A Chinese lantern

 

I watched as much as I could bear,
Tracking the levity, each shrug
Each step each rearrangement
Of the hair. I watched for so long
As I could bear, and then I plugged
My eyes with rocky sentiments
Stacked by chance with shaky hands
As if such tricks could stay the wind,
Sniggers or friends (polite) whispers
From serving all the sordid night-kissed
Details: fire, ice, sweat, glands, skin -
Papery skin – I still recall it: thin,
So thin. And so I stole away,
Left nights and friends to each other’s
Lights – from whichever breeze-raised source -
And now all trace of it is gone.
No fire at all floats within vision,
All trace of it is wholly gone,
Whether flying or sunk, so long,
So long as it is gone. So long,
So long as it is truly gone.

Homefires

Homefires

Give oxygen to flames’s unrequited yearns;
Link bodies, who’ve bodies to be linking.
Trump trunkless wooden longings with homely warmth,
You do because you can: embers, casting hearts in turn, 

Soft fellowships of glows, winking winter nights
In each others’ gaze. A fire that never burned
Gathers no moss, and rolls its stony way
Through its stony days, smouldering, and always.

 There’s smoke from every chimney;
The village is most circumspect -
See the way it looks after its own.

 There’s smoke from every chimney.
Its formal walls give rules to those
Who’d vent. This is not my village, though.

 

A new poem

Written for my dear friend and collaborator Magnus Arrevad.

There’s fun to be had in painting…

On a canvas of cities and flesh,
While a striptease of theatre curtains
Opens to reveal no stage, no actor
And (look!) no curtain, while unerringly
A story dreams itself into being,
Whose moustache-stroking subject declares:

“There’s plenty of time left for painting.
What this world needs is acrobats
Forming fearless figures – a grand somersault
Towards the bloody rush of impermanence!”

His audience, pretending they’re there,
Bear gamely the roles they perform:
Infidelity’s spectres (moaning!),
Whinging prostitutes of every order,
And bored, bald kings of France inferred
From chequebooks, bloody baited hooks,
Good patrons with lilts to their words: 

“There’s plenty of time left for painting.
What this world needs is dancers’
Adolescent spines – we love the arcs
That can bend to what passions our passions might ask.”

Defined tasks, marking nothing in glitter,
Glittering obsequies’ smiles
Bind themselves (yes, okay then, in ‘not’s),
Bon mots serve; all serve, but what?
That hot iron prison that pretended it isn’t…
It isn’t! It wasn’t. No parade of contrition
Is needed, nor able to resurrect its effects.

It’s black and it’s bloody, friend, it’s wet in this place,
But in substance is close to the real as we get.
And so we pull paint from the veins of the sky
Dabbing light on a canvas of cities and flesh.

A Like Mind: On Tugba Tamer

Tugba Tamer, on set for Sophia (out next year) Photo: Sive Butler

Even before the vampires appeared (age 6, a post-modern horror film called Fright Night), a macabre and romantic streak seemed to have attached itself to me.

Watching The Addams Family, a childhood favourite, I was repeatedly struck by Gomez’ incredible good luck in having found so PERFECT, so like-minded, a woman as Morticia. I made no mention of it, to my family or anyone else, but already, those twenty years ago, had quietly determined that such good-fortune was unlikely to be mine.

I was five, so I probably wouldn’t have sneeringly dismissed the girls around me as materialistic, tanned and vacuous. But I suspect that was the sense that underpinned my fears. The idea of leaving South Africa had not begun to occur to me.

Such pessimism faded as such issues became more pressing. First my standards dropped; then, for a while, I developed doubt, and grew willing to adopt the most ridiculous poses and characters to please those whose banal company I really ought never to have kept.

This continued through the London days. At my accommodations in Oxford Street, Camden, Hackney, Islington, Manor House, Dalston, Westbourne Park – a different character for each one, and each insufficient, denying more of my desires than they embraced.

