DO YOU REALIZE?

If this book that I'm reading  has a lesson... it is that we are awfully lucky to be here-and by ‘we’ I mean every living thing. To attain any kind of life in this universe of ours appears to be quite an achievement. As humans we are doubly lucky, of course: We enjoy not only the privilege of existence but also the singular ability to appreciate it and even, in a multitude of ways, to make it better. It is a talent we have only barely begun to grasp. 


Bill Bryson (A Short History of Nearly Everything)  

You've got wings baby...

Music is such a powerful medium to me. So powerful that after coming home from the Smashing Pumpkins performance tonight (yes, it's the beginning of their US tour!) I was reminded of a simple yet sometimes forgotten truth. That having deep passion for life is so very vital. That each and every breath we offer in this world is even more so vital to not only our state of well being but to those that we love and those that we share ourselves with. When we bring our true selves to a higher calling we arrive home. Home to me means many things but in this sense it's ones  devotion to their craft. I witnessed an amazing show this evening. Music heals. Music inspires. I'll save the rest  of my thoughts for later. Yes. The Smashing Pumpkins took their flight tonight...performance was epic! Mind blowing and heart felt with lots of rock n' roll livin' soul!

 Here's the title track from the up and coming Oceania album. 

What a diamond! 

  

ZANI ~ The Voice of the Outsider

Many thanks to ZANI Ezine ~ for so graciously offering me the title as US Contributing Editor. My US, Southern, Irish, English, Scottish soul is on fire for your love, it's true....
  

http://www.zani.co.uk/

GIVE ME THE WORDS

“We are weighed down, every moment, by the conception and the sensation of time. And there are but two means of escaping and forgetting this nightmare: pleasure and work. Let us choose!" ~  Charles Baudelaire 

 There's a lot of blood on the keyboard. Yeah, Pounding words out. And, sometimes for hours or days there are just no words. It's like a silent, starving, icy lake of fear that end up letting me go from some sort of wicked solitary confindment. I often wake up with gnawing sensations of dissatisfaction and feel instant fear only to find that I am aware of  resistance. I often ask myself if my writing is really attached to my name and  I often want to erase all of what I've ever written. The GODS know the ultimate sin is not murder or rape, but pride. So I sit and I just consider myself a gun for hire, a mercenary. Those thoughts then purge pride and preciousness. Do I really believe my work is crucial to  the planets' survival? No. Hell no. Of course not. Do I believe I have the luck of the Irish? Yes. It's in my blood. Two leprachans are always on my shoulder, one with a halo and one with horns. Seriously. My work is as important to me as the hawk circling outside my window. My work is hungry. She needs the kill. So I do it. And, I go to sleep content with all this blood splattered on the keyboard. It isn't easy spilling blood. But, I will wake up again tomorrow and write again. Home from the hill, offerings from the kill.

  All the warrior can give is their life.  

The Enemy is a very good teacher ~~~ The Dali Lama 

Baudelaire's "Be Drunk"

And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again, drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is singing, everything that is speaking. . .ask what time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you: "It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish." 

A Note 2 Rolling Stone...

Sorry Rolling Stone. You're SO VERY wrong. A cool collaboration goes something like this: Led Zeppelin and Sandy Denny ‘The Battle of Evermore’ NOT Boyz to Men & Mariah Carey as you obviously need to check how you roll.

Charles Bukowski ~ Raw With Love

I will remember the kisses

our lips raw with love

and how you gave me

everything you had

and how I

offered you what was left of

me,

and I will remember your small room

the feel of you

the light in the window

your records

your books

our morning coffee

our noons our nights

our bodies spilled together

sleeping

the tiny flowing currents

immediate and forever

your leg my leg

your arm my arm

your smile and the warmth

of you

who made me laugh

again.

Empty spaces....

