The Risen One

 

 

The Risen One

 

Quaint, familiar

Breaking like any other day

No premonitions of what it would bring

 

No heralding to the new king

 

In the sleepy town of Le Cateau-Cambresis

Located on the far tip of France just near the Belgian border

 

New Years Eve 1869

Birth was given to the new world order

 

Freedom, Expression

Fauvism’

Art

 

He tore the doctrine of their stolid regime apart

 

In Morocco they say Matisse painted the Sun

He gave colour to the Moon

 

Ethereal

No; human

Crayon coloured light

Bold contrasts of Reds, yellows & whites

Ones filled with violet, orange, lilac, green & cerise

Paint me a new world Henri Matisse

A landscape filled with colours

Stark, shocking, and innocent

You make things beautiful

The ordinary wonderful

The droll magnificent

 

A perspective built on perception, of burning glowing light, of vitality

He understands what the canvas longs for, what it doesn’t need

The necessity; its’ organs, the colours it yearns to bleed

 

He feels

He simplifies

With intuition, emotion

He reduces form to a line

He strips it bare, back past bone

Back to its essence; then he dazzles us with his brilliance

His effervescent shining light, the singularity of his vision

 

The significance of his heart

 

 “Without Passion, there is no art…” * Henri Matisse (1949)

 

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I despise being contained by rules & regulations when it comes to my poetry.

Don’t get me wrong…I don’t dislike structured forms of poetry. Sometimes I love writing like that. I actually have quite a thing for Iambic pentameter, Shakespearean Sonnets & Spondee’s. 

 

It’s not the structure I have a problem with, it’s the mindset…

 

I was once told by an English teacher that poetry was just a particular amount of syllables arranged in a particular way & the art of it all was making something new out of them. Nothing more!

 

It made absolutely no sense to me. I felt she had missed the point of poetry & thrown the baby out with the bath water. To me, that’s the talk of a lion that’s lived far too long in the zoo.

 

To her I say, “There’s life outside the bars! Welcome to the jungle, Sister!!

 

The first ever poet didn’t know of rules. There were none. They wrote simply because something divine was singing in their heart. This is poetry: that spark, that essence of something intangible. Something invisible. A poet’s heart should never be defined unless they lose that most fragile of all essences – Passion!!

 

Imagine if you will a magic spell. Is it the form and structure of a spell that is important or is it the power of the magic it creates. Some people would tell you it’s the rules.

 

I tell you it’s the magic.

 

a classically trained poet with a university degree. a broken hearted teenager warding off thoughts of suicide. a parent expressing unbearable grief at the loss of a child. Shakespeare whispering words of wisdom or honeyed love. It doesn’t matter who wields these words or in what format. If they speak them with honesty & genuine emotion they will always resonate true. Beauty is found in its most poignant form when accompanied by an honest and innocent heart.

 

No mathematical equation relating to words will ever disguise this. The essence of poetry is what matters…nothing else!

 

Some people may call me a beast for this, but I say that puts me in good company.

 

Henri Matisse & his ‘Fauves’ are a great inspiration of mine. Roughly translated ‘Fauves’ means the wild beasts. The name came about because of a remark from an art critic. At the first showing of their work a Parisian art critic pointed to a sculpture by the great Donatello nearby & was overheard to say, “Donatello au milieu des fauves!” which meant “Donatello among the wild beasts!” The group of artists took the slight & turned it into a badge of honour & proudly called themselves ‘The Fauves”.

 

I love the fact that they did what they wanted. They defied the establishment, lived life on the edge & set their own rules. They dared to paint things the colours they wanted. For eg: grass could be red, the sky could be purple, the clouds orange, etc… It was all about intuition & freedom & up until then it was unheard of. The establishment hated it. It was brilliant & outrageous. & So Very Very Cool!

 

I adore Matisse. I love his work. He dazzles my eyes with his colours. He was so bold…he painted with his heart. He coloured this world with the brilliance of his soul.

 

I guess what I am saying is this:

 

Listen to that voice that dwells within your heart. Follow it! Fight for it!

 

Paint the skies purple even if the rest of the world tells you that they are blue!

 

& To Yourself Be True!

 

 

Haiku for a Poo!

 

Haiku for a Poo!

My search for the perfect Loo!!

At the Easter SHOOOOOOOW!!!

 

Some people search for The Holy Grail. Some people search for true love. My quest is for the perfect toilet at The Sydney Royal Easter Show. Ahhh! Such are the dreams of a simple man. My search began in earnest about five years ago. We had promised to take the kids to the Easter show & they were super excited. About 2 days before the big day I came down with one of the worst stomach bugs I have ever experienced in my life. I won’t to go into too much detail except to say that it wasn’t very pleasant. Anyway I dragged myself out of bed & off to the shoooow! Throughout the course of the day I had to make several trips to the loo & what I encountered were small grubby toilets with an endless procession of people waiting in line. I found myself thinking that there’s got to be a better way than this. There’s something very obscene about waiting in line to go to the toilet. I kept on thinking to myself, “It’s not a frigging ride people!” Especially when the guy two in front of you is still eating a hot dog & then after his turn leaves the cubicle & greets everybody with an apologetic, “Sorry Dudes!” 

