muse

...

only if you’ve nothing to lose

do you gamble everything on the...

...

...

Nashville home of music

...
just seen Nashville
the movie
dunno how come i never seen it before
seeing how it might be the best Robert Altman film
or close
mash short cuts the player mccabe and mrs miller
...
...

one time i was in Nashville...drove up from Nu Orlins on the so-called Natchez Trail
...
and come Saturday night we're driving round Downtown Nashville, trying to find some music, and there ain't none anywhere, but in the end we find a place called the Bluegrass Inn, which sounds just the ticket so we go in and there's a band and they play three songs but then they stop, saying there ain't enough people there to make it worth their while so everyone can have their money back so that's it and we leave
...
...
so that was Nashville home of country music
...
!!!
...

you're moving to edmonton?

...
she must be very pretty
...
is what they say
...

you've moved to edmonton?
she must be very pretty

...
...

and two years ago they said
...
you're moving to winnipeg?
she must be very pretty
...
...

a figure of eight on its side...

...
perhaps the Edmonton theatre world is only so finite
...
so
i'm at a do,
a kinda houseparty welcome do for those new to the drama faculty
homey, etc
...
and i meet a woman who's done the fringe for years
was in number 2
and we chat and in the end i ask
do you know ken brown
or sheri d wilson
and she says yes
...
but then we're talking about the infiniteness or not of the canadian theatre world
and she suddenly breaks off and says
laughing
yes i know ken,
we were married
ahhh
the brown in michelle brown is brown as in ken
her two kids are his two kids, who i've met
ahhhh...i think
so we go on about that infinity sign perhaps not being appropriate
and maybe its just a figure of eight on its side
a track with two bends
...
which made for a
good funny moment
...

noterday

...

...

NOTERDAY

the ineffable innerfeeble

a yesless day of

lesslessness

all quasi, neo

kinda and uncertain

a nil-all draw

of un-un-undrawn curtain

goalless and

wholeless

and so the inerted body

chaste of desire

is unwearied by action

and so the mind

blurred and bleared

by its daylong traction

stirs, all night,

in unslumbered

stupefaction

so let us know then

you and i

the most discordant of all

lullabies

half-hummed

and half-drummed

the regret

of a day undone,

a day unmet

so unbegun

and unbegun

the unfilled lung

the bottled

glottal

unstoppered

tongue

…

the clipped vowels and

hardless consonants

bereft of

any kind of

consequence

…

flat and even

in sound and meaning

…

and so the mind will

the long hours know

the long dark night

of the sleepless soul

clocks

tired of life

hang at eternal

half past five

the walls pale and bare

while in the corners and cracks

of the staling air

the damp

will neither freeze

nor dry

and so the microbes

festered, will multiply

the invisible monias and osises

and enzas and itises

unwrung

and unhung

lifting and drifting

to half-filled

half-emptied lung

see i linger

so self-sealing

so unrevealing

in this underverse

beneath this ceiling

the tepid dew of each day’s fresh thought

become an unstirred spirit

staunched in stays

reduced to residue

dried in the draught

the chimes

and rhymes

ring jarring

and sparring

all unspurring

and uninspiring

a rhythm first slackened

then lacking

and then least

and then lost

a so so-so today

with tomorrow

in tow

and so

a so-so morrow

with terday in tow

the days

hallowed by possibility

by a freedom so huge

as tantamount to infinite

a freedom unhallowed

and unmet

unwelcomed and

unsaid

and so, soon,

in other wanlit afternoon

the malingerer

stretched and coiled

foetal and futile

will perforce still linger

red-eyed and coughing

drained and mucal

the days unfaced

and unembraced

passing past

the unmoved space

so let us know then

you and i

the most discordant of all

lullabies

half-hummed

and half-drummed

the regret

of a day undone,

a day unmet

reading this blog

...

...
nose deep in this trough
of words and ideas
...

by which i mean i'm reading this whole blog
...
from start to end
...
taking out the best ideas and writing for further perusal
further something
...
there's been lots of good ideas
some nice phrases
some gags with mileage
but no decent poetry of any length
of any more than four lines
...
...

so i'm reading it with a view to pillaging it
why not, its mine?
and to help me finally wrap it up and finish it

i approached the winnipeg blogs with some trepid
reviews etc, free press etc etc
the trauma of july
...
to be honest, i didn't really want to go back there
...
...

but yeah
its been very good to read
its what i meant it to be
updowncrashbangwallop
a cycle in life
...

...
is what it is

...

...

it was ever so and thus...

...