I am sewing this page back together and looking forward to giving more love to my creative womb space...I'm not empty, rather I am full...full and as always, open to your interpretations. Things may not be as they seem and shafts of light always bend here as I continue to chase the shadows away and feed my own mind.....So good to be back! Thanks for having me...

This House That We Call Love

So often you brush against my mouth...and I hush..but, tonight I am wide OPEN and I fall upon your whispering vines like stars to burn. We, looking up at the stars that we know quite well...looking up at those stars straight from hell, shake, shiver and moan.  And, I missed you terribly today. And I looked into the emptiness with its' lace and its' candor and thought fuck what other people think.. candor? Yeah, candor. So we howl and beat wings, battering inside... and we know we both let the more loving one be cast aside,  let the more loving one really reside in this house that we call love... this house that we call love.  




Words © Wendy Rose Watson

Resurrecting The Raven (THE RAVEONETTES)

My published piece on The Raveonettes latest album Raven in the Grave.

Resurrecting The Raven -The Raveonettes

The Danish duo The Raveonettes have captured the sound of my soul and I didn't even have to sell it. Music has always been a matter of energy to me, it's  like the sun and the moon.  Living in the magick, sunny land of California  the sense of hopelessness, dreary grey remains alive within me though and it seems lately that I've been leaning more towards the dark side. The only escape that adds more light in is  the pale notes of what the music triggers.Raven In the Grave brings upon these past time electric sparks. The pastimes at Marietta High. Marietta High, that's right. That's where I attended some of my schooling, the rest of my schooling never interfered with my education. You should know the story by now and if you don't the album Raven In The Grave will bring you back...back to a time when records end up triggering that sort of magic. The electrical spark inside that was once felt by yours truly roaming the high school hallways of yesteryear's. True there lies upon my pillow a brewing of many memories all at once just like a  lilac fragranced time that somehow still seems to lurk inside of me....

The first song on the album Recharge and Revolt brings a sudden question to mind....have we lost the child inside? When did we surrender and give into other ways, when did we lose the child? Or rather have we lost out and  gone so far beyond our own messed up mind of paying the bills and forgetting when we were young and traveling roads that keep looping. Yeah, let's talk of love and change even when our eyes are soft with sorrow. We're all adults, right? So why is it that some of us continue to raise a white flag instead of raising our black flags with the white raven of  soul and I surrender on it? Here I am and  I surrender to my love for those times, knowing they are still a part of me even when there is a War in Heaven. I raise it because what else can I do besides surrender to self and the truth that lives within me. As a writer I am green but wise. Wise with my glossy vines and this record invokes that feeling. It's fragrance and silvery gauze allow all the shadows and perfume to float again even when there's a war going on inside.  A war? No. Come on....We are all on a mission from GOD as artist. A mission where we can all live in the the sun, again...where the wise, green vines continue to gloss in our souls.   
It's the velvet, cool, crisp leaves  that glisten throughout this album that sooth my soul.  The Ravonettes full blown in their dewy luxury of childhood memories. The Raveonettes  washing the windows of life and cleansing my soul, reminding me that we have to stand up for what we believe in in order for the coming together to happen. Those velvet leaves are so full of tender pressure and they are hard at times to birth but the record does bring forth the spring in ones adult soul. I've been hypnotized by this music, it's not just  all just a beautiful lie? Or is it?  I'll just leave all the songs up to you....you are the listener, you and your  fields of gold. My glossy leaves remain intact. Forget That You're Young.  Yes, it's a beautiful quivering kill. An echo in my head  persists "Can I fall awake now?" No. I rather dream it all up and live vicariously, slip away  back into a time when everything went like this: If you had a good book to read, if the girl/guy you picked up last night didn't have VD, if you didn't get insomnia, if the drug you bought from the roadie wasn't speed and instead it was coke ..you know those sorta things. And, a place where if you went to bed by  3 AM you were lucky and it wouldn't affect your day. And, finally if you always had a ride the next day by 4 PM.  So, the rain was scented lilac tongued tender. You gotta  open your mind red- wide because love can tear you apart and echo just like a high school memory.
So I sit here, rolling over Raven in the Grave...I've been doing it for months, I'm always late it seems. But I still drift through the skyscrapers where those orange blossoms I mentioned earlier began. Alive. 

