Tag Archives: rock

OUR MUSIC

OUR MUSIC

The aliens are, coming here
rushing head-over-heels
faster
    than a guitar riff
because they love
our music

speakers blaring Zeppelin
and Hendrix
smashing the peace as
they hurtle through
the galaxy

reminding those
old enough to remember air cavalry choppers
colonizing the skies
of Vietnam

the aliens are coming here
now all the critical questions
of survival
     relate to the possibility
of jam sessions

and whether our human
overlords
    will let them land and
pluck and strum

or pull
    the plug

desperate to
shut them out

CHORD

CHORD

I imagine
there is a script in my head

the page not yet in being
crying out for
birth by improvisation

wanting to go wherever
it wishes to go

meanwhile in the forest
Puck never foresaw King Crimson
never anticipated
the marriage
of Robert
and Toyah
Toyah and Robert

when these stories
                        tell themselves
they believe
brain states but pen dictates

something in the ether
flutes, strings or
maybe
     an eerie mellotron
singing, cross-
pollinating

I don’t know
whence or why all this comes

flows first
        like a trickle, then
a river flowing
through a capital city

but it comes
it comes
              turns time to
its tune

and you
     as always an inspiration
to me

serenading me silently
but inwardly I dance, have
no choice
           but to

your body
          raw rock and roll, incipient
heavy medal

your mind
Mingus, Davis jazz solo

your voice
   the missing solution to
every unsolved ancient philosophical
problem

every genre
zone and miracle  twist
in the plot, jaw
dropping moment

leaving no niche
left uncovered, hoard unfound
across that sweet topography

and every
molecule fibre
              crying out, imploring you
to fuse
with my mythology
jump aboard my allegory

become my inner metaphor
 
in the confused progressions of this symphony

the very Devil’s chord lurking
I do believe

BITE OF THE APPLE

BITE OF THE APPLE
“I don’t like cities,
but I love New York.”
                   Madonna

Men have
       been blown here
                    before

wandered
off course,

many
       (akin to Odysseus)
into the Aegean
across
   the Mediterranean

so much of that culture
alive on these streets

and whilst
(slice
   of life) they
while away time whittle
down the hours

Patti Smith is going
full barefoot  channeling Rimbauf

someone one there too
Christianized Jew
mournful
      singing the apocalyptic signs
all along the watchtower

everything with soul
heading for this harbor

cataclysm of Europe
strongest of
    land breeze

what is the supreme
text that we have faith
here gets
written

skyscraper high
scrawled on every wall

STONES

STONES
  
I saw the scene
in the Chess Studio film

so iconic and
yet the moment did
not know it
yet

revolution in the music
of the muddy river
with all
its deltas and
tributaries
(do not
   trust me to
describe it, go read
Derek Walcott’s
fabulous poem)

broke blues legend affronted
at the cheek of these
five skinny
     ultra pasty white
long-haired
dionysian ruffians

unloading amps on their turf
like it was all
        in a day’s work

just part of the process of
legend, transformation of life
into mythology

yes, Mr Waters, welcome
to epic
    they took their name
from one
of your records (or maybe
it was some
Jewish folk singer’s)

step opon Olympus
they say and of course
do not say

they are the music of this time
this changing time
come full circle

from hereon in
it is pure Rolling Stones