domestic panther
guarding corners and cupboards
while I sleep
awake at 3am
I listen for you still
Image: On guard. We said goodbye to our old cat this week.
And here’s something beautiful from Clara Schumann: Evening party in Venice (YouTubers, a different choir here)
enormous moon rising over rooftops a yellow hibiscus spills over your fence — neighbours stare open-mouthed
Image: A neighbour’s bloom in artificial moonlight.
And for music today, here’s French ondist Christine Ott with Chimeres (pour ondes Martenot). (Youtubers here’s the album) An Ondes Martenot is an early (1928) electronic instrument and a player of this weirdness is an ‘ondist’.
today you’re wearing those sunglasses I retrieved from the ocean floor coralline rims, deep green glass sea flowers our corridor
Image: Diver entering the ocean wearing an experimental diving suit, 1934 c/- State Library of NSW on Flickr
And in keeping with today’s marine theme, here’s local indie guitar guy and shirt-refuser John Butler with Ocean (& tubers it’s here)
for Megan & Guy
i found you luminous on a shelf over rows of unseasoned woks 100-year-old eggs, cellophane pungency and coriander still wet from the fields wrapped in the Chinese Daily.Continue reading
as i pass the grove
in my garden dark
alien weeds
rustle
their swollen pods
seeds blowing like snow
Image: c/- Wikimedia Commons
Today’s musical offering is Australian composer Anne Cawrse with three Songs Without Words (YouTubers start with Lied)
after a night out
upright morning finds the moon
in cream and mottle
unsteady
she stops to lean
her head on a power pole
Image: Japanese photographer Ikko Narahara with Negligee from 1962 c/- Are.na. Last night was the May full moon (named the ‘flower moon’ in the northern hemisphere – as everything’s blooming there); so no-one slept in our house.
From my favourite Australian jazz trio The Necks here’s Open (sorry Spotifiers, I couldn’t find this for you but it’s such a fabulous album, you’ll want to purchase a copy of your own).
it was grey all day
it was raining
and it was going to rain
— mandarins in a red bowl
on a long grey table
Image: a domestic scene today. The first three lines are adapted from Wallace Stevens’ 13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird. His lines kept circulating today as the drizzle stopped and started and then…
Today’s musical offering, something upbeat: American funkster, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Shuggie Otis. Here’s his Best of album (YouTubers) – and on a day like this what are you going to start with but Rainy Day (unless of course it’s not raining in your part of the world).
water hyacinth pretty rafts interlinked exponential growth in nature’s arms race this is the killer app.
Image: Coomaditchee, my local lagoon this morning, now being strangled by water hyacinth (Pontederia crassipes) Another invasive weed (this one originally from the Amazon) going crazy in a new environment, kicked along by recent flooding.
As I’m a little troubled, today’s musical offering is an old prog. rock favourite Close to the Edge by Yes (and Yes, they’re still touring and making music) (Yes for Youtubers)
as orchestra climbs towards crescendo moth reaches spotlight both achieve transcendence achieve ignition
Image: Nolene Maclean, diving champion, Sydney, 1949 by Robert Donaldson, c/- State Library of NSW on Flickr. She finished 3rd in the high board championship and second in the springboard title at the diving competition of the Australian Swimming Titles in Brisbane, and went on to win silver at the Empire games in 1950 in Auckland, New Zealand.
A tanka inspired by a night out with the wonderful Australian Chamber Orchestra. So, for music this morning here’s they are with Boccherini’s String Quintet in C Major – from the Master and Commander soundtrack (here’s the Youtube link.) For Spotifiers here’s the playlist from their recent Sketches of Spain concert series & something similar for YouTubers.
over still water
a pelican bellies
effortlessly
down
— —
below
a similar bird
rises to meet the swish...
Image: reflections, near Tumut NSW, Wolgalu lands
More global wanderings with today’s musical offering: Maya Youssef with her album Finding Home (and here on Youtube). Maya is a qanun player from Damascus, Syria, now living in the UK. A qanun is a 78-stringed Middle Eastern plucked zither.
Peter Frankis writes 