rockettothesky

Jen Hval (or Jenny Hval if you're Norwegian or demented) of old FOlding For Air fame in Melbourne has come out with a solo album ... it'll be out October 2. Check her site for details on what to do ... it's not too complicated though buying an album in Norsk may be a new experience for us all (the album is in English however) ... it might even be fun ...



enjoy

An Underwater Flyer ...

A story for Fiona ... who lives in far far away Paris amongst those -who -are -French.

there was once a boy who dived deep into the local swimming pool ... the pool was surrounded by dry dry rocks and searing heat in summer ... though some Winter nights it was got cold the top froze over. This story is from Summer though, so we don't have to worry about human bodies crunching themselves on the top layer as they dive in ... at the bottom of the pool he sat and wondered . . .
people move in slow motion underwater ... little kids all waggle their legs; folks dive in a make beautifully graceful parabolas with their entire body ...

to think this basin of liquid sits amongst stones that haven't felt water on them for months ... there was a hose poking over the side.

evaporation must account for some of the loss of water in this pool, thought the boy ... he sat on the bottom looking up at the feet of kids wearing floaters as they splashed silently by above. The boy looked down at the bottom of the pool and thought ... of course they could always fix that hole in the bottom that leaks about 44'000 litres a day into the artesian basins deep below.

That artesian basin is where we get our drinking water from ...

and have you seen what those little bloody kids do in this pool??

a flyer . . .

slightly cryptic good news

This is the Derby Jetty ... when the tide is out there is nothing to see from here except for mud and crabs ... and mud crabs.




The water is filled with salt and salties ... I dare not swim, for fear of being eaten to bits.









This is a bungle ...


the plural of bungle i.e. more than one bungle, is 'Bungle Bungle'

the child & the tractor

2003

the child and the tractor,
stormboy

A creek near a farm
… a bubbling brook

A Kingfisher

The child and the tractor
The boy climbed up
He liked what he saw
The paddocks in front
The pedal, the floor.
The dogs all barking
The horses all whinny
At the Lord of the farm,
The Tractor-God, Timmy.
The bend took too hard
An almighty crashing
Up there near the pigpen
Long live the King!

A duck-billed platypus
A platypus
is a biological oddity
So rare to find
yet a zoological commodity
Only at night
do they dare to show
And down in the mud
of the bed they go

Downstream to the sea
When down falls the soul
and dark falls the sky,
the nose of the platypus
and other platypi..,
Might nose their way up
and across, downstream,
searching the mud
for all things unseen.
But when they smell
the faint tint and taint
of the land of the gulls,
as in some old and
wisened pelly’s tell,
the platypus knows
he has swome too far.

Back to the gully
and in under trees,
for never does platypus
drift the downstreams.

River through a town
The lights of town
were drugged and drowned
and dragged deep down
to their watery grave.

And all that’s left
Of the town of night
Are sparks that escape
To the surface of sight
in broken of shard,
mere sorry reflections
of the glory of former
of formless suggestions.

The people of the darkened town
losesomely look at the river now
throwing stones from
the bridges of stone
and looking down … they dangle.
And at an angle
they just might see …
they crane their dimly eyes …
their nightclubs and scrapers,
cafes strewn with Autumn leaves,
lover kissing, city-light skies.

No longer now, no light to see.
All has been taken away it seems
All these sights and all the light
was taken by the undertow,
and dragged away, away, so slow
the direction that the ships all go.

Downstream, downstream!
Lighting naught!
it winds its way
into the bay
and stays unseen for crabs to glean.

This beach is too small to skirt the seas
This beach, it be
far too small
to skirt ‘round the sea
But it just might be
enough to skirt
‘round the land
Where we stand
if the land where we be
indeed be surrounded
by sea

The pelican and the boy
Said the pelican to the boy
Where you are headed is no place for me.

Said the boy to the pelican
Indeed.

Said the pelican to the boy
It seems wrought with complexity
and uncertainty
and inconsistency
and incongruity

Said the boy to the pelican
Aye indeed.

Said the pelican to the boy
Where you are headed is no place for me.

Said the boy to the pelican
No indeed, nor me.

Then he turned and headed back to his small
fishing boat
as the waves of the incoming tide
lapped at its side

Driftwood and shell in a glass vase
This beack is far too small
to skirt around the umpteen seas
Drifts of wood
and shells of glass
in vase inside the sunrise shards.
Too small to hold the seas inside
the tip sticks out
for you to see
In drifting, shifting sands of reefs
The once held these lives
Now washed with past.
© Joshua Santospirito 2003