And then I moved back to Manor House, a little over a year ago. The decision was a functional one – I was spending far too much on rehearsal space, and it was a warehouse, and I was assured by the couple running it that extended practices would be fine – even that I could requisition an area of the house as practice space. Most of the fellow residents seemed quite tolerable – there was an awful pink rabbit that shat all over the places, but every place has a (figurative) pink rabbit of some sort.

I arrived on a cold wet day in what should have been summer, the gloomy, not terribly celebrated composer of one of the sadder albums of recent history (“few can brood like Donen” went one press-quote), with my many cases of crumpled suits and foreign instruments. And was pounced upon – impossibly gracefully – by a beautiful Turkish girl who demanded that we play music. Which we did. Late into the night. Driving others in the house quite mad, no doubt. Starting as (unwittingly) we meant to continue.

Outside at the warehouse Photo: Magnus Arrevad

Her speciality was corporeal mime (‘not that sort of mime!’), a technique and series of poses developed by a French performer half a century ago. Her background was in cabaret. The more macabre the better. I was just beginning work on an album called Vampires.

Within weeks, the – previously quite natural – huge black rings around my eyes were painted on, and she was trying me out as a prospective theatre double.

Over the next year, she was both teacher and exemplar. The joy of watching her practice, then of watching her perform, was equalled by the pleasure of working alongside her, and the grace of her movements began to become a subject for my words and melodies. Perhaps more importantly, her sense of the aesthetic began to permeate.

I flattered myself that in 18 months I had learned from her to dress myself. But still saw fit to double-check costumes with her for larger shows. And so returned home with a proposed outfit for one set of the UK Vampires launch – a pair of (black) 1950s highwaisted trousers. To which, Tugba, unimpressed: “Adam, baby, are those your father’s?”

It says much – I think completely to her credit – that upon our first attempt to leave Manor House for Kings Place for the Vampires show (in which she performed so magnificently) – I, scatterbrained creature that I am, managed to remember Every Item of Every Costume INCLUDING the Strange Belt Thing, but forgot the stage piano.

But I am being flippant. And indulging in anecdote, which degrades the seriousness of the praise she deserves.

She is the physical, moving manifestation of all that I try to do in syllables. And the finest person with whom I’ll ever share a stage.

PS She’s also got a new theatre show out in a church in London next month.

Performing in The Gambler, Roundhouse Theatre, 2011 Photo: Hande Gr

VAMPIRES IS OUT TOMORROW!

You can buy it here.

If you’re in commuting distance from London, you can watch the launch show, featuring orchestra and theatre performers here.

And in the meanwhile, here’s a video from our press launch last week.

“Ou la mort…” / A birthday playlist

“Ou la mort…”

So writes my dear friend Jules on a Polke painting of some deaths heads that arrives as a birthday card, accompanied by some very exceptional books. She has, as is her wont, anticipated my thoughts for the day. Though this year (26 done, heading into the 27th) feels less rather than more apocalyptic than usual.

Anyhow, as is my custom, I’m off for a walk through London.

Here’s what I’ll be listening to. You should do same. It’s good stuff.

Tom Waits – Dirt In the Ground
Dr. John – I Walk On Gilded Splinters
Scott Walker – Manhattan
Roy Orbison – In Dreams
Nick Cave – More News From Nowhere
Phil Ochs – The Bells
Joanna Newsom – Good Intentions Paving Company
Smashing Pumpkins – 1979
George Brassens – Le Gorille
Jacques Brel – Grand Jacques
Leonard Cohen – I Left a Woman Waiting
Frank Sinatra – Old Man River
Harry Belafonte – Kalenda Rock
White Stripes – St. James Infirmary Blues
Son House – John The Revelator
REM – E Bow the Letter
Lou Reed – Romeo had Juliette
Nina Simone – Sinnerman
Cab Calloway – Minnie The Moocher
The Kills – Wait
Joni Mitchell – Both Sides Now (old person’s version)

King’s Place – an open invitaton

Get your tickets here.

Vampires

With three bottles, some devils and an old pack of cards

One evening I set down to play…
First Robert departed, then Kaiya, then the devils –
I guess I miss them all in a way.
Then, embracing a cloud, I dissolved by the hour
As they settled down to games of their own;
I hear the orgies continue still
In the temple off Tennyson Road
Where crag-faced mothers with crooked hands
Grab at Indian summers of love
And talk in circles as the sun comes up.