 

 

NO!!!! I went home from that Show with singed nose hairs & a burning determination that things had to change. Never again would I be subjected to another, “Sorry Dudes!”

& So began the quest…

The next year I was lucky enough to find the adequate toilets located in the Howie/Dog Pavilion, just across the road from where they sell all the showbags. Very clean, well maintained & hardly used. This Pavilion is truly the pooping place of Champions – Portraits of all the past greats adorn the walls!! But, unfortunately they’re just not the two legged kind!

 

 

The year after that I got serious in my endeavour & became a member of The RAS. They had much better facilities, but they were still a bit over used & a tiny bit grungy for my liking. I knew I could do better than this…

 

 

 

The following year I stumbled across the little gem in bewteen buildings on the animal walk. Very nice for public toilets & hardly ever used. But, still… I longed for something with a bit more tranquillity, style & ambience. Are magazines & elevator music too much to ask for?

 

 

 

Last year I came close to perfection. Definitely, the best toilets I’ve found so far. The private toilets in the animal housing enclosures off Clarence Avenue. Very large. Very spacious. Luxurious even & also comes with the option of a shower if one so desires. Not bad, but still my heart or should I say my bottom yearned for more…

 

 

Then this year whilst looking for the Skyview Ferris Wheel I spotted it. Eureka! El derado! The Legends were True! THE JUDGES/COUNCIL SECTION of the main arena. I noticed they had burly security guards on the front doors carefully monitoring people’s comings & goings. The place looked harder to get into than Fort Knox & I thought to myself what could they possibly be protecting in there? Fruit cake recipes??

 

 

I took this photo of the front entrance. Sorry it’s a bit grainy, but I was trying my best to be covert. Notice the people being moved along by the expert people movers. You can almost hear them cooing, “Keep on Moving People! There’s nothing to see here!”

My arse there’s nothing to see here… what’s with the big expensive looking flower arrangement then!

& then it came to me like a flush of yellow lightning!! Like a bolt out of the poo!!

Those cagey buggers in their flash R.M.Williams suits & boots were keeping guard of the most precious thing at the Royal Easter Show. The perfect loo! I knew in a second what it looked like. I could see it all in my mind’s eye. The opulence. The Grandeur. The Sheer Theatre of it all!! Gold plated toilet seats. Marble bowls. A guy called Geeves to give you mints, comb your hair & perhaps even wipe your bottom. Music, magazines & perhaps even a little trickling waterfall.

 

 

I always thought the sign on the door. R.A.S stood for The Royal Agricultural Society. But now I know better. Yes, my friends! They are mocking us!!! They’re secretly laughing at us & telling us what they’ve got inside their facilities.

For what R.A.S really stands for is:

Royal Arse Shitters!!

That’s right, that’s where they keep The Royal Arse Shitters. The really flash ones!!

& I knew at that moment that I had found my Everest & that my climb would not be to the top, but to the very bottom of things. & next year I promise you this, that I shall gain access to the inner sanctums of The R.A.S. or at the very least give them the shits trying!! either way, I’m going to give these toilets one damn fine crack!!

Wish me well my friends!!

For it’s going to take luck & a hell of a lot of arse!!

 

 

Cyrano De Bergerac & his Cat

 

OH CYRANOSE

I SUPPOSE I KNOWS WHAT I KNOWS

BECAUSE OF YOUR NOSE 

 

Getting dressed up for the Asterion video started me thinking about some of the other times I have gone fancy dress in my life. I was sort of having a laugh to myself about book parades and other such things & it brought back some pretty funny memories.

Some of them possibly even repressed…

It started me thinking about some of the dodgy costumes that you always see at book parades. Go to any book parade in any part of the world & I’ll guarantee you will see:

a Wee Willy Winky costume – translation: parents forgot (1) = wearing the pyjamas you woke up in, a sock on your head & a candle in your hand.

