turns my tears

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Mar 25 2006 15:52 utc | 3

beq
i’ll try to accompany this beautiful thing
with my ragged words
i’m in another country i’m in another place
where the people oh they talk but never face to face
yes i have heard all those stories & not one of them is true
but they are now a history the basis of your clue
all the keys and locks that you keep on the door
because you knew i am the person you were looking for
it wasn’t my sadness and it wasn’t my joy
that told you to come down with me treat me as a toy
well i am busted and broken on this very day
and i am in a land where i will never stay
i have made decisions some big most small
because you know i am ready for that final fall
oh don’t you cry no don’t you weep
don’t let it interrupt your sleep
i was only a person from another’s fiction
i am one more face in a small collection
oh darling i’m not angry not breathing any hard words
i like talking to myself while eating sharp swords
that is my talent others call it grace
some say i’m made of leather others they say lace
but i do not listen to them no longer anymore
beacuse the answers that they gave me i’ve heard it all before
sentences they’re going to write in blood i know what they’re going tosay
because it’s the law of another kind that they o obey
oh darling darling darling where you going now
to the bottom of an ocean to show us all how
to live like subterraneans beneath all that glass
well i failed that exam & i do not want to pass
you can call me angry you can call me worse
but you didn’t buy me with what you had in your purse
no i’m another man living in another land
placing my feet firmly in the quicksand
well that’s my talent and my vanity
it’s my kind of ancient prosperity
but i know you know the value of a man going down
who left an archaic caress in another town
who left an archaic caress in another town
who left an archaic caress in another town
in another town
in another town
in another
in another
in another town

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Mar 25 2006 15:56 utc | 5

beq
it is strange
the connections
in this
our world
your painting
touched
me where
i weep
on friday morning i lost the person ho placed steel & tenderness in my veins, my mother
perhaps, i lack discretion but this community feels like my family – why not share the news form other fronts of my family
i have written this yesterday for her funeral this tuesday :
i just wrote this for the ceremony – if you want something other just tell me – i won’t be offended but above all i wanted to write immediately :
what i would like to say, i want to say simply. i love you. i loved you, mother. as a mother i loved you, as a conscience i loved you, as a counsellor in a world that became immanant & immediate. without your hands i would not be here
you taught me suffering could be transformed into something transcendental, & that even in some circumstances it could be transformed into a thing of beauty
you taught me by your firmness the nature of earth & sky, of both water & fire. you taught that in a manner free of metaphysics exactly whow heaven & hell were constituted
on this earth you have helped me to walk, to march, sometimes to run even tho i have fallen many times
i want to tell you, mum, that here in this foreign place, so far from you then & so far from you now – that i have lived blessed & sacred things – & that is largely because you built me for that, you helped to construct the instincts that would make such transformations possible
you might have sd – that if one is scared of wolves then it is wise not to enter forests. if i am not scared of wolves & have spent a large part of my time in the forests of the jungle of the cities – it is because you taught me concretely – that fear was a most useless & mean emotion – not worthy of a man, of a living being
you taught me that tho it might be necessary to become a wolf it was not necessary to remain one
above all you taught me the sacred nature of fury
you understtod fury was just energy & it was the energy that is underlined in that fil of susan hayward you so loved, ‘i want to live’ – even in these last years you taugh that you would hold on to this life to the last secnd of the last minute
my darling mother i hope you left in peace because you deserved peace – finally – in that turbulence that was you – that was dorothy sylvia barnett – you really merited peace
you were a great lover of poets so it is not so strange that i became one – but your beloved dylan thoms & his booming voice must have been inside your heart these last years, telling you to ‘rage, rage against the dying of the light’. you held on not because you were greedy but you wanted to taste the all the senses of wonder that had been consecrated in you
you have taught those of us who have something who have something – that a person who appears to have nothing – has plenty – the richness of wonder, the gift of breath. even when i was a young boy you seemed to steal all the hours in a day & even more – knowing they were meant for you
if i became a poet it was because of you & your majestic voice. dad taught me the details but you taught me from that sacred piece of machinery – the heart & you taught me the heart of the matter, of all matter – if it came to that
i remember you reading w b yeats in the loungeroom – you were thinking perhaps speaking to father – i remember the tears that came to your eyes. & i remember the way thos tears came to your eyes – from somewhere deep & untranslateable – knowing now it is the space where all poetry comes – i heard yeats himself that day in your voice
you taught me what muscles meant but you also taught me the force that fragility gives to us if we refuse to let it weaken us
i have since my adolescence, lived far from you & that was an organic thing. i thought the world of you but i had to live in that world as quickly as possible but i was never so far that i ever forgot they grey beauty of your eyes
i have lived on another continent now for nearly twenty years but every day here i transform the gifts of my childhood into tools that can be used by those who suffer too much. i am proud of what i do & i know that you would be because you would understand that the heart that teaches here is the heart you gave me
on this terrible day i also want to be frank with you mother. to tell you why i am not at your funeral. in our way dorothy sylvia barnett – we were always frank. i will not be at your funeral not because i do not love you for the opposite is the truth i like all your children are instruments of your love. we love & understand more in the midst of life than we did as younger, angrier creatures. no i will not be there – because i was always able to seperate what you were – what our family was – & the country that wounded it. this country i was born in i will never see again – that much is certain. you gave me the world mother & now i am living in it
but the country i was born in – in the darkest dreams od the cold war – (the petrovs, the comminist party dissolution bill) – this world pig iron bob menzies constructed in petty hatred & imbecilic fears has returned, truly returned with that hateful & smallminded man, john howard. it is a country that has lost its way – practically, morally & spiritually
& you taught me these things – practicality, morality & spirituality had to be honoured into living acts. this country we were born in is both vulgar & cruel. you were never in your life for one moment – either vulgar & cruel. not for a moment. the australia of today is clearly worse much worse than the one i was born in. it is not fit for living things. i do not envy the living who inhabit it & as frank hardy sd – the dead are many
mum, you were large – australia has become so small, so very small. perhaps your kind will never come again
if i was there i would kiss your lips & forehead & i would thank you for the man i have become & tho somemtimes what you taught was hard, indescibably hard – most of all i remember your eys, your heart & your tenderness
& in these hours & days i give the tenderest thoughs to my sister anne, to my brothers, michael, tony & stephan & all their families & hope that this voice far from you will find a space in your hearts on this day
in force & tenderness
still steel
christopher

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Mar 25 2006 16:23 utc | 7

thank you beq, once again your touch has come so close
r’giap, amen amen amen. i wish i could hold you now

Posted by: annie | Mar 25 2006 17:10 utc | 9

sorry for you rgiap. bold eulogy.

Posted by: slothrop | Mar 25 2006 20:08 utc | 11

meant words = eulogy
It’s what I like about Moon of A, connection at so many levels.

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Mar 25 2006 20:56 utc | 13

Malooga, annie, Cloned Poster, conchita – Thank you for compliments and even more for what you and everyone else brings of yourselves to MoA. You all always say things so much better than I do and you speak eloquently for me too.
Peace r’giap. We cherish you.

Posted by: beq | Mar 25 2006 22:33 utc | 15

beq, I’m enjoying these shadow seductions immencely, could I say, they are in advance of, being pregnant — with content, that is.
And remembereringgiap, stay atrong my friend. And thank you for sharing the beautiful memorial to your mother. And thanks for who left an archaic caress in another town in another in another town — both of which reflect upon each other as a mutual proof of each other, in a lifes commitment to the “other” — and celebrated as such.
And, and on, forever.

Posted by: anna missed | Mar 26 2006 7:22 utc | 17