Awkward Not Balanced.
Can I tell you my dream, she says,
when talk turns to flowers.
What I really like
is a bouquet,
with one long sprig off to the side.
Awkward not balanced.
I like my poems like that too:
eye-catching,
with fascist suns,
ladies with tachycardic eyes,
a girl with incarnadine hair,
poems with flourish,
quirk
like Tintin’s quiff.
Do you recognize this picture? Do you know what book it;s from?
This guy loved this book as a kid and now loves it again as a dad reading it to his kids.
He loved it so much he decorated his van with illustrations from this classic.
A sign company at Aldinga did it for cost. His van is a mobile advert for the company.
Picture this.
If you had the money and desire what picture book would you illustrate your vehicle with?
This song comes on the radio.
It’s one I know but they’ve done something to it
it’s softer, whiter, drained of passion and angst, its southern origins.
It’s a cover of Lodi, the Creedence song.
They’re singing the lyrics but they’re not singing the song.
The chunky guitars are gone and it has a clarinet and acoustic guitar backing..
Come on.
There are good covers.
Think Ry Cooder’s cover of Elvis’s ‘Little Sister’,
the Soup Dragons cover of the Stones’ ‘I’m Free’
Amy Winehouse’s cover of the Zutons ‘Valerie’
but this cover’s a travesty.
Look what they’ve done to my song, mama.
Why would anyone bother?
This guy’s stuck in Lodi. He’s desperate but he’s given up.
He’s drained. It’s like the Eagles’ ‘Hotel California’,
Billy Joel’s Piano Man but you wouldn’t know it
hearing this pallid, weasel kneed version.
I know I shouldn’t get worked up. Hey, it’s only a song
but I’ve loved songs all my life; it’s my passion, more than poetry
but Hey! a good song is poetry
so I’m playing Creedence’s ‘Lodi’ to get me out of this funk.
*what are some of your favourite covers?
pic courtesy of Pinterest
So where are you?
In a galaxy far far away.
No. Where are you really?
Tralfamadore.
Isn’t that where …?
Yes, where Billy Pilgrim went.
That time traveller from ‘Slaughterhouse Five’?
Yes, he went there on his days off.
His days off? From where?
Reality. Reality bites, you know.
But what if you never came back?
Like Hugh Conway in ‘Lost Horizons’? Dorothy in Oz ?
Yes.
And Peter Pan in Neverland.?
Exactly.
Would it really matter? You’d be where you want to be. Would you even want to go back?
Have you a favourite fantasy place ? Which fantasy world would you live in if you could? What if you couldn’t come back?
Not read ‘Alice in Wonderland’?
Not opened ‘Charlotte’s Web’?
And you say you’ve read 1000 books
& claim you are ‘well-read’
Not read ‘Wizard of Oz’?
or ‘Where the Wild Things Are’?
Never read ‘Peter Pan’ or heard
of ‘The Hungry Caterpillar’?
But you’ve read Robert Ludlum,
everything by Wilbur Smith
and you’re into science fiction
& all of its What Ifs?
Go in The Secret Garden
the Grimms wild, weird woods
& get thee to a library & read
the lost books of childhood.
* what children’s classics have you not read? [I’m about to read ‘Charlotte’s Web’ for the first time. I’ve seen the film J ]
So where are you?
In a galaxy far far away.
No. Where are you really?
Tralfamadore.
Isn’t that where …?
Yes, where Billy Pilgrim went.
That time traveller from ‘Slaughterhouse Five’?
Yes, he went there on his days off.
His days off? From where?
Reality. Reality bites, you know.
But what if you never came back?
Like Hugh Conway in ‘Lost Horizons’? Dorothy in Oz ?
Yes.
Would it really matter? You’d be where you want to be. Would you even want to go back?
Have you a favourite fantasy place ? Which fantasy world would you live in if you could? What if you couldn’t come back?
John Malone 