Enough about me though as I don;t wanna sound like a little arsonist...or narcissist as some may think. Raven In The Grave is unmistakably a Raveonettes album, a black halo of these times that we ( admit it or not) can share as adults.  A reflection of innocence, a reflection of the past.  No filigree masks here. Icy tears or (maybe) not. And, we continue to go into the world noticing the fragility and danger of love and lust...perhaps another good  murdering of the adult human innocence. I just don't know. Truth be told "It's the kids who fall in love " as Warhol once said. Call me a kid or call me an adult I don't care...with Raven in the Grave by my side both sides have been resurrected.

There are nine songs on Raven In The Grave. Rediscover yourself, your exploding heart...and resurrect your white raven on a washed black flag. You won't regret playing this record.

© Words Wendy Rose Watson – ZANI Media

LINK  : http://www.zani.co.uk/music/102-resurrecting-the-raven-the-raveonettes

Roots That Grow Up

My first published meditation in ZANI on PJ Harveys' new diamond album "Let England Shake!"

Roots That Grow Up Polly Jean Harvey’s New Language

Polly Jean Harvey’s newest album 'Let England Shake' is yet her most sincere voice ever and it certainly holds ground in today’s divisive climate with its title. Go ahead and toss the other sounds of 2011 out as this is the only album that is saying anything that's new and reflects the spirit of what's going on in today’s world. The album isn't just directed at Harvey’s home country, England, or at least her intention wasn't only to share through English eyes as there is a universal message she's delivering. She wanted it to be a connecting source to other humans wherever they are living as she made sure to tap into the shared push and pull we all have with the nation of our country, wherever we are. We all suffer disappointments in what our governments are doing, what wars are being waged in our names and the album keeps that universal flow and feel moving throughout.

From the jaunty closing refrain taken from Eddie Cochran’s, "Summer Time Blues" turned "Why don't I take my problem to the United Nations" is a real comedic, depressed and sarcastic coda. It does seem her song's character certainly can't imagine anyone else helping besides a peace keeping body. However many black passages there are on Let England Shake it is not a record that I see crying revolt but rather longing to breed unity.  PJ has not only heavily concentrated on the words used to create the English folk, mystical, revered dream pop atmosphere on this album but she has also created a new language for herself. The poetess has always been highly aware and in tune with worldly issues so this isn't a big change for her. She just has never laid an album out with this kind of political language because she felt she didn't have the proper skill as a writer to speak about political climates in songs. Two years later, after the seed had been planted she began her intensive study into a deeper political language and her long awaited star seed was born making a record fit that even your mom could listen to and love. The melodies are not very heavy and unless you're tuned into the lyrics, the songs seem harmless and no-disturbing. This is something Abba was always good at doing...combining upbeat music with  melancholy or dark lyrics and it always works...although Abba would never have depicted "soldiers falling like lumps of meat." Oh how the blackbirds do envelop Harvey’s dark writing that we all love so!

No, Let England Shake is not a heavy or disturbing album simply because the music is kept light and happy... and yes that accompanied with white roses was a great Mothers Day gift. The album made its long awaited debut in February so if you haven't gotten the album yet I'm really not sure what you've been waiting on! It's one you will respect and then also continue to love. Go get it and let the penmanship and beautiful, somewhat tame sounds, sink into your sound canal.

