Awesome
If I see or hear the word “Awesome” being misused again, I think I’ll scream! It has become another word hijacked into trivialisation by the prevailing one-inch-deep mentality. The Milky Way is awesome. The Aurora Borealis is awesome. An active volcano is awesome. The opening chorus of J.S. Bach’s B minor Mass is awesome. An ice cream is *not* awesome. #1 in the Top Ten is *not* awesome. The new line of Maybelline mascara is *not* awesome. Your new jeans are *not* awesome. Geddit?
Tundra [poem]
And so these soresome feet have turned their heels on this cold land
(though cold is not used merely to describe the mercury
but also as a measurement of mind and hearts
which I can only now describe as bland).
For never have I felt such ice brush by me
yet not melt at finely chosen words and deeds.
No knight can find a horse to ride in glaciers
or darkness hiding out in hazy midnight suns
and penile breastshaped guns which smile and say
‘Come suck me then I’ll shoot you in your face’
and not regarding chivalry as something even worthy to be said
this poetboy has cried and died shed many skins and bled.
It seems there is a gulf between their smiles and gift —
a gashed and bloody rift —
which hangs unspoken
always blind unwoken
never boldly broken
brittle
shoulder chiply moulded
by the unforgiving wind which only blows from
northern graceless firlined
endless faceless frozen darkly wastes.
A funny Story
HERE’S a funny story. A poet mistook me for another famous poet and publisher who has the same name as me. He sent me an email which said: “I would like to offer a poem or poems for publication. My poetry is on the theme of anti-capatilist [sic] establishment and anti-bankers in particular”. Hahaha! I had a long laugh at that (not least because he couldn’t even spell!). For in order to ingratiate oneself to anyone who’s anyone in the mainstream poetry scene these are the sort of credentials one has to present. You have to be left-wing and politically correct! It’s a treadmill. And the poetry treadmill today is indeed a depressing one. In order to become a “successful” poet in the mainstream one is supposed to go through a series of hoops like a circus dog. First, one is supposed to send poems to poetry magazines (which are only read by poets). Then one is supposed to enter one’s poems into competitions (which only poets know anything about or read). But getting published in poetry magazines or winning poetry competitions means nothing at all in terms of being a poet. Showing off to other poets and seeming to be clever to each other and publishing each other is just a fancy mutual back-slapping exercise. We shouldn’t write for other poets but for real people and our poetry should be judged as to how much it moves real people’s hearts. That is the acid test and is the true role of the poet rather than trying to impress other poets or those who have set themselves up as judges of poems simply because they run a “creative writing” class, have the right political credentials or have themselves jumped through all the right hoops. These days to “succeed” in the mainstream poetry scene one has to conform to certain prerequisites such as being thoroughly left wing, being politically correct to a T, never really rocking the boat (and I mean *really* rocking the boat rather than merely scoffing at soft targets like “capitalist bankers”), avoiding using rhyme, eschewing sonnet-writing, steering clear of any romantic elements and being willing to ass-lick the *right* people. Well fuck all that! Real troubadours would never get on that conformist treadmill because *success* for a real artist is not about vanity-traps such as winning competitions or getting published but is about reaching into the hearts of people (and even changing them) in a meaningful and lasting manner. (It’s an equally depressing treadmill in the music scene too; but I’ll come back to that one some other time 😉
Crumbless Comfort [poem]
There’s treacle in those cloudlike hills.
(Or so I then was told; experiencing
for myself how real estate is falsely sold!).
So in my usual curiositical state of mind
I climbed then found my feet fast stuck
in thick and sticky slime. It was a trap.
“Blowback” or “Please Don’t Kill my Baby!” [song lyrics]
The day he took my little one
he’d gone without his coat
to school and I was worried
(he’d complained about his throat).
I thought he might have had a cold
or something I could mend.
I didn’t know I wouldn’t
see his face again.
The Seed of it All [song lyric]
HERE ARE THE LYRICS for a song I wrote called “The Seed of it All”, which is on my upcoming CD (“The End of the Song”). This song is about the extraordinary process we call the passage of time — one of the greatest of all mysteries (for now). It seemed to me that it has a very fitting New Year message:
In the heart of every Summer
lies the child of the Fall;
and deep within each one of us:
The seed of it all.
Everything that’s yet to come
is now already here.
The seasons of the future
are secreted in the year.
We’re pregnant with potential
unfolding here in time —
palaces of promise
with a serenade sublime.
Everything we’ll be one day
is written in the now.
