Extracts from the Blue Notebook
(with additional notes to self)
I like the Depardieu episode;
what he says about grapes
that struggle in adverse soil
conditions produce better wine
is, in all likelihood, quite true.
I mean, not that I would know.
But the metaphor stuck with me.
There’s an honesty about his
work—it’s something in his eyes.
He inhabits the characters emotions;
there’s more to this guy than being
the Dionysius of French cinema.
Don’t look inside the flophouse
windows today—half of them
are mad and the other half are
pretending not to be—read that
Linda Pastan collection instead.
The trick, of course, is to read
a lot—process the parts that
speak to you and translate
them into your own dialect.
Intermittent staring into space
in between chapters works
a treat as well—it goes through
the grinder and comes out
the other end—it’s all brain grub.
Has writing really degenerated
into a lame box ticking exercise ?
Perhaps—but if I start to
overthink this one, the mean
old ventriloquist starts up
with his shit again—so what if
it has; just write what excites you.
Sound techs flapping around
in situ with polystyrene cups
A line I ended up ditching when
a poem told me it needed to
go somewhere else—you have
to listen to that voice.
Saké and strange divine…
Watching him dash away…
Clutches of sad remains…
All beautiful lines from the
Bowie song Aladdin Sane.
The pun in the title wasn’t
lost on me either—I got it.
That album is full of sublime
imagery—I think I was 13 or
so when I first heard it. I know
I was besotted in that mawkish
schoolboy kind of way with
a Samoan beauty; she was like
something out of a squillion
dollar Gaugin Tahitian painting.
It’s weird but cool—how songs
make you remember the stuff
that’s worth remembering.
©️Orion Foote, 2022
Visions of Orion Poetry 