National Poetry Month

[brigdh]

Storyteller Talking At the End of Her Days Neile Graham

So what is paradise, since we yearn
for it so unevenly and think we touch
it but so fleetingly it is brief as the touch
of the dream's finger to our lips as we sleep
When you read my words to me they escape me.

Paradise seems like hell to me, all that lying
in the sun and sweating lazy sex.
I like mine in a colder climate where
the only warmth is what we ourselves
can generate between us and call passion: the heat
of our bodies coming alive between us.
I know I wander somewhat when I speak; it's because
my mind entertains so many guests- each thought
reminds me of another and they all crowd
in at once too quickly to separate so I embrace
them all. Sure I've traveled had lovers
married had a child and dreams
wrote some of them down. Sometimes I got lost
in the tangle, locked to a place a time
and wrote it down, broke away to follow
another thread. A myriad of voices
woven with my own, singing a madrigal
of light, each note a point in the woven sky.
My favorite memories are the most simple-
sitting at night on the chesterfield, the rest
of the house asleep, the cat beside me. I
touched her face as though it was mine.
There isn't much I would do again
if I could. I haven't yet let go
of it all in my mind. I can unlock it at will
but it all floods in, more than I can control.
I always used to like the feeling of having
more in my hands than I could control.
I used to like dangerous men but the ordinary
was the best, when the spark of feeling
between us wasn't just pride,
and we weren't afraid to let
ourselves be taken... enough of the flesh
for now it holds me.
I feel I haven't lived enough have lived
too much have lived on fire trying to dance
so fast the flames would not burn. And now
I'm lying in a snow field flush with the
earth; it's cold but I can see the tangle
of stars in the sky and a few are falling.
Yes it's true, each one is a small ball
of fire like the sun but a few are falling.

Comments

[rm.livejournal.com]

I can't believe you know from Marc Almond.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Well, I only have one song of his, though I'm sure there are probably also several Soft Cell songs floating around on my harddrive.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I have everythign he has ever done. Much of it on vinyl. I will email you some stuff at some point.

He doe this album of Jacque Brel songs, in French, and they are shockingly haunting for a man who is so camp. Also, one of his albums is called, I kid you not, MOther Fist and Her FIve Daughters.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Oh, cool. I certainly like this one I've heard, so I'd love to hear more stuff.

Ha! That's so awesome.

[rm.livejournal.com]

There's also a song about a gay matador on another album, and a duet with Nico on yet another, lots of stuff about street urchins and male prostitutes too. One of his songs was actually my senior quote in my high school yearbook.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Neat. I picked this one up off of one music community or another, so I didn't know much about him. And what was the quote?

[rm.livejournal.com]

I still love the song, but I didn't choose the part I'd choose now, if I had to stick with that song. I mean, duh, I was 17!

"And if one day I don't wake up
Remember I was good upon reflection
And if they say I was a fool
Be cool, but demand correction"

I'll totally mail you tracks from the office tomorrow.

He and Nick Cave and a couple of other people did a series of cabaret performances together forever ago, that I was far tooo young to see or know about and were not, unfortunately, recorded for posterity. But the shes were legendary and Almond always bitches, kindly, in interviews that Cave stole the show each of the four nights of it with his rendition of In the Ghetto (which he doesn't perform any more, but there are recordings of).

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

That's still a pretty cool quote, though. We didn't have senior quotes, so I don't know what I would have chosen, but it's hardly like you picked something embarrassing. I like it.

Hooray!

...the Elvis song 'In the Ghetto'? I cannot imagine Nick Cave singing that. I'd never heard it until I was in Nevada, when it came on the radio one day. I spent at least three-fourths of the song going, "What the fuck is this? Are you guys listening to this song?! Is this a joke? Someone tell me this is not a real song!"

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yes, the Elvis song.
It's sort of amazing. I have the recording somewhere, but might take me a while to dig up.
Cave has a gift for making aything seem real and dark and necessary despite you know, the sheer over the topness of it.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

It would certainly be interesting to hear. And I think the song would improve about a thousand times over by simply losing the back-up singers warbling in the ghettooooooooo after each chorus.

[cellophane_ria.livejournal.com]

And now I'm crying over my morning coffe:)

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Aww. I'm so glad you liked it, though.