Magic – George Blamey-Steeden

A WARNING IS NOT A PROMISE

‘Dreaming Colours the Daylight Steals’

Last week: The bloke at the top of the steps up to the library told me that the world would end tomorrow. He pointed out that love and hate will have nowhere to hide anymore and that there will never be another new day.

I told him that I never knew that. There was nothing on the news about it. It was only when I asked him how he got to know all about the end of the world happening tomorrow he just tapped the side of his nose with his forefinger and said, ‘inside info’.

The shirt he was wearing was The Arsenal 2010 away kit. The yellow one with the regular ‘Fly Emirates’ printed on it. XXXL by the look of it. It was only when I said, ‘You support The Arsenal?’ he replied saying, ‘How do you know that?’ I never answered. Stating the obvious is something I try not to do, even though I wanted to say, ‘inside info’.

As I finally walked past him toward the library, he called me back. He told me he was sorry and that, “I should have said, ‘my’ world is ending tomorrow, not ‘the’ world. A slip of the tongue.”

A little later, after I’d got a book out of the library on Greek mythology, I got stopped by a woman standing at the top of the steps in exactly the same place the bloke was stood earlier. The bloke himself was nowhere to be seen. She stopped me and asked if I’d seen a big bloke wearing an Arsenal shirt hanging around, “Only I wanted to let him know that a warning is not a promise and that I didn’t mean it when I told him he’d be better off dead.” After that she said, “Don’t I know you?” then asked if I was the bloke who wrote the song ‘Rexie Believes in Magic’ “The one they play a lot in the café up the road. It’s my favourite.”

I said that that was my song and thanked her for liking it. She said, “Only his name is Rexie; well that’s what I call him. His real name is Rex. If I find him I want to say sorry and that he might feel better about me wishing him dead if he had a listen to the song. Is that OK with you? I just love, love songs.”

“No worries, of course you can. If you’re going to believe in anything it might as well be ‘Magic’. I hope you find him before tomorrow.”

“So do I.”

This week: I checked the ‘Births, Deaths & Marriages’ section of the local newspaper and there was no mention of a big bloke called Rexie – or Rex – reported dead.

The ‘Rexie’ song is from my first album, released in May 2017 called ‘Dream Rescuer’. ‘Rexie’ and the number, ‘Sunlight & The Dust’ are both featured on this album. They were my first curated songs. If you’re interested in this album (or any of my others) the link is below;

A NEW-BORN RAINBOW?

rainbow3

2.51PM Saturday, 9^th February 2019. Ten minutes to go before a 3.00PM kick-off. Arsenal at home against Huddersfield. The game’s not on Sky so I’m rushing along the hallway to get to the PC to find a quality stream when there on the carpet my random mind tells me is a new-born rainbow. I’m not good with colours but even I can see the magic of this one. I called her ‘Amitola’, the native American name for a rainbow (thanks, Google). I had to take some pics – not that they do her justice.

Here’s a close-up;

rainbow

What I’d seen got me thinking about my song, ‘Rainbows End’ from the album of the same name. The song is about serious stuff I feel passionate about. Here’s the song and the lyric – I got that quality stream and Arsenal won, by the way. It wasn’t long before the rainbow left for wherever it is rainbow’s go. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the song;

RAINBOWS END

On the day the ice caps melted

The sun swallowed up the sea

No rain from Africa to Eurasia

No spring time blossom on the trees

Rainbows end will stay our secret

For forever and a day

Rainbows end will stay our secret

For forever and a day

This song is not a blatant warning

I believe it’s far too late

Mankind’s ways of greed and war

Has defined this death wish fate

Rainbows end will stay our secret

For forever and a day

Rainbows end will stay our secret

For forever and a day

Rainbows end will stay our secret

For forever and a day

Here’s my current albums on Bandcamp, take a listen if you feel like it;

EASTSIDE 1981

pole ‘Discernible Connection’ by Zoolon

A couple of weeks back I mentioned that I’d post my tribute to Francesca Woodman, the amazingly talented photographic artist whose work didn’t make it big until after she had committed suicide, in New York, in January 1981, aged just 22.

