revised moon

this wound

that will not spill but thrills still

and dry

awaits the moon

a girl awaits

the blood that will not come

the mouth is closed

the sun

too soon wound round

in cloud awakes no song

no hue

the child is overdue

--words and photocollage by DTH

"i am a seed in the slippery, silent, blind, breathless dark.
i have no nose or mouth, ears or eyes to see. just a skin
of satin black and a secret green dream deep inside."

Masson - Minotaure

Bartholomew Griffin

Sonnet 18 from Fidessa, 1596

O, She must love my sorrows to assuage. 
O God ! what joy I felt when She did smile ! 
Whom killing grief before did cause to rage.
(Beauty is able Sorrow to beguile) 
Out, traitor Absence ! thou dost hinder me ! 
And mak'st my Mistress often to forget, 
Causing me to rail upon her cruelty, 
Whilst thou my suit injuriously dost let ! 
Again, her Presence doth astonish me, 
And strikes me dumb, as if my Sense were gone. 
Oh ! is not this a strange perplexity ? 
In presence, dumb ! she hears not absent moan !

Thus absent, presence; present, absence maketh: 
That, hearing my poor suit, she it mistaketh !

Wise Old Dada

VII

je dis comme je vis

je vois comme la voix

je prends comme j'offre

ma vie est ainsi

je ne dois rien à personne

je dois tout à tous les hommes

from Quarante Chansons et Déchansons, Tristan Tzara, 1954

Smoking is Cool

Last Night's Listening

I fired up my old Dual 505 record deck last night and with an improvised mess of laptop, computer speakers, bits of wire and cheap stereo jacks bought from Amazon we managed to listen to a few of the survivors of my once great LP collection. Though my days of vinyl fetishism are long past it is lovely to hear again the natural intimate sound of the black disc with just enough snap and crackle to remind one of the old days. These are all quite special recordings in their different ways but Schwanengesang with Hans Hotter and Gerald Moore is a marvel of the age, two immortals making music as though they merely breathed, naturally and truly.