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MIKE PARSONS
After finally obtaining my M.A. at Essex last December, I have been putting together a new Poetry and Music act, rehearsing at Newham's Youth and Community headquarters in Gainsborough Road. At present we have a twenty minute set, which we have performed at several venues including "The Yellow Cafe" in Mayfair and "The Raj Tea-Rooms" in Highgate. I play cello and guitar, David has been playing violin and Lorna, reading and singing.
Words
On hearing of my Uncle's death
(and for Nicola's Grandfather and Pete Rogerson's Father)
8.2.96 - date
Death.
And all I have is the futility of words
and meanings
and understandings
and the written.
Life
and so much suffering
unnoticed
by blindness, alienation, oversight and fear,
beauty is absent from this world
and all we have are words
and meanings
and understandings
and the written.
My friend Florian says we should replace
the notion of ethics with the notion of obligation
but who would that be for?
The few who know what ethics are,
those who daily pick up their cross.
What about me and the rest
for whom it's just a few beers and a conversation?
There's no space to think,
beauty isn't absent from the world
it didn't ever exist.
Beauty didn't ever exist for most of us...
and obligation/
Beauty didn't ever exist,
not the magazine cover,
the holiday ad of the fashion model.
Beauty didn't ever exist
but beauty did
elusive but there.
Somewhere the surprise of sunlight on a rain drenched sidewalk.
There was beauty and we knew it.
This is the touchstone;
because we have experienced the beautiful
have known life as it can be,
have known love
we have the obligation to care.
And we have cared
because we could care
because we can remember
because we have known beauty
and recognise its absence.
Even at moment like these,
the memory of beauty,
the sudden sky at the turn of the river in Kirkstall,
finds other memories;
Smed finding the telescope in the Truro bed and breakfast
sharing a bottle of whiskey with Uncle Bill and Nancy in a London Hotel.
Some people you only meet a few times,
some people you never meet.
I wait in the pub for you to arrive,
a young woman at another table has a catalogue
but I am afraid to speak
afraid of your anger, your jealousy,
there is only the poem, the beer and the cigarette.
One can catalogue memories, I think to myself,
but some things can't be bought.
"My overriding impression is that we have never been in such a state of crisis and fragmentation, in terms of both the individual - the artist, and the aesthetic object. The crisis is such that not only do we have difficulty with the question of the work of art, but also the question of beauty itself seems unbearable..."
An interview with Julia Kristeva by Charles Penwarden "Rites of Passage" exhibition catalogue 1995, London: Tate Gallery
"Obligation is what is important about ethics, what ethics contains without being able to contain... Obligation happens. There is/it gives obligation."
Caputo "Against Ethics" p18.
When it rained
or
early one morning it must have still been winter and I got absolutely drenched I was coming back from the paper shop my umbrella was nearly destroyed i dropped my paper and was absolutely terrified by the horizontal driving rain the like of which i have only ever seen once before at flatford mill luckily I hadn't left for work so I could change my clothes the seats on the tube were soaked I had to stand all the way by the time I arrived I wasn't sure if my stomach was going to hold up
(for Judit, 24.2.97 - June '97)
Let's laugh
and lose this heartache.
Spend some time.
Enjoy the sun's surprise
as February cold
retreats
before the warmth and wealth of March magnificence.
As storms subside
the war will end
and as the full glory, weight and colour of another year
greets the morning
we will find happiness.
Blues.
May '92
Waking in the morning
before the tube begins to run,
I wake up in the morning
before the tube begins to run,
I'm just sitting here watching the river,
waiting for the sun.
I get so confused about everything
I sometimes forget my own name,
I get so confused about everything
I sometimes forget my own name,
I've so many bills and commitments
but I'm going on holiday just the same.
I'm sitting here frightened and angry
and I just don't know what to say,
I'm sitting here frightened and angry
and I just don't know what to say'
If I keep on thinking like this
I may kill myself one day.
Sometimes I get lonely,
sometimes I get blue,
sometimes I get lonely,
sometimes I get blue,
then I go down to that old river,
I just sit there and think about you.
It's another noisy Sunday
and I'm going to have some fun,
It's another noisy Sunday
and I'm going to have some fun'
Think maybe I'll fix my bicycle
go watch that polluted river run.
Sunlight
for Dorte Anderson, 17.Oct. '95 - June '97
E, B, F#, A
"Nobody can remember the name of the station we started from..."
Funeral Train - Ishira Yoshiro
When today is done
before I sleep
I will think of you.
Sometimes I have the power
or so it seems
to summon sunlight,
thrill to the moment
of the sun's informing smile
alighting on a window.
I remember the door to the new room
in the Bosnian office
lit by evening sunlight.
I remember Charlotte Rampling complaining of depression
the light on the wall in casualty after I collapsed in the street
the morning after seeing "Yerma" with Alfredo.
I'd slept badly on Ted's couch that weekend
staying at his party after seeing Julie Christie in "Old Times".
I'd visited Katrin in hospital after she had Daniel.
I remember first light over Brightlingsea harbour.
I remember
and when today is done
before I sleep
I will think of you.
Song
I have been waiting for you
have been playing a game
have been lost for a name
have been out on my own
have been searching the dark
in the black of the night
I've been lost on the rocks.
I have been waiting too long
I've been hoping in vain
we were never that strong
so I'll suffer the blame
for the things that I wrote
and the things that we saw
and I'll travel again.
Something I Know
Tell me the price of love
of knowing
tell me about the years
the "sowing"
tell me, I need to know
about growing.
Tell me about the tears
and showing.
Tell me of sleepless nights
and hours of effort
tell of the time before and no tomorrow
tell me the price of love
and then be silent.
Algo Que Yo Se
Dime el precio del amor
y de suberlo...
Cuéntame de los años
de sembrar.
Dime, necesito saber
como crecer.
Cuéntame de tus lágrimas
y de quedar al descubierto...
Cuéntame de tus noches insomnes
Y de tus horas de esfuerzo.
Cuéntame del tiempo pas ado y no del mañana.
Dime el precio del amor
y después
Calla.
(translation by Sergio Navarro & Alfredo Cordal.)
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