s light
and found eternal flames
I dreamed of hallowed ground
and found a naked cross
I dreamed of a wise man’s words
and found a demon’s breath
I dreamed of a clear road
and found myself forever lost
I dreamed death’s kiss to woo
so I dreamed of you
and I dreamed of you
and dreamed of you
It’s just, just another
It’s just another state of mind.
It’s just, just another
It’s just another state of mind.
Just like today
just like today
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4. |
I Wish
04:53
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I WISH
I wish I was a ring of water
soft frozen 'round the moon
a rainbow dark
and wildly spun
across night's antiphonic tunes.
I wish I was a gnarled old oak
slowly reeling in the years
a life marked by
rhythm’s and rings
few see, and no-one hears.
I wish I was a rain storm
agrowl in a distant sky
dashing cold and stark
grey rain
across the mountains’ sides.
I wish I were a colony
of roiling, ribald ants
on forest floors en masse
in search
of the next night’s bivouac.
I wish I were an avalanche
of crushing powdered white
in flurry falling, gut
rock thundering
from corniced crowns of untold heights.
I wish my mind were crystal
tempered finer than diamonds ice,
and tuned perfectly to
the resonance of
instinctive insect flight;
then some summer evening falling to
a thousand mosquitoes wings
it might spring brightly into a
million silver
slivered, shattered things
into the dark’s long spiralling sent
to chase the light
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5. |
Freeway
03:48
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FREEWAY
The half light steals across the world;
an unchanging ribbon of change unfurls
across another day at the
centre of the universe.
Change is the only constant thing
in the revolving wheels within the wheels within
the wheels that are the rhythms
of the universe. Get me out of here.
And everything is just off centre
in centring on something else,
creating seasons and providing reasons why we seek
to find the reasons.
While in a hundred generations passing
beneath the same solar great unmasking
who else wonders why we need to light the night
the way we do? Get me out of here.
But Barney at the Petrol Station
only knows this summer's weather's crazy;
And he's sick of fumes and grimy fingers
on the window panes he cleans.
His wife complains about his hours,
and about the hours he has to keep
and doesn't keep alone or not
alone at home.
And he turns away to pick up the phone
as another message shunts down the line
of 'This transaction has been denied.’
at the register of dreams. Get me out of here.
I pull out into the early morning's
commuter, freight and taxi traffic;
A steady state of little lights
played out across the dieing,
blank black night:
This is the new Pacific.
This is the new Pacific.
This is the new Pacific. Get me out of here.
One day across these event's horizons
we all will tumble, with surprising
looks upon our faces
as we realise
there really is no day or night,
and all those ancient maps were right;
there really is a falling edge to all
known
and unknown worlds.
Get me out of here.
And six billion universal unthinkings
into the one morning's light go blinking,
as one cock crows and someone's pre-paid
mobile rings.
And Barney says "And so it goes";
And the only thing I think I know is
I understand less than half I think
I know. Get me out of here.
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6. |
The Living Room
03:44
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THE LIVING ROOM
The shades are drawn
against the afternoon's bright.
Light can be so confusing;
so seeking darkness, palely
rising, she ignores the call
of the telephone; too much
time on her hands, too
much to lose in the daily
rituals of filling such vacancies
as these. Her fingers
trace the walls, making
whisperings of their own
that call to where all these
other lives have gone: nowhere.
They are here now. A life so crowded. So alone.
At the master bedroom door
she lingers. The bed.
The mirror. The cupboard.
The pictures on the wall.
The light, questing cracks,
slips through the blinds
illuminating only the quiet
impossibility of it all.
A meagre breeze ruffles
the curtains; she turns
and her whispering fingers
retrace her shuffling steps
to the living room,
where the shades are drawn.
Half light. Half dark. A memory. She should check.
Just once more.
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7. |
La Isla
03:38
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LA ISLA
An afternoon late
of an Aegean blue;
a rapelle of gulls
tumbles free of the sky.