The desirable the elect and the beautiful

are nodding the heads of accord in the Tower of Babel

are reading the flows the signs and the augurs of doom

while parading their women in jewellery and plume,

are strutting and commanding, are determining their wage

while fixing the bars to construct a cage

to imprison with slat and grille that motleytude

whose toil and labour provide them their food,

who're caught like driftwood in the logger's stream

and whipped and beaten to beget their cream

...

late fall haiku

...
...
the sun so tired
it can hardly lift itself
up into the sky
...
...

early fall haiku

...
after two sunny
days the thick autumn leaves
crunch loud under foot
...

work rest and play

...start of show 3 years ago?
four?

...

good evening ladies and gentlemen

my name is jem rolls and I would like to thank you for coming

before I get to the gloriously dumb comedy I would like to do a piece about the freedoms and pleasures of language

so this was originally called

work, rest and play

though its probably not called

thesaurus wrecks

nor

joining the escape committee in the prisonhouse of language

...

so here we go

...

its work rest and play

to lounge around

any time of the day

and let words light in your head

in their own sweet way

…

those carefree moments of pleasure,

I’d love to last forever,

as if a row of violinists in heaven’s wings

could roll never-ending bows

across never-ending strings

…

so why not,

say it here and now,

as if somehow

the words might work

as we would want them to

yet these words, caught

picked and decanted from a rack of waiting shelves,

their meanings twisted back on themselves,

they cripple

these words,

compromised with contradiction,

gnarled and stunted with malediction,

they belittle

so why not,

say it here and now,

as if somehow

the words might work

as we would want them to

might word that idea once half- thought,

that clarity sought but never seen,

a light where shade has always been,

the darkness now gone,

and the day laid bare and clear to view,

the way now there

to steer on through

…

and yet, too many words

and too little to say

and yet, too few words

and too much to say

so the mind remains

lumpen and limited

the legitimated numbheaded child

of each day's incestuousness,

of spermatose thoughts staying

within their own cell-sac walls,

swimming their own waters

and fertilising themselves,

when they could swarm out into the world

could throng and teem,

there far and here,

could spread out and bring back

the pollen of word and

idea

so why not, say it now,

as if somehow

the words might work

as we would want them to,

maybe a stark line

said it all anew

maybe the story pulled

you in and through

maybe a metaphor

shaped the key of your thinking

to unlock the opening idea

maybe a paradox pushed a notion apart

or pulled two ideas together

maybe it’s the wordplay

which pearled the way

to gleaning a meaning

yet these bilious lines

of digestive tract

gone acid with chill

and bitter-mouthed rant,

they are dour.

these fleshless words,

born of drear and cant,

of bloated lips

and leering tongue,

of clipped tips

all aged young,

they are sour

...

so pave me a path and strut me

in forced-march time

to regimental meter

in regimental rhyme,

pray do

so dance me a dance of a dance

of clattering angular bones,

of programmed reproductions

of elegant bon mots,

pray do

...

so why not, try now to say,

as if in some new and unfound way

the words might work as we would want them to,

edgily edging you

nearer the muddle or fear,

as if an exact phrasing

might make it clear,

as if a verbal nailing

might crack the gnarls

a pointy line might clean the clots,

a coarse paper might sand the snarls

or deftly picked words unravel the knots

yet the words airily thought,

but failing to land anywhere,

to mean anything,

to say anything

…

as still, always,

the thinking, the ideas, elude

as the words and phrasing, ill-construed,

meet acute and all oblique,

a breaking, in their making.

the words and lines ill-matched,

as the thoughts, ill-hatched,

stand unformed and weak,

a breaking, in their making.

yet why not, try now to say,

as if in some new and unfound way

the words might work

as we would want them to,

might word that thing once half- thought,

a clarity sought but never seen,

a light where shade has always been,

the darkess now gone

and all laid bare and clear to view,

the way now there to steer on through

those carefree moments of pleasure,

I’d love to last forever,

as if a row of violinists in heaven’s wings

could roll never-ending bows

across never-ending strings

…

because yes its work rest and play

to lounge around any time of the day

and let words lighten your head

in their own sweet way

...

...

the wreaths of the day

...

under a sky grey

except where coalfire red from the

unseen sinking sun

the eye on the ferry,

inches above the flat plane of shining

silver-grey water,

sees

the leafy branches drift to the sun

the wreaths of the day

...

eyes like black ice

...

...

In the mirror my eyes like black ice through a frozen river where in the near depths the cold cold waters run

...

...

In the mirror

my eyes like

black ice

through a

frozen river

wherein the

near depths

the cold cold

waters run