Café Apollinaire: The Proprietor's Vision

And here is a video on YouTube which I wanted to share From: AgaKakaZai

" This is an Opera 'virtual duet' I made, featuri...
This is an Opera 'virtual duet' I made, featuring the legend Pavarotti and Britains Got Talent winner Paul Potts. A truly memorable would-be spectacle if it were to be in reality, but here's how it turns out in a computer simulation.Song: Nessun Dorma

- In the loving memory of Luciano Pavarotti (1935-2007), R.I.P. "




Anyway here is the first section which follows the prologue of the poem Café Apollinaire- which is along poem which I began writing over a dozen or so years ago -

I
The proprietor's Vision of Apollinaire
TALES OF Café Apollinaire:
VARIATIONS ON DISTILLED DREAMS

Café Apollinaire is a three ring circus
a side-show of freaks
a poet dining on metaphors
an artist being eaten by painted lions
bones stripped clean of flesh
by imagined dreamed vultures
escaped from brain-fevered induced nightmares
of a starving artist
there's someone in the corner
playing spoons drawing a crowd
forming a new band playing
what is at hand pots & pans & an electric mixer-

This is the Weltanschauung
the world trapped
in the over-reaching over-arching net
tossed by the proprietor
of Café Apollinaire
in a vision says the cubist poet says
in a vision Guillaume Apollinaire
came to me in a dream
told me to dream this
through you I shall speak
through you I shall live again
in my words in your words
light a candle burn some incense
stare into a mirror of mercurial air
into a crystal ball -


Hear philosophers prophets poets spewing
power puking phosphorescent luminescent words
see acrobatic poets reciting verses
riding his favourite Hobby-horse
see foreign language poets
reading with subtitles
see chain-smoking mad poets
coughing choking on their own words
chewing gnawing on metaphors & myths
see poets dancing the tango
hanging from chandeliers
hear someone lecturing at every table
hear philosophers spouting logical nonsense
hear prophets who lost their followers
speaking of the Grace & Wrath
of a mythical drug induced God -

take care,
GORD.

Nick Cave Easy Money

Let's begin with a little music by Nick Cave singing Easy Money from the album Abattoir Blues/Lyre of Orpheus which I have made into a video without images :




And here's a little piece of verse I will offer up to you:

NEW AGE SISTINE CHAPEL
by gordon Coombes

God’s hand stretched
across the blue sky
as puffy dream like clouds float by
circles within circles
spheres within spheres
blessing the holy masses
of busy shoppers
consumed with the
act of consuming
their minds reeling
with visions of things
to buy in this concrete
and steel cathedral
of greed and avarice
in this fallen age
of the garden of earthly delights -

The V for victory of the flying buttresses
the Greek columns forced
design a mere subterfuge
to entice beings without spirit
without a spiritual home
the play of light
on the stain glass
of this new cathedral
confuses and blinds
the eye of the beholder -

Is this the new Crucifix upon which
we place our hopes and dreams
is this the Shrine upon which we burn
our candles and incense
paying homage waiting
for a blessing
as we go window shopping
in the midst of the fast food fair
we sit meditating
trying to resolve a Zen koan
or we sit starring into space
our eyes blank
soothed by these soft pastels
and take communion
with a burger and coke -

take care,
Gord.

At The Last Minute & Louis Armstrong

Anyway for your listening pleasure here is the great Louis Armstrong playing Basin Street Blues in 1959:



And now for a few of my verses :

At The Last Minute

At the last minute
the story gets written
everything falls into place-

At the last minute
the revolution begins
the barricades are erected
the troops & tanks are sent in
at the last minute-

At the last minute
we find a scape-goat
for all the wrong we have done-

At the last minute
a few dollars arrive
from a friend or a distant relative
to pay the rent to buy some food & cigarettes
to have a late supper at a shabby quaint little diner-

At the last minute
giving up all hope
as you freeze in the snow & rain
the bus arrives delivering you to work -

At the last minute
telling me of your love affair
leaving me for another -

At the last minute
leaving a bar drunk at 3am
staggering along the streets
returning to this dismal little room
waiting for the last minute to burn itself out-

At the last minute
the phone rings
or there is a knock on the door
or a new poem falls onto the blank page
as I hold the knife over my wrist-

At the last minute
just before dawn
a friend & I go for a walk
along the waterfront smoking a joint
talking about writing & women
having made it through another night-

At the last minute
the woman of my dreams with Raven-Black hair
who roams the streets at night comes to my door
her eyes sparkle in the moonlight
saving me from despair
at the last minute-

Take care,
Gord.

Amazed 2

The Great Figure

Among the rain
and lights
I saw the figure 5
in gold
on a red
fire truck
moving
tense
unheeded
to gong clangs
siren howls
and wheels rumbling
through the dark city

William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)


Painting The Gold Figure 5
by Demuth based on Williams' poem-


Apollo by Picasso













Painting by miro






































Don Quixote by Picasso

Amazed II
gordon coombes

amazed by ocean waves crashing
on the rocky high cliffed shoreline
a half a mile away I hear them thundering
on quiet still nights for hours
I become too engrossed to sleep
imagining the waves speaking to each other
& to the earth & the black velvety sky
& glittering stars & the roaming planets
& sometimes the full moon
gloriously pearl white or golden
or swollen pumpkin orange-

amazed by lakes calm & placid
or rough & wild
watching a single deer stopping
at night watching me curious
then moving on along the shore
where the woods thin out-

amazed by streams & rivers flowing gently
then vigorously roaring over boulders
as their pathway narrows swirling water
tumbling over a waterfall-

amazed by mountains towering
slicing into drifting clouds
spending a day sunny & hot
driving up & up & around & around
back-tracking along spiraling
snaking black paved roads
stopping to gaze even further up
at the mountain slopes & peaks
with binoculars watching a family of black bears
crossing a hillside of green lush grasses
going from one tree packed area to another
looking over the side of the mountain
at the curving road unable to tell
if that's where we are going or where we have been-

And here's some amazing playing by Jazz Great Thelonius Monk in this piece Blue Monk recorded In Oslo 1966




Magritte False Mirror- loop by tktimelapse




take care,
GORD.