The tribute is in two parts. The first a song simply named ‘Francesca’, a reflection on the person, more than her chronology. The lyric drifts between first and third person thoughts and questions. I like to think she’d be good with that. Next, there is an instrumental, a eulogy without words. For this I have tried to capture her essence and final moments. It’s a short piece for a tragically, short life. When the melody stops, if you listen hard enough you’ll hear… well I’ll let you decide what you hear. This piece I’ve named ‘Eastside 1981’. Below, the two songs in question. I hope you enjoy the listen;

Both numbers feature on my new EP ‘The Pigeons Are Switzerland’ which is available for easy download at BANDCAMP along with my two previous albums, ‘Dream Rescuer’ & ‘Rainbows End’. In fact there’s an option, if you’re interested, to download my whole discography at a heavily discounted price.

UNDER A YELLOW SKY

cloud ‘Magic Glue’ by Zoolon

I made quick pen and paper notes while I was in Belgium, hoping I could read back what I wrote. My handwriting is useless. The photo above I took from ground level in a wild garden in a town called Braine Le Chateau. Here’s a few of the random words I wrote down, unedited, just as they arrived in my head. I’m a songwriter, I’ve never claimed to be a poet or a regular writer.

The sky isn’t angry, it’s in love with itself. A new arrival. Humidity. Air so sticky. A fat bellied storm full of whiskers, waves and wonders.

Sunshine clouds and blue skies mating. Sweating. Together they don’t care who’s watching.

Old man’s beard on flint. Bonfire sparks morph into angry bolts, split trees in two, get pissed off with rubber soled shoes spoiling the show. Blinding light wants to be blind darkness. Then it blinks. Eyes shut easy. Succeeds, then vanishes. Safety. What they call blue still looks yellow to me.

In a hollowed out trunk of a dying willow tree the blue tits go feed from an unwritten menu of titchy insects. The dragonflies leave all well alone aside from other dragonflies. Territorial dogfights. Winner takes all.

Baby black moorhens paddle in the reeds in hidden corners of the lake. Safe? No water rats. A heron glides above. Doesn’t need binoculars. Just checking things out. For now.

Sound Art is a choir of multicultural birds jamming. They make it up as they go along. Sing whatever they fancy on the day. Best free dawn to dusk gig in town.

The forest of pine silhouettes blankets dead earth in nowhere land. I’m not lost, but feel lost there. The garden has its own secret history. Tries to share with me, but we’re on different wavelengths. There’s something dark about the decades empty stables. No idea why.

Mushrooms and magic until they come to mow the grass. A crime against something? Buttercups, most likely. Maybe daisies, but I don’t think they’re that bothered.

Outside the big black gates a two way lane no wider than an obese human. No place for a fast getaway. Not safe to put your foot down.

I saw my first eagle today.

In the big garden of that place I felt like it knew the meaning of magic. I wonder if I’ll ever get a lyric out of that.

For some unaccountable, maybe easily understood thinking about it, reason, the garden reminded me of a lyric from my song on the Dream Rescuer album, ‘Rexie Believes in Magic’. Time for a reprise. I hope you like it;

Lastly, the magical Aurora from Norway and her take on Bowie’s ‘Life on Mars’.

NOT AS PROMISED

marcel duchamp1

Marcel Duchamp (1898 – 1968)

I saw heavily armed police conduct an operation the other night. I’d never seen anything like this before. From a safe distance, I wondered what it was all about. Drugs? Maybe terrorists? The police were there in numbers and impressively tooled up. Later, I got told that the operation was to flush out people traffickers. No human being should be first robbed by, then forced to do the horrible things the trafficker scum force them to do. Not that it helps anyone, but it prompted this new piece;

HOMELAND FOR NO LAND – a lyric

Left behind homeland for no land

Swapping loved ones for thugs

A new life, not as promised

Cherish the ‘needle of death’, forget the hugs

Leaving behind a flawed paradise

For one that never was

A new life, not as promised

‘Tough luck’, it’s just because

When you’re reduced to a nothing, a no-one

A piece of merchandise that’s all

Sold on to the pimp of the manor

Never again you’ll stand tall

Your dignity, your history, they get thrown to the wind

No new life as promised at all

They say, ‘Look at that slapper; that waste of space’

Those promises, they meant sweet f**k all

Some music? I think maybe a ‘Dream Rescuer’ rescuer is called for;

You might have noticed the ‘POETRY TO SONG’ tab at the top of this page – it’s right next to my ABOUT tag. It’s there because I have a special deal exclusively for WordPress followers. Should any poets out there want to have their poems turned into acoustic or modern folk genre ‘ROYALY FREE’ song for a fixed price of just £100 (or an equivalent for other currency via PayPal) then here’s a contact link;

https://zoolonhub.com/contact/

I estimate that this fixed price that includes composition of melody, studio running costs, performance, production, mixing and mastering would, out there in the world outside WP, cost upwards of £3,000.

