A Response to "The next life" by Orchestra Sekra

Sax like a trail of seafoam as the voice murmurs, clearer less clear, between realities...

The voice, almost inaudible at times, murmuring, just under the waves, rises up and pulls back, almost taking me to what is between worlds. The words murmur all around me. They become distinct, then disappear into the sweetness of the sax, a sax become like a deep calling home. This morning I read a poem, 'Talking to Ourselves,' to which Orchestra Sekra's 'The next life' seems a perfect accompaniment, and as I read and listened, yes, our thoughts are often in that place between worlds, following our loved ones into the ocean wake, waking on the shore, with and without them, carrying on with our lives:


Talking to Ourselves

by Philip Schultz

A woman in my doctor's office last week
couldn't stop talking about Niagara Falls,
the difference between dog and deer ticks,
how her oldest boy, killed in Iraq, would lie
with her at night in the summer grass, singing
Puccini. Her eyes looked at me but saw only
the saffron swirls of the quivering heavens.

Yesterday, Mr. Miller, our tidy neighbor,
stopped under our lopsided maple to explain
how his wife of sixty years died last month
of Alzheimer's. I stood there, listening to
his longing reach across the darkness with
each bruised breath of his eloquent singing.

This morning my five-year-old asked himself
why he'd come into the kitchen. I understood
he was thinking out loud, personifying himself,
but the intimacy of his small voice was surprising.

When my father's vending business was failing,
he'd talk to himself while driving, his lips
silently moving, his black eyes deliquescent.
He didn't care that I was there, listening,
what he was saying was too important.

"Too important," I hear myself saying
in the kitchen, putting the dishes away,
and my wife looks up from her reading
and asks, "What's that you said?"

"Talking to Ourselves" by Philip Schultz, from Failure. © Harcourt, 2007. Reprinted with permission.

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with thanks to Balthaz for recommending this single

Orchestra Sekra
The next Life (single)

jazz saxophone synthesizer experimental improvisation electronic

This album was recommended to you by:
brendaclews

 

                                                    

Wind Over Grass - blocking shape and colour

It's not that I'm absent. I'm always here. There's so much I cannot speak of. Before it was different, I was able to weave things into prosepoetry that obscured while clarifying, you know how that is.

I am doing things I want to be doing, though. Today I had my second hour editing a manuscript. I have to go to a coffee shop, be trapped with nothing else to do; it works. On this mms I give myself until the end of June, that should be amble time.

At night I spend a minimum of an hour painting. To do that has its odd requirements too, but I am able to settle myself enough to enter the paint.

There is duress. Energy, focus, not easy. Yet I am doing it - with a few tricks. Since I know myself so well I know what'll motivate and what won't.

We are our last mysteries, aren't we. Though after many years of living as who we are, we become accustomed to ourselves, and our idiosyncracies. We learn how to negotiate our devious psychic terrains, how to point ourselves in a direction, how to stay on track.

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Wind Over Grass, 28"x22", 71x56cm, 2010, blocking shape and  colour. Photographed at night with flash, two photos merged to make it appear as it is (so far - still far to go).

                                                    

Backing Jamendo

Visit Backing Jamendo

Jamendo is community, Ai!R is right. I'd like to remain part of this beautiful community of music lovers and keep sharing our discoveries, keep sharing our music. Jamendo is not, and most likely never would be, a money-making venture. But the musical discoveries are awesome. I listen everyday to artists who've uploaded to Jamendo. Sometimes I pair songs with my prosepoem readings. I can't imagine life without this community. If we can't save Jamendo, which might be gone by the end of February without financial backers, let's save our community. Where the heart is. Our love.

                                                    

Wind Over Grass - first wash of colour

From Wind Over Grass, a painting

Wind Over Grass, 28"x22", 71x56cm, 2010, first wash of colour. Click for larger. Photographed in shadow on a sunny day. The texture of the brushstroke and colour is quite good. This painting is going to take awhile - still far to go.