Or The Ghost – translation: parents forgot (2) = worst sheet in the house with 2 holes cut out…

Still the worst costumes can often be much better than the best…

Take the following tale of woe, for eg:

I remember in 1st class one of my mates, Ray went as a Dalek. You know the killer robots from Dr Who. Absolutely fantastic costume – really elaborate & well made. It was sort of round & big enough to fit a small person in & it was made from some type of metal, which had been painted dark silver. It had all these buttons & gadgets glued to it & 2 big extendable arm type claw thingys. It had a thin eye slit cut out of it for vision & bars that you could place on your shoulders & lift it up with. His mum had to deliver it to school in a ute & his dad had spent weeks (maybe months) making it for him. It looked really realistic & Ray loved it – so did everybody else. There were only 2 problems with it. The first was that it was way too heavy for a little 7 year old kid to lug around. It took about 6 kids, his mother & a teacher to get the thing on top of him. So whilst everybody else would walk in a big circle around the playground about 5o times for book parade… Ray could only manage about 6 quick steps & he would be exhausted. He’d wait about 2 minutes & then he’d go again. 6 quick steps & then down. Classic! The 2nd problem was that it had no ventilation & it was a stinking hot day. After about 30 seconds in that thing he was sweating like a pig. So to solve the problem they put him in his undies underneath it. It was pretty funny! Every time you went past him all you could see were these fevered sweaty little eyes peaking out of the eye slits. The dude looked desperate in there. Then he’d take 3 or 4 quick steps & go down again. We still laugh about it whenever we see each other. On a happier note he did win 1st prize…

 I also remember some other absolute shockers. I remember my mum once dressed me as a leprechaun. Sounds cool, but all she really did was dress me in a pair of her green slacks, a very feminine shawl & glued cotton balls all over my face for a beard. I wasn’t a leprechaun – I was a 7 year old drag queen with a shaving problem! Stuff like that can ruin a guy in primary school… My brother went as Robin Hood & the elastic in his tights broke. He spent the whole day with his arse hanging out of his pants. Poor guys nearly 50 & he’s still traumatized. He goes into the foetal position if he sees a Robin Hood movie on TV. My sister got dressed as Prince Charming. Sounds cool.  But when you think about it my mum sent her to school as a dude! & my personal favourite… my wife got sent by her mum as a team costume with her sister.  Her mum dressed her sister as Dick Wittington & sent my wife as ‘and his cat’. Together, standing next to each other they looked great & made sense. “Dick Wittington & his Cat”. But unfortunately, my wife was in kindy & her sister was in year 4 – they didn’t stay together for long. So my poor wife had to walk around all day on her own with a sign that read “and his cat”. Nobody knew who she was – not even her! I still call her “& his cat” for kicks.

Those times were complete bedlam. Chaos! I remember kids walking around in garbage cans as R2D2 … people wrapped in aluminum foil as robots… mummys wrapped in toilet paper… kids just covered in cotton balls & socks – I still don’t know what they were supposed to be??  It was torturous… I’m surprised that there’s not a separate therapy group just for victims of book parades. I know I’d be a proud member of The VBP & I’d take & his cat along with me. Take Ray the Dalek, my cross dressing sister & my bum flashing brother along too!

 My next memory of fancy dress is a bit of a doozy & I have kept it repressed for as long as I could, but it’s time to come clean. It involves the story behind that comical & tragic photo at the top of the page. I’m about 7 or 8 & my parents get invited to a fancy dress party at one of their friend’s houses. My mum gets all excited & dresses the whole family up. She says it’s for kids and everything. Mum always had a thing for romantic literature so she decides to dress me up as Cyrano De Bergerac. You know him – The guy with the big nose who hides behind bushes & whispers poetry to his mate. Anyway, her version of Cyrano De Bergerac looks like this. Very tight Black tights. Big black pointy boots with silver buckles. A frilly white dress shirt with puffy sleeves. A bright purple padded parka that you’d wear to the snow. A big red cape. A round black hat with a huge apricot ostrich feather on top of it. A plastic sword on my hip & if that wasn’t enough… she draws a fake moustache on me & then glues this huge fake nose made of plasticine over my real nose. It was hard to breathe – & it made my 7 yr old voice even squeakier. Believe me I didn’t want to leave the house! But mum convinces me there’s cake waiting for me at the party. I’d like to say it took more than that – but I’d be lying – the 7 year old me would go anywhere for cake!

So anyway we get to the party & everything’s going great except for one thing. It’s an adult party – it’s not for kids! My mum got it wrong! Yes kids were invited, but not to the fancy dress party. What they were invited too was to be locked in the backroom & just sit there. You know the type of room – filled with angry teenagers & pre-pubescent’s that have been dragged to some crap party by their parents; Angry monosyllabic snarling youths. None of them dressed up or anything – just angry! They’re all wearing Kiss & Abba T-shirts & in rocks me in my purple parka, fake 4 inch nose & apricot ostrich feather on my head. They all look at me in disbelief & some kid with pimples all over his face snarls at me “Who the f@#! are you supposed to be?” & I say in a shaky voice “Cyrano De Bergerac” & another angry kid yells at me, “Who the f#@! Is that?” & I scream out in a sort of pig like squeal “I DON”T KNOW!!!” I can’t remember much after that – I think I may have passed out. Either from fright or the plasticine nose stopped me from breathing!

