Brim Black in Blue

FinsburyParkCarrotsFinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
edited January 2005 in Poetry, Prose, Music & Art
Brim black in blue, your eyes, storm shadow skies
of corncrake-whirling dusk. Your heavy gaze
cuts through soul window smoke conspiracies
ensnaring rooms of dust. You stare, you faze
bar locals with your eyes. Grim blue in grey.
Eyes, dead black rock ocean pools, slime shine
shimmering upon a flimsy fey
stranded face, sand grey in tide decline.

Brim black in red, your tongue, foam of earth
boiling from the lips of mountain man,
the years of plodding in the brimblack dearth
of mountain life toward these walls. Grim span
of muck brown thrown down life. Your words, your gaze
turn black beneath the window's dusking haze.
Post edited by Unknown User on

Comments

  • FinsburyParkCarrotsFinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    Ballast rubble. Pebble sprawl. Grey clay.
    Sand. Silver shine. Black shovel. Leather boot,
    push the shovel down. Scratch, spray
    silver shining sand, dig in, down, root
    in, deep down through granule brown, black soil,
    around red rounds of brickpipe, down and down
    through layers of a dead man's thankless toil:
    a man from Mayo in an English town,
    a man who came to work and find a wife,
    a man of lodging houses and of cold
    lonely predawn risings to a life
    of shovelling, burnt dinners and the old
    weakness, staying out in Mooney's late.
    Dig up a nothinglife, become its hate.
  • FinsburyParkCarrotsFinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    Sunday night was the last night of the Folk Festival. Summery crowds massed in and out of the Guinness tent or sat down in big sweltering groups to hear the headline act on the main stage. Here where I was, it was the traditional yearly table jumping competition. It was in mid flow. A guy scaled a stack of tables eleven feet high and jumped from the top, landing on his feet to drunken whoops. One bloke with a red face and a Pogues top syarted swearing. He demanded another table be put on the top, shouting in a bizarre impersonation of Connaught brogue. He climbed it, wobbled uneasily looking strangely at everyone with watery eyes, shouting "Oooop the wesht and fugh the rest", and fell off, somehow landing on his feet in a dizzy stagger that made the ground pound under cheers of applause. The first jumper demanded the Pogue's jump be discounted as a lucky fall. The Pogue grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and growled, "Are yez troyin' te make a c--- out o' me? 'Cos oi'll make a c--- out o' YE!!!!"
    Suddenly I realised the Pogue was my old classmate James. I called him over. He immediately forgot about his adversary and put his arm around my shoulder. "Richardeeeeen, oooooop the wesht and fugh the resht, ha?"

    "James," I asked. "Why are you talking with your father's accent? Up the west, yes, but we were born in Cambridge, on Mill Road."

    "Oi'm no Plastic Paddy. Oooop the wesht and fugh the resht. Have shome whiskey. The foinesht."

    "James, your accent sounds more like Topol's in 'Fiddler on the Roof'."

    "Was he from the weshttttt????????"
  • FinsburyParkCarrotsFinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    That last one was about the way Irish diaspora such as I and my peers have tried to cope with being born in England and into two cultures.
  • grooveamaticgrooveamatic Posts: 1,374
    "Digging" is amazing...full of bile and beauty. It seems truly felt, and harsh.

    Going through a bit of an identity crisis, Fins?
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  • FinsburyParkCarrotsFinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    Nah. I'm researching diaspora and migration for postgrad research into post-colonial literatures, and I'm milking my findings and some old memories for poetry and prose. I'll admit it, writings about such topics are fashionable. If I get the knack of it, I might try and whore my work for a few ducets.
  • grooveamaticgrooveamatic Posts: 1,374
    Nah. I'm researching diaspora and migration for postgrad research into post-colonial literatures, and I'm milking my findings and some old memories for poetry and prose. I'll admit it, writings about such topics are fashionable. If I get the knack of it, I might try and whore my work for a few ducets.

    No shame in that, methinks. Ducets must come from somewhere.
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  • Brim black and blue is unusually rythmic for you fins, very much in the fashion of beat poetry. It's hard not to read it without snapping your fingers to a subconscious tune, and the images are off the scale. An excellent read
  • grooveamaticgrooveamatic Posts: 1,374
    Brim black and blue is unusually rythmic for you fins, very much in the fashion of beat poetry. It's hard not to read it without snapping your fingers to a subconscious tune, and the images are off the scale. An excellent read

    wow..you're right...hadn't taken note of the way that poem sounds out loud...snapping fingers and calling each other 'cool cat's...I'm a much bigger fan of the poem now for having thought of it that way...
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  • FinsburyParkCarrotsFinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    Aww shit, Beat poetry? I hate that stuff. But thanks! :D
  • FinsburyParkCarrotsFinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    I only wrote these bits in the last few hours so I'm editing them. I wasn't happy with Brim Black in Blue really, so here's take two of it.

    Brim black in blue, your eyes, storm shadow skies
    of corncrake-whirling dusk. Your heavy gaze
    cuts through soul window smoke conspiracies
    ensnaring rooms of dust. You stare, you faze
    red sun hope with your eyes. Grim blue in grey.
    Eyes, dead black rock ocean pools, slime shine
    shimmering upon a flimsy fey
    stranded face, sand grey in tide decline.

