Goings On
Wednesday, March 21st, 2007Short things first:
the design I did for the music video “The Answer” by the Blackseeds, directed by Ed Davis at Underbelly in New Zealand is available for download should you care to viddy. Click on this link to see a still and a blurb from Ed, and a link to the video itself. This one: http://www.underbelly.co.nz/besseling/index.htm
My work is the background of the very last frame of the video. Ed requested “messy”, so I think we got what we were after…
So, Chiangers is a bit quiet these days, some folks have fled, others not come as planned, due to the “environmental emergency” we’ve had aroond ‘ere. The dust basin of CM has been collecting all the smoke from burn offs, excessive incineration and of course the good old traffic pollution. It certainly has never been this bad since I’ve been here. I thought I was developing some kind of glaucoma when a hazy curtain hung at the end of the street, as misty as a night in Cesky Krumlov, but at noon. Not cool at all. Well, it’s all relative I suppose, as old codgers are emergency room shovelled into hospital beds and wee babes are given facemasks, I seem to be holding up alright. The relativity comes in when you look at the pollution levels of Kathmandu. That was absolutely insane. I blame any future cancer on those few days around KTM. Coming back to CM, with a tear in my eye at having to part ways with Dr. Heagney, this shit seemed clean. Same phenomena that had me cringing in Asakusa, Tokyo coming from antiseptic old Canada, and breathing deeply at the crispness of the same endroit coming back from muggy old Cambodia.
Anyways, it’s much better now, but for a few days there I feared the four Horsemen had lobbed a fiery bag of apocalyptic shit over the mountains and this was the first sign of the end.
During these intolerable afternoons I’ve been hermiting and toiling away at Nakayubi Two. Seems shouting and swearing at God through the ceiling does work after all, and my muse has wiped the stardust from her gloriously thick and curvy lashes and bestowed me two sword taps on either shoulder and sparked the theme for the fucker deep in my triune lufa-brain.
I’ve been spewing thunder from my fingers for about four days, and I am quite proud of the results, as first-draftish as they are. Poetry is an interesting foe. it must be whipped and flogged, it’s a sadistic thing, not like prose where one is more likely to fluff and caress the intangible to produce volume, letting the ethereal flow gush over you, as masochism weaves yarns and interlayered filigree. Nope, that’s not what we’re dealing with here. This is cat o’ nines time.
Condensing to the point of necessity, it’s an alchemical undertaking not unlike boiling flowers and herbs for hours, shovelling tones of the shit into the cooker, only to have a small vial of essential oil remain at the end.
I think I’ll keep the theme and the specifics to myself for now, except to explain the previous point, in that I’ve set the limit of one page per poem, but i am noticing that perhaps this volume may be slightly more accessible and straight forward than the last. you’ll be the judge eventually, and to judge properly, you will have to arm yourself with Nakayubi One. So git o’er tae the shoap n git yirsilf one, will ya? feck.
p.s. if you’re praying folk, may I commandeer your harks to the unmeaning to see me safely to the end of this process? It’s really difficult. Thanks.
Oh and also, if you are in fact praying to St. Patrick anytime soon, please throw in a request from me for a new liver in recompense for services rendered in his name on his holy, holy day, where the black stuff flowed from golden chalices and drunken songs swirled to the skies like so much ember smoke from a pagan bonfire. cheers.
