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1. |
Aspects
12:44
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Aspects
(The Sands of the Wairarapa)
Prologue
The man of old sands
performs his manipulations
before the mirror
turns his glass.
He notes again his aspects wear
to lesser features,
grain by grain,
as his life each day
expires,
rages
to be not constrained
by the turning of one burning grain,
but to span the wink eternal
of light to dark, universal
and back
and back again.
One glass empties;
one glass fills.
One glass empties;
one glass fills.
Act 1
Gaffed and netted
aloof, astute
on these parenthetic, wind struck days,
he remembers, still, how was the air:
flaked, a shingled slate
sun struck and shriven;
his watching borne upon an azure sky
brushed like a young girl’s hair,
only blisteringly
blistered white
Then
the rain,
blind and dry
in its unravelling,
as he
strove to muster
thoughts
like pools
trapped against the tide
of stillness.
He remembers the maritime,
with mute photographs and fractional
images of
strand etched bottles
and other
subtly wayward farings;
but mostly now he knows
all is only counting loss,
the empty spaces that prevail.
His arms fly akimbo
of their own accord
as if vaguely
chasing away
the formlessness of these fears,
these vestiges,
these alter days.
Act 2
His eyes linger
upon an aching shore,
restless to be
where fleshless, the winds sweep fierce
across the sand grained wastes
of
the sea and sky abutted,
to peel back the clinging, fluted green
of living,
to there reveal
the images real,
and the great distance come resolved
of
the blue on blue
and the blue on blue.
But mired in the cruel,
the flightlessness of morning,
how the smarting tongue uncurls
from the promises that night has wrenched
from shaking, sweating palms;
as unbidden, immortality
proffers, soft,
not light, not joy;
breathes not the breath of a visionary
horizon,
but the clinging of
a deep, blind sea;
and ever edging
to the borderline
he waits,
and wears
infinitely small
and
infinitely
thin
one more transparent grain tumbling
backwards into
the air.
Apparitions.
Whisperings through the glass.
Echoes.
The swalelands.
Act 3
The man of old sands
turns his glass.
Cleft and hollow, the slow devouring.
He looks to his hands,
shaken as if something other
stirs inside;
he dreams to be free
of these prognostications,
these leaches;
he dreams only to walk the sky’s beaches.
The man of old sands opens his palms;
nothing stains, nothings marks;
all
emptiness fills,
to overflowing.
Soon
only the salty spaces
within the sands
will remember the hungers devoured,
the tides withdrawn
and the waves that washed
like a young girl’s sighs.
The matted twisted nets
knock against the boards;
he knows not how to answer.
The rime of ages settles thick,
both cocooning and dehydrating;
his fingers reach towards the glass….
One
glass fills;
one glass
expires.
One
glass fills;
one glass
expires.
An Epilogue
Here now,
is all such longing stilled;
here now, a faceless moon,
a starless wind sung night
and smeared
in the corner
of the mirror’s eye
just the aspect
of a
smile
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2. |
Raking the Gravel
02:59
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3. |
Ever Land
05:22
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Picking up the pieces, at the end of the day.
Pulling at the traces, in your head strong way.
Some days there seems no end to what you’ve begun,
Move on till you get to the end, then start it all over again.
You’ve been chained now to these needs for so long
Everyone so noisy, no-one hears your song.
They think they know you in the blink of an eye
So no-one knows why you hold on so, hold on so, you hold on so tight.
Nothing lasts forever when you write on sand.
I don’t know if I’ll ever leave never land
But I know if you steer too far, too far from the rocks
You
you loose the land,
you loose the land
you loose the land.
It’s hard to see the sun and still watch where you tread.
It’s a lonely place sometimes, in a lover’s bed;
Longing for a touch, just to know if you’re heard,
When you lie in the silence, the silence, the silence of a thousand words.
I don’t know where you put the keys to these chains.
I don’t know how you find the strength to get up again.
I don’t know if I’ll ever be the place you feel no blame;
But
I know you know
I know you know
I know you know me
better than me.
Taking too much on, chasing everyone’s fears,
Trying to quieten all those, quieten all those tears;
All the time hearing those grey cold winds
blowing down all those, all of those, all of those, all of those years.
But here I am beside you, don’t fear the years.
Even in my silence, don’t fear the years.
Every time we take our chances, don’t you fear the years.
Don’t
don’t fear the years
don’t fear the years
don’t fear the years
don’t you fear the years.
Here I am beside you, don’t fear the years.
Right here beside you, don’t fear the years.
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4. |
Marlina
03:36
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Another Monday morning
Marlina hangs washing out
baby on her hip,
two others on the ground
Gina and Jacko
were late for school again
Too many mouths to feed
too little money to go around
Tuesday it's lunchtime
She's down at the markets
Since five in the morning
at her vegetable stall
Three more hours to go
she will sell what she can
then hurry to be there
when the children come home
Wednesday afternoon
she's down at the factory
Making cheap jeans
on the assembly line.
She sews for ten hours
then goes home to cook dinner
Five children, two cousins and a husband
to feed every night.
Thursday it's dark
she walks in the kitchen
Everyone else is in bed
but the baby's not well
She is so very tired
and tomorrow's a long day
Marlina sings softly
to comfort her baby to sleep.
Saturday afternoon
Marlina is running
She's late for the factory bus
to take her back home
But on the bus with her girl friends
how they are laughing
They will forget all their cares
when they go out dancing tonight.
forget all their cares
when they go out dancing tonight.
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5. |
Issy's Tune
02:48
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6. |
Eastern Furze
02:20
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7. |
Julie's Em7 Blues
01:54
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8. |
For Meg
03:44
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9. |
Just Another Day
02:19
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10. |
Blues Island
03:18
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11. |
An Afternoon One Winter
06:05
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12. |
End Game / Flight Fair
06:02
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How apt it was the night it came
Check out, end point, checkmate game
The pawn found in the final row
Board empty, nowhere to go.
But these boards are for the kings and queens
Bishops so holy, the knights so obscene
Castles so strong, everything black and white
What’s the lot of a pawn in the middle of that fight.
But how proud you can feel, out in the front ranks
Moving out into the open, exposing your flank
Going boldly where the fools and little men
Dare to tread lacking even that much common sense.
And it’s all for the glory that some pawn won
Some game before, or the one before that one
Finds himself in the back row, all alone,
Traded his rags for some other pieces bones.
And what can compare to the irony
Of finally getting to be where he wanted to be
In his blind panic to please he just couldn’t see
Some other hand remove his stately queen.
How apt it was the night it came
Check out, end point, checkmate game
When I’d finally become all I thought you dreamed
You woke up in someone else’s, or so it seems..
How apt it was the night it came
Check out, end point, checkmate game
The pawn found in the final row
Board empty, nowhere to go.
We are sailing on the ocean
We are flying across the skies
We are falling in heaven’s own motion
Coming Home, high and dry.
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13. |
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14. |
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15. |
Garoonka ronk
02:39
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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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