Expect Polly’s usual soaring, siren vocals with a slight hint of her peers and successors fragrance : Kate Bush, Lene Lovivch, Joanna Newsome  and  as always there's her intricate song structures. This is no Dylan electric just because Polly has developed a new language.  It's just fresh, new penmanship and subject matter that goes to a strong, new political place. Polly studied Afghani and Iraqi peoples voices and poets so that she would have a strong sense of what her new poems would be like before putting the music to them. Her heart, soul and mind took these contemporary poets words as offerings and used them as a guide to approach the new language she ventures into, selecting her  words first then having the instrumentation follow and you don't have to be English or care about its history to become enchanted by Harvey's conjuring spell.

One of the many things I can certainly attest to is that our soulful Polly Jean has always known how to bring herself and her listener into a kneeling, hand shaking prayer position using words. Her backing band featuring Mick Harvey (former Bad Seeds guitarist), long-term collaborator John Parish and Jean-Marc Butty have strong roots.  There is nothing that is coming up from the ground when they are together....perhaps we can say then that this is the album where Polly Jean’s roots grow up. Let England Shake isn't dreamy like White Chalk. It's a very lucid album and I think the timing is perfect. I think it's high time we all woke up from the land of ghosts and thieves to see what's going around and down in the world, even if it is somewhat veiled by the music. An experienced Harvey listener won't have to navigate, an experienced Harvey listener is already awake and has taken a look around, knows what's going down. And then there are those that gotta be shaken up in order to wake up from all the ether of the past, the ones who are still being seduced by the media, the ones that are prisoners and clueless. Who knows, maybe this album will speak a language that will shake and wake them...It's true, the heaviness of Harvey’s lyrics, combined with the lightness of the music, mimics our strange world today.

 In the past, whenever I've wanted to be carried away into another landscape, PJ has always been there rooted as one of the most intelligent, creative women in rock and roll. This is one of her best albums to date as she continues to grow, grow and grow with a language that really is universal. The album holds up extremely well with repeat plays. I think she's done a brilliant job shifting us from the ether to the real world. It's clear and powerful in her prose and poetry. I hope we see more of her new language in the future and contrary to what's been said about Polly Jean she's not a contradiction or a mess , she's a storyteller and a damn good one at that! This time her story telling is one universal voice but no contradictions, no mess....just a strong rooted 41 year old Harvey whose roots have grown up.  In a world where so many people are seduced by mass applause, Harvey isn't one of them. I have to ask as I think she might too..."Look around you ... do you like the world around you?"  I like it when Harvey’s in with me, Faultless, Honest and Utterly.

© Words Wendy Rose Watson/ ZANI Media

LINK @ ZANI HERE : http://www.zani.co.uk/component/content/article/15-back-end-archive/301-roots-that-grow-up-polly-jean-harveys-new-language


Still finding my 'voice' as I know this prose isn't quite perfection and a kind thank you to ZANI Ezine  for letting this outside voice of mine in their beyond cool publication!

I saw the duality of light and I realized that the things that you don't see have a stronger effect than the things that you do

Some hearts are ghost and we are alone isolated to settle down in dark waters. He pins a dragon on his hat as I slide a lilac mint into my mouth, smothering each from the other. I feel so fierce, so delicate it's the world’s ridicule because they've all forgotten how to speak or show tenderness; just as silk grows heavy and drowns with the stone, just like diamonds drown from a night so cold the death is stronger than life it seems, it seems the death is stronger than light it seems. And I live in a town a thousand miles from cities, where my heart stays warm but his dragon pulls like a wind through the dark. So I go and sit beneath the white willow tree as I know no other protection. The story is long and it's told silently bleeding under the williow tree. Isis the mother dying in her rented room, Jesus Christ will come back soon. I promise you this, I promise you that and I even call upon Vespa. Please bring me home and safe, eternal homes of the transient heart where I'm bleeding beneath the willow tree, isolated in extasy. Bring him back to me before I die bleedin' beneath my white-hearted-ghost willow tree.