But they all turned religious when the pockmarks appeared
On the tapestry landscape they claimed,
Then, the bloodletting done, they returned to the fun,
Singing: “Anybody would do the same.”
And we found you – of course – in the arms of the horse
That I once gave my kingdom in play;
And my eyes were opened
As he rode you – till morning – away.
And the sick men of Europe, playing with themselves,
May not even remember we grieve,
But we’ll see their faces when the sun comes up.And in the years of our Lolita pageantry,
The buzz was contingent but fine;
Now the Stranger walks his old black dog
Past the colleges of sighs
Into empty bottles of silent rooms,
Exhumed by a jury in bed with
You – each separately,
And each in their special way.
He will open a bottle, and tell you to sit,
Then put in the stopper, and none of this
Is any different when the sun comes up.Yes, she dances for him more gracefully
Than ever when I was there.
And the Count was an old German actor
Whose complexion she said that I shared.
And when the yellow moon purges itself,
The clouds will be yours to bear –
For now, I’ll carry them,
But we each will have our reign.
The skin will drip from your bones and hiss
And sizzle, but not enough,
On that velvet day when the sun comes up.

The wolves bled the dusk for whatever they could
As their vassals refined the technique
But the mountain on fire, the homeland a jail,
We climbed down from the hanging tree with all that entailed,
Singing, “Our Master, our Master is dead,”
Though the Law says we’re bound to our tears.
Every cloud is a testament
The slaves have earned their wings.
What god will dare to stay the hands
That hurl the salty cup
To the singing sea, as we toast, as the sun comes up.

And the whalebone corset is sticky and stained
And the laugh slithers back down its throat,
And the piercings described as superfluous are
Now so much more vivid than anything she wrote…
Ah, yes, where are you now? Where are you now?
Has a cat got the tongue of your ghost?
The men have died, and worms have eaten them,
But not for long.
See the blackened figures of your army shatter
The teeth that they dipped in this tongue:
They’ll be fluent in it when the sun comes up.

But she returned from the island as thin as the ice
That would once shatter at her command
With a ring on her finger that wouldn’t come off
And a terror of being alone.
I was newly arisen; I greeted her:
“How’s it feel to be finally free?”
Happily into the abyss I stared,
And at last she stared frightened at me.
Then I fed her the days when it mattered so much
Back before there was plenty of time
And we didn’t care when the sun came up.

In praise of Magnus Arrevad’s work

“Holy the sea holy the desert holy the railroad holy the locomotive holy the visions holy the hallucinations holy the miracles holy the eyeball holy the abyss! Holy forgiveness! mercy! charity! faith! Holy! Ours! bodies! suffering! magnanimity! Holy the supernatural extra brilliant intelligent kindness of the soul!”

– Allen Ginsberg, Footnote to Howl.

Magnus Arrevad’s work shares a soul with the Beatniks. His photography is urban poetry, bringing out truths far more important than mere facts.

Like the Beats, his subjects tend to be outsiders. His choice of naturally emotive scenes, from male burlesque performance to street protest, no doubt plays a role in the immediate thrill and intensity of his work. And the work is intense. But this is the least important of the qualities that recommend it. What defines his work is its honesty, and not in any banal or dry way.

In Joe Black, the finest of his portraits, the  subject is removed from the world – shot against a uniform black background, in garb that recalls Klaus Nomi, with a cigarette up each nostril, Black appears a grand, alien, theatrical entity. But on closer examination, something in the crinkling of his eyes tells an opposite story: his gaze is strained rather than magisterial, even a trifle haunted. Perhaps the angle of the mouth also contributes. One way or another, Arrevad managed to catch a brief flicker of vulnerability.

Arrevad’s images have a way of capturing not just the physicality of their subjects, but the highly personal energy that burns inside them. His pictures are not trickery, not exploitative and are grand because they are natural: the work is affecting because it is not affected. The sensitivity required to achieve this cannot be overstated, particularly where so many of those he shoots would appears as caricature in the hands of a lesser talent. His style does not draw attention to itself – this is as it should be. Yet it is instantly recognizable.