On the brighter side… at least now I know why Cyrano had to hide behind all those bushes!!!

 

 

 

Asterion Youtube Video

 

 

I always planned to do something like this for Asterion. It’s one of those poems that really comes to life when you read it aloud. Nothing like a bit of oxygen to get the fire going! Also it was kind of cool getting a chance to play the brooding bovine prince. We shot this over the weekend & had a bit of a laugh whilst doing it. although I think I nearly gave my dad & my dear old nan a heart attack when I showed my family an advanced screening on Saturday night. they don’t hear too well at the best of times. all dad heard were the parts about bestiality & nan thought I was just naked in a bull mask. which was kinda true! she looked quite shaken by the whole affair. lol! actually it was pretty funny. my sister & my wife thought it was hilarious!! hope you enjoy xx

 

but…be Warned!! The subconscious mind is a strange labyrinth. a winding waterway of dark & twisting streams. watch this more than three times & The Minotaur may find you in your dreams…

 

 

Asterion

 

 

Asterion

 

Located in Knossos just near King Minos’s Cretan Palace

In the centre of a labyrinth designed by Daedalus

The Brooding Dark Prince, with a penchant

for turning young men into blood & mince

A ruminant biped on hungry virgins fed

A prisoner never to be released

Pasiphae’s poor boy child

A wild roaring beast

Furious, Hideous

Incestuous

Lies

Lurking

The Bull of Minos

The Vengeance of Androgeus

The secret crimes of an old vain King

Hidden in a maze at the heart of all things

Locked inside the prison that pride and pain brings

We sometimes become closer to the monster we really are

 

But perhaps I go too far…

 

For our story truly begins

with the seed not the fruit of our sins

 

In a time before Aegeus threw himself into his own sea

& Ariadne led Theseus on a golden thread to victory

 

3500 years ago…

 

King Minos had a beautiful white bull

The most virile in all of Greece

It’s fleece like snow,

silk & ice

 

The God Poseidon wanted it for his sacrifice

 

Minos overcome with greed

betrayed the second son of Cronos for his need

Refusing to pay Poseidon, his patron god of the sea so high a price

He exchanged the bull before the sacred feast

in a gambit to suffice

Poseidon enraged

with fury

turned to Aphrodite

whose bewitching spell was then unleashed

Causing Queen Pasiphae to fall in love with the very same beast

 

His obsessions; his beloved bull,

his beautiful wife. His most coveted

possessions would become the ruination of his life

For in madness, drinking deep from its inverted cup

Pasiphae upon the poison chalice of lust then supped

Seeking false copulation in a contraption of Daedalus’s divination

Her perverted abnormal passions rose and with this white muscled

bovine entwined in the throws of ecstasy she mated

Her warped animal desires revealed, reciprocated

The shameful act of Minos concealed, lest he

be implicated by what his subjects saw

The fate of Crete sealed

Thus was created

 

The Minotaur

 

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 We all have Minotaur’s hidden within our hearts.

 

We all have desires, wants, needs, faults & flaws that we endeavour to keep locked away from the rest of the world. None of us are perfect. None of us are immune. We are all human. This world could never be that simple.

 

I’m not talking about monsters here. I’m not talking about staring into the abyss. But we definitely seem to be a beast that is in a constant struggle, locked within a tug-of-war with our own nature & divinity. At very best, we are strange inexplicable creatures that will never be fully explainable in all of our depth & essence. We are more self-aware than any other creature on this planet. Yet, we are more cut off from our instincts than any other creature on this planet. We are by far, the best & worst of what we have to offer. We are a mystery unto ourselves. Human hearts & minds are labyrinths. An enigma designed by God, yet forged in the jungle of mankind.

 

Perhaps, this is why I so love the theatre & pageantry of Greek Mythology; the deep complexity of its themes. They seem to grasp some fundamental element hidden away at the very base of the human core. The very fantastical nature of their stories pays homage to the bizarre intricacies of this human existence. They give flight to the great conundrum that is this riddle wrapped up in the encasement of human flesh.

 

& none more so, than that of The Tragic Bovine Boy Prince, Asterion. Better known as The MINOTAUR.

 

It seems I have always been fascinated by Greek Mythology, I can’t remember a time in my life that I wasn’t. Some of my earliest memorable daydreams are of the mighty winged horse, ‘Pegasus’. I’d sit in school, staring dreamily out the window & I’d imagine him swooping down from the clouds & carrying me off upon some great adventure. Normally, I would envision my school chums & teacher looking on with incredulous amazement as I waved goodbye & shouted aloud, ‘Adios Suckers!’

 

But, this time it’s been my pleasure to share the adventure & take you with me. I hope it has been entertaining, thought provoking & just a little bit scary.

 

So, until next time…‘ADIOS SUCKERS!’