©Words Wendy Rose Watson

Cracks in the Canvas

As I wash the fields and the forest on the damp mountain side I rise to wash the dust off my gun... Mother...Holy Mother..hold your summer hands against my face. WAR waves hello. I wave goodbye. The tangerine trees are still fragrant, in season and I ache. Yes, this suit I have brought back is heavy, blood drained and marrow might be all that is left. No more blood letting and these 23 clocks running backwards. And, war is glistening like a dying heavy branch of thorns under an oath of morphine, truth.

© Words ~ Wendy Rose Watson

The Singer

You are as a stranger to me as I have not yet seen your face, looked into your eyes. Our mask, I know at times, takes us deeper into the blinding void of happiness where they try to peck out the everlasting hope inside, but they can't. Eyes that are scorched and burned by the torch that we carry in our own hearts can never be stolen. And, we march on...we go far out into the fields because we are nomads that are living the stories that have been written for us...the ancients knew us from the time we were conceived and with that discovery within we come to find ourselves again. Birthing ourselves back into this land we shake. Sometimes the Dark places bring about so much light, hedonism, truth, lessons, deeper insight all because we dared to go the miles. Perhaps you wouldn't believe me if I told you and if I did tell you it's my torch that would burn your eyes... They say that I don't have a very good voice but the better the singers voice, the harder it is to believe what they are saying so I use my voice to my advantage.  


© WORDS Wendy Rose Watson

The truth does not exist to support your comfort zone.

The truth exists to shatter your comfort zone and move you closer to your true purpose....





There are no rules here, we are just trying to accomplish something ~ Thomas Edison

I Am A Stranger Here Myself

Messages written in blue chalk like stars. I have stacks of books that I've never read and at night alone I just sit and wait. I keep contemplating what I should be doing. I know I should be doing something of worth but everything I come up with seems upside down and backwards bent. Sex, flowers , cigarettes and portraits. Fragments. Poems. Prose. People telling me I'm too distant. Too soon and too distant that is. Meanwhile all the boys wanna change my hair color. Arabian Nights not going to be spent. No I don't shoot up. No I'm not a lesbian. Nor am I a feminist. And, no  I don't think it strange to just want someone who will sits at the foot of your bed and reads you a passage from A Season In Hell. No I'm not lonely. Stop confusing me with Eleanor Rigby. Don't confuse me with that person, ever! I'm just alone. And I like it.  Alone like some sort of stranger walking the city streets, like some sort of Happy Birthday of Death. It was last year when I read that book, and worn copy of it is certainly sleeping in that quiet stack now.

Me and my violet parasol with no moon or stars. Real or imagined. I feel so free in these chains and their mastery. Yes. A pure fuck I am.  And, when I look at those photographs now I don't see me, I see us. My shadow and light. Through the devil softly.

And the stars were aligning. And the angels were calling. And I'm a stranger here myself. Freedom wrapped in invisible chains. And then sometimes it even seems as though what I had dreamed for had come true. I had a new set of eyes and I had lost the "straight path" and entered a "dense, wild, and tangled wood." It just didn't seem all that believable. But it was, however, real.

© WORDS Wendy Rose Watson 

TEST for Common People

An Ode 2 Two Females: Carve us out of ivory, mammoth, stone and to fill your nights with ghosts and shadows. See us as we are, oh, so much more than that. We are not stone age. Dark and bright. The common people tend to cling obstinately to the old ways but we don't. This is just a test. XX


© WORDS Wendy Rose Watson

Mother Midnight

There is a light that never goes out or so that's what I've been told. Curiously difficult and crushed away just like roses in the snow. White, milky roots the winter keeps her warm and it's not the end of time to be be born, just like roses in the snow. You see, I still hear Mother Midnight calling in my head, golden dreams in a box under the bed just like roses in the snow. And her bluebell scented hands still burned with fire laced up with with ice she called that desire just like roses in the snow. Just like roses in the snow. Blackend spinning wheels and the library kills some roses in the snow.

© WORDS Wendy Rose Watson