Composer
mist
it will be winter
soon - mist morning
trees invisible
hills and forests
smeared out as a
bird voicing it's
nano song flutters
off past the rectangular
windows closed blinds
amidst the memory
of visiting friends
warmth laughs
and good ness
the sun is lighting up now
This little poem is part of a bigger set of poems called the RAFT which I wrote during lockdown. I am busy typing through these writings now. How strange it all was then.
psychogeography 2
one hour later still listening
to the tree rustle and watching
grey clouds over passing
kite glide and soft rains gentle touch
breeze breathing dry leaves
rolling dancing over the weedy tarmac
campanula dandelion forget me not
magpies rattle distant and near sounding
repeating resonating the air sky chamber
as a pencil softs the grey lines
inviting transformation from passive to active
in the gaze of the last red nasturtium
a poem
the space
between
the sound
and
you
the sound you wouldn't make
the words you wouldn't write
where to find the words
you could write
What were we drawing on as we improvised in and out of synch on those piano tracks ? All the better to hear our momentary lapses and collisions ? The poem is about collaborating with invisible pianist Lindy Karpestra and what were we thinking and dreaming.
draw on
and the invisible pianist
doodling repeat loops
faces in a riff
colliding with ourselves
meeting sky and smiles
on the meadow
draw on the top lip
unevenly shaped
in two twin slopes
of asymmetrical heights
https://lindykarpestra.bandcamp.com/album/the-karpestra-dairies
In the meantime, my garden shed has been painted a lovely forget me not blue, which is perfect for showing my my new blue paintings.
Voices
in the soft cool breeze
prefacing soundscapes
chattering birds and traffic waves
about timeor the story of two pianists
listening into that time
beating piano keys beating time
from the where i was
then in that wilderness
the chords a kind of chorus
after many a summer
piano lessons peeling
into a day like today
and it’s dusting of snow
melting through spring flowers
i see a pianist waving at me
and in my waving back
i feel our palms drawing together
touching and becoming one
Listen to piano music https://lindykarpestra.bandcamp.com/album/the-karpestra-dairies
imagining my self lying down
on the earth curve face down
in the smell of grasses herbs and flowers
there the blackbird
couched on the dry earth
silently opening and closing his beak
spanning his wings
sunning and preening
watching the bees sucking sage
the ants scurrying the red brick wall
and clouds pulling over the sky
The Writing Waves project has been in the making ever since I read The Waves by Virginia Woolf a few years ago. I was deeply impressed and inspired by it ‘s poetic flow. I decided to create a new work so I set about the text of the book using a ‘cut ups’ method with a view to setting it to music following the ‘Circus On’ template by John Cage, but as I progressed with this deconstructive method I became horrified at the thought of disfiguring a great work of art, so I settled on the idea of writing some piano pieces based on the characters in the book. In time I decided to try a more media based method based on the waves ( piano music fragments) which I recorded in 2024 on my mobile phone. The film is set on the ‘portable art patio’ and connects with my Amerta Art Patio Instagram project.
…“except that the sea was slightly creased as if a cloth had wrinkles in it” …Virginia Woolf The Waves page one.
The Swan Dream
i feel the memory
of the
swan
as she
nested
under my skirt
reminding me of
*the tin drum
a book my father
gave me when i left
home in 1970
‘something to read on the plane’
he said
‘if you want to know
about the war its
all in there ‘
twenty years later i finally
read it
*The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass
If We Couldn’t Speak Beggars Opera
One of my ongoing musical projects is my work with Progressive Rock Band Beggars Opera. If We Couldn’t Speak was interesting in it’s use of the spoken word and improvisational structures. I love the dreamy nature of Ricky Gardiner‘s multilayered guitars. The words are strangely prophetic as Ricky Gardiner was to become very ill not that long after this was recorded.
Beggars Opera / If We Couldn’t Speak
if we couldn’t speak
would you still hear me
if we couldn’t speak
would you still hear me
and if we couldn’t hear
would you still see me
if we couldn’t speak
would you still hear me
and if we couldn’t hear
would you still see meif we couldn’t speak
if we couldn’t hear
and if we couldn’t see
would you still hear me
would you still see me
would you still find me
if we couldn’t speak
would you still hear me
Virginia A Scott
Virginia Aurora Scott 