WHERE HAVE ALL THE RAINBOWS GONE?

george folkestone (2)

(Above, me having a think about lost rainbows, all the time taking care not to fall off the edge of the cliff into a watery grave)

WHERE HAVE ALL THE RAINBOWS GONE?

On the day the Ice Caps melted

The sun swallowed a swollen sea

No rain from Africa to Eurasia

No springtime blossom on the Cherry Tree

The wheat, the maize, the grains dried and died

No more the rainforest of the Amazon

The last human left alive looks up

Says, ‘Where have all the rainbows gone?’

My song is not a warning

Believe it, it’s far too late

Mankind’s ways of greed and war

Has defined Mankind’s death wish fate

Rainbow’s End will stay a secret

For forever and a day

“Where have all the rainbows gone?”

The last thing the last human will get to say

Time for something a little brighter; something with ‘magic’ in it – my song ‘Rexie Believes in Magic’. I hope you like it;

https://soundcloud.com/zoolon/rexie-believes-in-magic

The ‘Dream Rescuer’ album from which this song comes from is available for download at https://zoolon.bandcamp.com/

Next the genius that is Agnes Obel with her song ‘Riverside’. The mood of the piano is a work of art in itself;

ZOOLON & THE FESTIVAL

mari2

In a world where Trump and his like make a good fist of scaring people the best they can, it’s good to know that surreal, kindly lunatics are still alive and well. I just got back from a biannual festival of puppets, the Festival Mondial de Marionnettes de Charleville-Mézières, The Ardennes, France and thought I’d share a few photos of the event.

However, before anything else I should explain that I make no claim to be a photographer – although you’ve probably worked that out for yourselves. What I’ve tried to do when taking these shots was to avoid the generic stuff and go just for things that caught my eye.

mari1

This pic above is of one particularly swoony type lady who was trying to balance a regular ladder in order to be able to climb it. She failed of course, but I was told it was all part of her act. What she was trying to do was climb up to the ‘things’ in the header image and become ‘at one’ with them. In fairness, I think the bloke who told me that might have had too much wine. I should have run with my Plan A and had a word in her ear, recommending she go to a DIY store and buy herself a regular stepladder. The world would be her oyster then.

mari7

Here she is again, still having a good swoon and harming no one.

mari6

Also, she made this out of sand during a swoon break. I think she’s a pretty good artist even if she is on the cusp of innocent madness.

mari10

Here’s a half decent piece of graffiti. I’m guessing that whoever’s house this was painted on has gone up in value a good few euro’s. If I could have remembered what Banksy’s signature looked like and had a black paint spray can on me I might have increased the property value some more.

mari11

It’s a shame I never got to see the person who lives in this caravan. By the size of the entry door I’m guessing that whoever it is doesn’t eat too often at Subway or McDonalds

mari9

I’ve no idea why I took this shot. Someone had set it up in a back alleyway for no apparent purpose. The world is a safer place when people do things like that.

mari4

The girl on the right had a face like thunder. I guess every picture tells a story – even one of mine!

mari5

One market trader discussing the merits of the glove puppet when compared with the string version?

mari8

Last but not least, another shot away from the main event. I took this as the border collie in the pic is a dead-ringer for my old dog, now deceased ‘Skipper’. I wrote a song about him once. It appears on my Dream Rescuer album. The song is called ‘Pain’. I’ve always preferred animals over most people. I hope you enjoy it.

‘REXIE BELIEVES IN MAGIC’

Another song from my new album, ‘DREAM RESCUER’. This one is called ‘REXIE BELIEVES IN MAGIC’. Here’s the lyric in case you fancy singing along. I hope you enjoy;

Rexie believes in magic

Has done all along

Shipwrecked and nowhere else to go

Its time he learns to head back home

Rexie believes in magic

Has done all along

Streetwise, believes in love and fate

Still searching for his only song

Rexie sits alone

Its getting darker…

Shipwrecked and nowhere else to go

He dreams of home

And the girl he loves the most

With the girl he loves the most

Rexie believes in magic

Has done all along

Shipwrecked and nowhere else to go

He dreams of home

And the girl he loves the most

If you like the song, maybe you’d like to buy the album. You can listen to the whole album without charge at;

https://zoolon.bandcamp.com/album/dream-rescuer

It costs just £5 (plus VAT; i.e. £6 in the UK). If you do buy and feel able to post a review on Bandcamp, that would be most helpful.