Monday 28 January 2013

Another slow day

Within a few weeks I will be attending the fifth anniversary event by LPS.
London Poetry Systems is, in their own words, an open cross-media poetry organisation committed to showcasing poetry in performance both at their multimedia live events and growing online archive.

During the next event Alastair Cook, Luca Nasciuti and I will show and perform several of our video- and filmpoems. It's going to be a blast (I hope)

Henry Stead (poet, translator and classicist) "My research is in the reception of classical culture in the Modern world." is the co-founder and director of LPS.
Henry is also joining us on stage. He will do a live reading against the backdrop of a new videopoem I made for one of his poems.

Another slow day
After contemplating ceilings
and what kind of creative genius I was
I stood on my feet
turned on the light
ate sunflower seeds and homegrown
gooseberries from a cage in the garden
sliced off my ears with a butcher's blade
so that I might better collect bee-like
the anesthetic honey from a Durex Performa
to soothe the pain in my head
I stopped and listened
My nicotine white smoke alarm
spoke out again and again shrill
but like it was in a rubber jar said
DO NOT PAINT
I googled NOT PAINTER
it came up with Frank O'Hara
"I am not a painter, I am a poet"
I read it a hundrehundred thousand times
all I know for sure is
I smoked a cigarette and thump
was told that smoking kills and thump
harms people around me
I'm alone but I couldn't swear to that
the blood where my ears were
keeps me warm like shirodhara thump
I can no longer feel the urgency of advice
I look down and thump
the floor is painted red like really red
like fire engine red and thump
I've written nothing and thump
no one's coming

The music I used for this one founds its origin in this older track I had:

To go with the almost languid reading I wanted images that expressed some kind of restlessness, boredom and even sulk. Once I had those, the video practically made itself...
Anyway, enjoy;


words & voice: Henry Stead
concept, camera, editing & music: Swoon
Thanks: Katrijn Clemer

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