Each now becomes the future
but the miracle is how!
Refrain:
The present is the future in disguise;
the choices which we’ll make
are already in our eyes.
Liberated from the past
we will find ourselves at last;
every moment is a fond goodbye.
Always moving forward
like searching shooting stars;
never burning out because
we’re would-be avatars.
And from the cosmic dawn of time
we’re birthing who we’ll be;
reaching out our branches
like an ever-growing tree.
With embryonic visions
cascading years to come —
written on the wailing wall
our life a smoking gun.
Playing out our precious path
as troubadours of time;
we sing our way until we reach
perfection in our rhyme.
Refrain:
The present is the future in disguise;
The choices which we’ll make
are already in our eyes.
Liberated from the past
we will find ourselves at last;
every moment is a fond goodbye.
In the heart of every Summer
lies the child of the Fall
and deep within each one of us:
The seed of it all.
Too Zero Won Free [poem]
The New Year looked me gravely (frankly) in the face and said:
What resolutions have you made as this old year begins to fade?
I took her hand in mine and thought I saw some future light
begin to shine. Perhaps I was mistaken for as I looked into her eyes
she took me on a journey far beyond my skies had ever been before
and if I was to tell you what I saw you would (like me) begin to shake
and thoughts then flickered through my mind that I would never
make it through her year unless some superhuman strength
I’d soonly find. She squeezed my hand and smiled that soft and
drenchful face reserved for those who will wholeheartedly embrace
her delicate tapestries
fortunate auspices
melodic mysteries
yet at the same time
wholly leave behind
every wretched kind of
worthless history
mindless twisterie
thoughtless brusquerie
things which can’t set one free
feeling regretful for
acts done ham-fistedly
openings missed by me
false meets at trysting-trees
those kissed resistingly
realness dismissed by me
new paths unrisked by me
good things unhitched by me
itches not scratched by me
dreams pistol-whipped by me
so many hopes unseen.
As she gazed into my eyes and therefore deep into my soul
I sensed her clasp me to her side and as she did a little voice said
Are you ready for this ride? This won’t be just like any other tide
in which you’ve flowed before in any of your years or wars.
The sea is deep and rough which I will bring under your boat
and you’ll be smashed on many rocks although you always and
in every way will joyly stay afloat. Indeed I’ve seen your future
shining face above the waves bemused by buffet’s perverse ways.
You know this is for your own good. (At which I kissed her fresh new
skin while breathlessly she drew me deep within and we were one).
© 2012/2013, Alan Morrison
Forever Alchemy [sonnet]
For reasons I thought best in distant past
I fell on my own sword and let you go.
Thus I became a self-iconoclast —
a one-man dab-hand self-destruction show.
You strode into that snow-capped country white;
a virgin in my eyes you’ll always be.
I thought if we stayed friends there’d still be light;
transcending all our ancient alchemy.
But still you turned my nickel into gold
(our laughter was the grand transmuting stone).
And though we laugh not now (if truth be told)
our gilt-edged stocks have somehow strangely grown.
No matter where on earth you’ve ever been,
the truth is only I deserve your skin.
© 2012, Alan Morrison
The Wailing Moon [song lyric]
Saw the face on the moon last night
Shocked, marvelled and amazed
That the wrong ain’t made right.
Looking down on this broken old world
Over which flags of cowardly deeds
Have unfurled
Why do Kidz Love Kitsch?
Everything about Christmas is kitsch – I mean EVERYTHING. The tree with its gaudy baubles, the room decorations, the awful sweaters. Santa’s outfit (I mean who wears fun-fur at the Poles?), his contrived ho-ho-ho (isn’t it a bit in the Jimmy Saville zone for an obese old man to be shinning down chimneys to sneak into children’s bedrooms in the middle of the night?!?), the stuff in which the presents are wrapped, the fake snow everywhere (except in Sweden and Russia), the weird artefacts hanging in the streets, the Falstaffian bonhomie, the stopping of hostilities on the battlefield to play football for 24 hours (worst kitsch of all), the way that every shop has to look “Christmassy” in order to get trade and “enter into the spirit”, the cards which everyone sends to everyone who sent them one last year, the holly (but the mistletoe is okay 😉 ), the £5 billion (yes, that’s right, I checked) which is estimated to be spent this weekend in the UK in the shops (mostly on totally unnecessary rubbish), the endless 80s Xmas “hits” being churned out on the radio, the plastic fairy on top of the tree, etc. Talk about bad taste!
The Naked Troubadour 