R.M. Engelhardt's Blog: Burn Brightly, page 22

“Simply stated, we master the world through signs, ou...

 

 

“Simply stated, we master the world through signs, ourselves by symbols.”

 

~ 
Victor Turner

Every Man …

 

“Every man who knows how to read has it in his power to magnify himself, to multiply the ways in which he exists, to make his life full, significant and interesting.”

 

~ 
Aldous Huxley

THE LAST UNDERGROUND POEM

THE LAST UNDERGROUND POEM

 

 

So when the day finally comes

I will probably have already

Checked out of the room,

Tired, so tired after years of words

And poems and voices and far too

Old to care anymore

About the nightly news.

And yet?

From somewhere six

Feet underground I will still be able to

Hear the wind, and like a flower

My body or what’s

Left of it will briefly rise and stir

As if in interest of even more of history’s

Passing events, and I, being merely a corpse

Will concede to write in the remaining fragments of

My mind and soul

A poem, and this poem

Will be my best poem

Heard by no one but my friends

Like Mrs. Applebee, who is in the lot

Next to me, who in life hated poetry

And who died at 83, or by the young

And newly dead Mr. Hastings who

Was is in love with Penelope and who was

In love with catastrophe and who dared

The poor young Mr. Hastings to

Have some quick sex sitting upon

Her balcony just outside

Her window ledge

Oh.

So Yes

Sorry, I’m still here

Ever so briefly.

As it seems that

Life is always presenting us

With it’s own stories

Of death and romance

Honor and bravery

And love and war

And in this epic poem from

The great beyond I shall go on

To tell all of you, dear humanity about

How cold the earth can be and

How comic and how tragic it all is in the end

To finally realize what all the final answers

Are to the universe and what all the how’s & all

The why’s and etc.(s) mean and to be able to

Tell no one.

Note:

So OK,

Doug was right

(The Answer? It’s 42)

But please wait, please listen

For I am now merely a voice

Upon the wind and

I’m forgetting something important

As my dead memory is

Fading, the poem in my head,

My soul slowly decomposing

And the world, planet earth

Is finally ending and turning into

Just fire and ashes from above

So I’ll recite it

As quickly as I can

Here’s the poem

The last poem

And it goes something

Like this :

So here’s the poem

The last poem

And it goes something

Like this

So here’s the poem

The last poem

And it goes something

Like this

So here’s the poem

The last poem

And it goes something

Like this

 

Like this

 

 

 

 

 

Like this

 

 

 

 

 

Like … This:

 

 

 

 

It’s … This.

 

 

Don’t worry.

Stop worrying

And live

Because everything

Is beautiful

And the poem

The story,

Repeats

Everything is beautiful

And the poem,

The story repeats

Everything is beautiful

Everything is beautiful

Every … Thing    is,

Every … Thing  is   is   is   is

IS

“Beautiful”

“Beautiful”

“Beau…tif…ful”

_____________

 

R.M. ENGELHARDT

UNCOLLECTED, Poems By Steve Kilbey

 

 

 

 

 

‘The Time Being’ brings you ‘Uncollected’ by Steve Kilbey. A deluxe edition of his books – Earthed, Nineveh, The Ephemeron, Fruit Machine and other selected works, all in one neat and tidy volume. All copies order through us will be signed by SK.

Once upon a time steve kilbey lived in Mansfield St, Rozelle (Sydney Australia) in an old terrace house. It was 1986, he would sit around in his kitchen banging out poetry. He wanted a poetry book because that’s what popstars did that had done everything else, they released a poetry book or two. Dylan, Bolan, Lennon… if it was good enough for them, then it was good enough for him.

203mm x 133mm

420 pages

Gloss cover

Black text on crème interior

Earthed, 1986 – Steve Kilbey

Nineveh & The Ephemeron, 1999 – Steve Kilbey/Erskine Music & Word

Fruit Machine, 2007 – Steve Kilbey

Uncollected, 1986-2013 – Steve Kilbey

Cover Painting by Steve Kilbey

Edited by Steve Kilbey, Graham Nunn and Samantha Mayfair

Typography and Design by Samantha Mayfair

A record of this book is held at the National Library of Australia.