In a place where the visions
of Raphael
pant in unrequited disguise,
he resides behind
these dark glasses.
The women who drew little sighs
from the waves
are now long departed,
laughing girlishly
at his demise.
Their immodest natures:
clean bare shells
they threaded on old lines
fished from the sea.
Él deseaba calmar a las bellas jovenes
it was the sea,
the sky
it was the warm
and the breeze…
Still he waits, alone,
restless for the tide
to obey his commands.
His dark now, a satin breathing
undertow;
Perdido de lograr el paraíso.
A glass shatters in the sun
against the white forbearance of the alabasters;
little wings of light flutter on the waters.
“The sun” he reflects, “is greedy.”
and squints his eyes.
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8. |
Reflections
05:14
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REFLECTIONS
Night unfolds like a raven’s wing
To bind my eyes and harbour my wandering mind
Skipping corridors windswept echoing
To the steps that my thoughts ever run through.
The stardust heart of summer sun dancers
On blue lace trimmed waves and a young girl’s glances
We glide, my mind and I, we take our chances
To catch the fragmented porcelain memories of you.
It’s strange that now, at the fall of night,
With my eyes closed and my heart held tight
With my hands now my only sight,
I see as clear as my eyes ever could do
The star unfurling of your night sky hair
And the endless echoes of my memories there
Caught in the slow, the flowing nowhere
Of the dance that sees the seasons through.
In the silent whirling of the world’s refrain
My mind has been caught, strung out again,
In the middle of the dark, in the middle of my heart
In the endless moment frozen
That I watched dark wings unfolding
In the reflections of your hair
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9. |
Prisms
07:00
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PRISMS
Stephen plays by the porch
the world is outside
throwing the ball up
and rolling the ball down
the stairs
the dog joining in
runs off with the ball
Stephen waits
Stephen waits
Stephen waits
the world is outside
Peta is falling in a well
I can stand on the edge
and see
Peta is falling
some look in her eyes
and see disconnection
I know what she sees
like trying to focus
on the walls of a tunnel
while riding in a very fast train
she stares not to be caught
by some point of reference
she stares so that the motion
will not make her sick
I stare in and she gets smaller
she stares straight ahead
and everything remains the same
in Peta’s world everything she knows is rushing away
while the unknown rushes in
the present is gone as soon as it comes
and tomorrow and yesterday are too far away
I stand on the edge of the well
Peta is falling
Sarah wants a name
she doesn’t want to be
somebody else
Sarah wants a name.
Sarah has a hat full of words
she dons like cloaks
depending on the situation
sometimes flipping out from one
and under another
as quick as a whirling dervish;
if she can whirl fast enough
and become just a blur
no one will see,
that she is naked;
Sarah wants a name
Adrian always draws parallel lines
Although that’s not what he calls them
But he knows no matter how long he draws them
They never come together
Yet he draws them as if someday something surprising might happen
Adrian is always drawing parallel lines
Thomas is looking for himself
it is a race against time.
Everyone else is looking for Thomas
and he must get there first
or they will steal the real Thomas away
Thomas is looking for himself
Annie wants to be naked
because everything else is unsure
everything else is binding
everything else is a lie
and nothing else is quite as powerful
e can see it in their eyes
she can see it in my eye
so she laughs as she runs
shedding her clothes
Annie wants to be naked
I watch the crystals hung in the windows
their facets carving the light of the sun
into hundreds of rainbows
of multiple hues
the shattering of light
is a beautiful thing.
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10. |
Du Cane Gap
08:07
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Mike Cavanagh Catalina, Australia
In my 60s (how the hell did THAT happen!). Married to the love of my life - Jules - for 20 years. Stepdad to three adult 'kids'. Other loves of my life - 1970s Gibson J-200, 1978 Gurian 3M and Maton FG 12 string also 1970s vintage. Don't play nowhere these days, but paid some sort of dues over the years - restaurants, bars, even a few weddings. Motto - find beauty; be still (thanks Mr W.H. Murray) ... more
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