    Brim black in red, your tongue, foam of earth
    boiling from the lips of mountain man,
    the years of plodding in the brimblack dearth
    of western life toward these walls. Grim span
    of muck brown thrown down life. Your words, your gaze,
    turn black beneath the window's dusking haze.
  • grooveamaticgrooveamatic Posts: 1,374
    I only wrote these bits in the last few hours so I'm editing them. I wasn't happy with Brim Black in Blue really, so here's take two of it.

    Brim black in blue, your eyes, storm shadow skies
    of corncrake-whirling dusk. Your heavy gaze
    cuts through soul window smoke conspiracies
    ensnaring rooms of dust. You stare, you faze
    red sun hope with your eyes. Grim blue in grey.
    Eyes, dead black rock ocean pools, slime shine
    shimmering upon a flimsy fey
    stranded face, sand grey in tide decline.

    Brim black in red, your tongue, foam of earth
    boiling from the lips of mountain man,
    the years of plodding in the brimblack dearth
    of western life toward these walls. Grim span
    of muck brown thrown down life. Your words, your gaze,
    turn black beneath the window's dusking haze.


    Fifth line of first stanza reads a lot easier now, methinks.
    .........................................................................
  • FinsburyParkCarrotsFinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    How about "Red sunfall"?
  • grooveamaticgrooveamatic Posts: 1,374
    How about "Red sunfall"?

    might be even better with 'faze' at the end of line 4.
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  • FinsburyParkCarrotsFinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    That's what I was f-f-f-f-finkin'. Cheers. ;)
  • If you're trying to "un-beatify" it then you've failed, but I'm glad you did, because I still like it.
  • FinsburyParkCarrotsFinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    Haha. I suppose I'll have to live with that then.

    Hang on, I'll improvise a beat poem...


    Dharma tomatoes
    surf jive hipstah motorcycle lions
    angels of jeep star visions
    of electric night

    and Venus
    flicks cigarettes at an asteroid
    to dazzles of Thelonius Monk
    bebop a dang floy floy a boogie mon

    and in my zuit suit and my flute
    and my cute toot toot
    on mah john the conquereror root
    my Dharma feet

    Pat a beachbum beat
    down Venice beach with Corso
    and Ferlinghetti even more so
    uhhhh rooawwwrrrgghhh howl howl howl

    shantih shantih shantih


    :D

    Cheers, ETE ;)
  • grooveamaticgrooveamatic Posts: 1,374
    I think it's a "zoot suit", but I could be wrong. ;)
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  • FinsburyParkCarrotsFinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    Haha, it is. I got carried away in the flurry of bolloxologising.
  • grooveamaticgrooveamatic Posts: 1,374
    Haha, it is. I got carried away in the flurry of bolloxologising.

    I understand. Beat poetry can make a man lose his mind. :)

    I maintain a soft spot for the stuff because it was very in vogue during my formative teenage years (I'm not as old as that sounds...I'm talking about the early nineties); that's just what we were all reading and what was cool, so I still hold on to it as mine, in a way.

    Most of it is crap, of course.
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  • FinsburyParkCarrotsFinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    Don't tell anyone but I was a Beat fanatic as a teenager in the eighties. ;)
  • grooveamaticgrooveamatic Posts: 1,374
    Don't tell anyone but I was a Beat fanatic as a teenager in the eighties. ;)

    Your secret is safe with me. I swear.




    Hey everyone! Guess what...
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  • FinsburyParkCarrotsFinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    Who's the girl flashing her golden brown hair
    fronds spiraling high in a dance of the wind?
    Who's the girl leading me up on the stair
    of a magical spiralling palace of mind?

    It's you, meee joooolieeeee jewel!


    Just you, my jewel.
  • grooveamaticgrooveamatic Posts: 1,374
    Who's the girl flashing her golden brown hair
    fronds spiraling high in a dance of the wind?
    Who's the girl leading me up on the stair
    of a magical spiralling palace of mind?

    It's you, meee joooolieeeee jewel!


    Just you, my jewel.

    Ha! That fifth line is rather out there! I repeat: Ha!

    Congrats on the 5000th post!
    .........................................................................
  • FinsburyParkCarrotsFinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    Thanks, Grooveamatic. I'm rather proud of my capacity for prolific bullshit. :)
  • dyaogirldyaogirl Posts: 138
    Who's the girl flashing her golden brown hair
    fronds spiraling high in a dance of the wind?
    Who's the girl leading me up on the stair
    of a magical spiralling palace of mind?

    It's you, meee joooolieeeee jewel!


    Just you, my jewel.

    ...and awating tonight at the top of the stairway 5000 kisses for a brilliant magic man.
    '..... Ah! A perfect illustration of the poststructuralist paradox. Does the signifier "Merlot" correspond with the 'truth' of the bottle I polished off last night, or do we hold in our thoughts a different "signified" of bottle-of-Merlot-ness? Perhaps we're dreaming of the same bottle!" -FinsburyParkCarrots

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