ISBN 978-0-646-90398-9

 

 

Also available through the following retailers, or as special order through your favourite store using the SKU and ISBN.

 

SKU: 0646903985

 

ISBN: 9780646903989

Publisher:  6075049  The Time Being

Title:  Uncollected

 

Australia & New Zealand

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Wheelers NZ* www.wheelers.co.nz

 

United Kingdom | Europe

 

 

 

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Agapea www.agapea.com/

Amazon.com www.amazon.co.uk

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Gardners www.gardners.com

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United States

Ingram www.ingrambook.com

 

 

Amazon.com www.amazon.com

Baker & Taylor www.btol.com

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NACSCORP www.nacscorp.com

Espresso Book Machine www.ondemandbooks.com

MY THERAPISTS ARE MR. ZEVON & MR. SCOTCH

 

 

She’s gone.

Temporarily

Forever

Finding me

Here alone on the couch in

The middle of

Another Sunday afternoon

With my good friends

The Clan Macallan

& Warren Zevon

Reminiscing about all

Of the old days & all of

The best days past.

Yet, perhaps it’s all

Just an illusion

Or maybe it’s just the sounds

That bring us all back to

To the land of

Stark raving reality from

The momentary

And marked passing

Of punk poetry, slam dancing

And black leather jackets.

As Warren says to me

“Life Will Kill Ya”

And Macallan says to me

No worries my good son

“Drink up”

For she will soon

Return with

The love that you

Gave her

And your

Foolish, sentimental heart

In her pocket

“Too”

_______________

R.M. ENGELHARDT

From “The Resurrection Waltz”, 2013

Apocalypse, Etc.

Note:

Humanity?

I am tired of your self-centered

Bullshit & whining ways

Stop this train, stop it now.

For we shall all remain… Dream.

Persevere

Into this life,

Or the next.

An ode to the dead world that is poetry, lost and faraway.

The ancient soul of Sappho gone and golden days.

Tear these words, voices away. Now only left with memories.

Let the prophets burn,

And create the visions of what shall be

Under the currents and beyond the sleep of the icons reach…

Let us

Speak of that which is human,

Love …this eternal dream

Forget the fools, the mundane

Apocalypse, Etc.

A wild ride,

An action packed extravaganza

With spooky, scary thrills

Coming soon to an idiot near you.

Fuck it… Fuck them.

I’m going out

For a drink &

Kiss my wife & kids

Goodnight.

Love thy neighbor

Love thy friends

For this life

Is all too short

To waste.

_______________________

 

R.M. Engelhardt

“Sometimes it’s great, and sometimes it’s shit.Th...

 

“Sometimes it’s great, and sometimes it’s shit.

These are the things all the great philosophers

just won’t tell you flat out about life.

You keep moving, keep living, keep breathing

And you keep writing-creating because that’s what you do

And that’s who you are. There are no magical voices to guide

You except your own. Make it count.

~ R.M. ENGELHARDT

IN THE BEGINNING …

(IN THE BEGINNING)

The sun is a huntress young,

The sun is a red, red joy,

The sun is an indian girl,

Of the tribe of the Illinois.

(MID-MORNING)

The sun is a smouldering fire,

That creeps through the high gray plain,

And leaves not a bush of cloud

To blossom with flowers of rain.

(NOON)

The sun is a wounded deer,

That treads pale grass in the skies,

Shaking his golden horns,

Flashing his baleful eyes.

(SUNSET)

The sun is an eagle old,

There in the windless west.

Atop of the spirit-cliffs

He builds him a crimson nest.

~ 
Vachel Lindsay, An Indian Summer Day On The Prairie.

Neil Gaiman On Writing …

Writers Must …

 

 

“Writers must oppose systems. It’s important to write against power, corporations, the state, and the whole system of consumption and of debilitating entertainments…I think writers, by nature, must oppose things, oppose whatever power tries to impose on us. You know, in America and in western Europe we live in very wealthy democracies, we can do virtually anything we want, I’m able to write whatever I want to write. But I can’t be part of this culture of simulation, in the sense of the culture’s absorbing of everything…If you’re a writer who, one way or another, comes to be seen as dangerous, you’ll wake up one morning and discover your face on a coffee mug or a t-shirt and you’ll have been neutralized.”

 

~ Don Delillo