The comparisons with Robert Frank are obvious, but the more appropriate ancestor would be the poet Allen Ginsberg. Like Ginsberg, there is an all-pervasive joy and empathy. The work engages. It brings its subjects to life, rather than capturing them as an anthropologist might pin butterflies. And like all great art, it reaches towards the transcendental, a sense that eludes words or technical description, that manifests itself behind the eyes and in the depths of the soul.

Thoughts on the London riots

 

In times of social upheaval, it is easy to lose one’s head.

So, in light of the riots, it is worthwhile reiterating: there is a distinction between

a) cause and effect, and
b) moral right and wrong.

If eight youths break into a greengrocers shop, and run out clutching all they can carry, what they are doing is wrong. They should be appropriately punished. If they set that shop on fire, all the more so.

Equally, if a large group of people are allowed, or caused, to grow up in relative poverty, expecting that they will know nothing else all the days of their life, offered ever less chance of advancement while seeing ever-growing wealth all around them, it is to be expected that sooner or later there will be burning cars.

“Britain is a safe haven in the global debt storm” – George Osborne, today in the House of Commons, describing how his austerity package had been ‘vindicated’.

In Hackney on Monday night, surrounded by hooded teenagers throwing rocks, three burning cars, one motorbike, dirty, graffitied tower blocks, and a wall of police, I felt less bullish than Mr. Osborne.

One cannot draw a direct line of causation between the burning cars and the fact that the rioters and looters were generally of the income bracket hit hardest by cuts and rising unemployment. One cannot draw a direct line of causation between more than 50% cuts in youth budgets in Hackney (75% in Tottenham) and the broken shop windows. But one would be myopic not to note the correlation. And a lot more than myopic to imagine the surroundings to be ‘safe’. In any event, and again, without drawing causative links, it is hard to see Britain of the last few days as a ‘safe haven’ for anyone.

All that one can say is that there is a correlation between economic status and whether or not one has spent much time in the last 72 hours out looting.

“Young people smashing up shops has nothing to do with inequality… this is not about poverty, this is about culture. A culture that glorifies violence, shows disrespect to authority, and says everything about rights, but nothing about responsibilities.”
- David Cameron, today in the House of Commons

What is the authority that should be respected? The government whose austerity package whips away youth centres and EMA allowances? Or the police? The police who, four months earlier, had kettled, hit and provoked us as we protested at rises in tuition fees, knowing that we were – by and large – to well-mannered and socialised to fight back.

Mr. Cameron is either wrong or being deliberately duplicitous. The rarefied society in which I spend my time glorifies violence and despises authority, but is thoroughly neutered by socialisation, and certainly does not smash up shops. We sit around despising authority, contemplating the horror of our existence, occasionally loving and being loved in return.

The teenagers in Hackney burning cars did not feel part of any social contract, and certainly not of the same society as me. I returned home with a swollen jaw, lucky it was no worse. They had no cause. Causes are a luxury of those with ideologies. For them, it was it was a mardi gras – the one night, perhaps of their lives, that they would, briefly, be the talk of the town.

And for others – in Brixton, in Manor House, in Queensway – shown on a daily basis that money is happiness, it was a chance to participate, through ownership, in society.

This is all about poverty. Not just in the economic sense – in the spiritual, too. If one believes that one has the possibility to better oneself – that life will improve next week, next month, next year – then one has something to lose. In the case of rioters in Brixton: what did they want? Not ‘freedom’. Or ‘a stake in society’. They wanted televisions and trainers. There is something terribly, terribly wrong with a culture that measures its worth by its televisions and its trainers: aesthetically, as well as ethically!

All of which excuses nothing. Actions have consequences, and wrong actions should be – and are – punished.

Theft is wrong, and thieves should be arrested and prosecuted. This is a moral imperative.

And a society that produces a class of the truly dispossessed, the hopeless (in the original sense of the word), will inevitably be punished by the actions of those it has created. This is amoral, casual and inevitable.