"It is not the critic who counts, nor the man who points how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly...who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at best, knows the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."


-Theodore Rooselvelt

Photographs of guns and flame
Scarlet skull and distant game
Bayonet and jungle grin
Nightmares dreamed by bleeding men
Lookouts tremble on the shore
But no man can find the war

Tape recorders echo scream
Orders fly like bullet stream
Drums and cannons laugh aloud
Whistles come from ashen shroud
Leaders damn the world and roar
But no man can find the war

Is the war across the sea?
Is the war behind the sky?
Have you each and all gone blind:
Is the war inside your mind?

Humans weep at human death
All the talkers lose their breath
Movies paint a chaos tale
Singers see and poets wail
All the world kows the score
But no man can find the war

- Tim Buckley

Flying Teapot

Sometimes I think oh yes
I'd move to where all the shooting stars are gone
With all of our wishes
How could they bare oh no
To carry around the stupid human hopes
So I'm going to help I will
Give a key to lock the door
To the secret paradise
There are so many queuing up
And I won't let them in
Look at them
They are cheeky
They are never worthy
to be saved
Sometimes I feel oh yes
I could do almost everything I wanted
And it makes cry
Lay your heart
Lay your soul
Upon my magic carpet
Now we are flying
To Venus just to kill some time for tea OK
Remember
Surrender
There's nothing you can do
Cause love's such a joke
Like a little jack in the box you know
A little jack in the box
Lay your heart
Lay your soul
Upon my magic carpet
Now we are flying
To Venus just to kill some time for tea OK
Lay your heart
Lay your soul
Upon my magic carpet
Now we are flying
To Venus just to kill some time for tea OK
Remember
Surrender
There's nothing you can do
Cause love's such a joke
Like a little jack in the box you know
A little jack in the box

The Partisan, Sentinel, and TBD

-(c) D.B. Rocca, 2012

Oblique Strategies

The Oblique Strategies evolved from me being in a number of working situations when the panic of the situation - particularly in studios - tended to make me quickly forget that there were others ways of working and that there were tangential ways of attacking problems that were in many senses more interesting than the direct head-on approach. If you're in a panic, you tend to take the head-on approach because it seems to be the one that's going to yield the best results Of course, that often isn't the case - it's just the most obvious and - apparently - reliable method. The function of the Oblique Strategies was, initially, to serve as a series of prompts which said, "Don't forget that you could adopt *this* attitude," or "Don't forget you could adopt *that* attitude."

-Brian Eno

"Take a Break"

"Listen to the Quiet Voice"

http://www.rtqe.net/ObliqueStrategies/

Borderlands

Your bones remain a spectacle
across the crumbling brick box
that looms, decaying, like a shadow of some god
A promise whispered when dawn was just a theory
unproven, and we lay naked amidst the remains
Broken, marrow dried to scarlet dust
The alphabet of tribute I write with craven finger
A sorrow I accumulate and hold,
a fist that clenches in budding iris
and waits for your complete destruction
before it ever dares to bloom

-D.B. Rocca, 2012

 

Clear Cut, Apparently

Faced with mounting circumstance and pausing in passing

Looking across distances and trying to convey

Desolate surrounding of your own invention

With cold point bland refusal to just dissipate

Searching for a glimpse of heaven

Thinking of the bonds you'll sever

With steadfast aim you'll try to convey

You will pray for absolution while you're thinking of nothing

And take it for granted that you're already placed

Grim determination of transparent texture

Pulling down the blinds for convenience's sake

Spit in the wind in a nonchalant fashion

Gamble the odds on suicidal stakes

Days drag on in indecision

Clear cut with each incision

Casual slashes now and gradual falling from grace

You'll forget about ascension when your face hits the dirt

You take it for granted that there's been a mistake

-Martyn Bates

www.eyelessingaza.com

Fish Heads - Barnes and Barnes (1979)

Fish heads fish heads
Roly poly fish heads
fish heads fish heads
eat them up, yum!
Ask a fish head anything you want to
they wont answer they cant talk.
I took a fish head out to see a movie
didnt have to pay to get it in.
They don't play baseball
they don't wear sweaters
they're not good dancers
They dont play drums!!
Rolypoly fishheads are never seen drinking capachino in Italian restaurants
with oriental women!!!!!
Yeah!
Fish heads fish heads
roly poly fish heads
fish heads fish heads
eat them up Yum!
YEEAAHHHH!!!!!!

Movement

This is a question
I massage the words in order
effleurage;
petrissage;
The words of circulation
manipulation and grief

This is a poem
it is not an answer or revelation
a resolution
or solution
to tomorrow or today
an equation unbalanced by itself

This is a mantra
a power rising to surface
worthless
birthless
no beginning, no end
no attempt at simulation

This is a sentence
years and lives of mentors a thousand
teachers
preachers
or politicians praying
their words are truly keys

For all the doors are locked

-D. B. Rocca, 2011

 

Older Works on Paper

 

 

 

3 Quotes

"That's how it feels, as if I were an empty shell with something working through me...I can't command whatever speaks through me...I mean, I can't command it yet.  But I shall.  Some day I shall command this part of me that knows and sees, and that really will be power.  I shall know when what I fortell is human instinct, and when it is God's shadow."
-Mary Stewart

"Katagiri Roshi often used to say: 'Take one step off a hundred food pole.'  That's pretty scary, isn't it?  Finally you arrive at the top, and now you can't stay there.  You have to go ahead and step off the edge.  In other words, you can't rest on your success.  Or your failure.  Do not be tossed away by your achievements or your fiascoes.  Continue under all circumstances.  Actually, you don't know for sure that you will fall when you step off the hundred foot pole.  You may fly instead.  There are no guarantees one way or the other."
- Natalie Goldberg

"I refuse to be involved in anything that isn't full of beauty, truth, and grace."
-anonymous

 

Sandy Denny

How often she has gazed from castle windows all
And watched the daylight passing within her captive wall
With no one to heed her call

The evening hour is fading within the dwindling sun
And in a lonely moment, those embers will be gone
And the last of all the young birds flown

Her days of precious freedom, forfeited long before
To live such fruitless years behind a guarded door
But those days will last no more
Tomorrow, at this hour, she will be far away
Much farther than these islands, for the lonely Fotheringay

                            

 

Every thread of creation is held in position
by still other strands of things living.
In an earthly tapestry hung from the skyline
of smouldering cities so gray and so vulgar,
as not to be satisfied with their own negativity
but needing to touch all the living as well.

Every breeze that blows kindly is one crystal breath
we exhale on the blue diamond heaven.
As gentle to touch as the hands of the healer.
As soft as farewells whispered over the coffin.
We're poisoned by venom with each breath we take,
from the brown sulphur chimney and the black highway snake.

Every dawn that breaks golden is held in suspension
like the yoke of the egg in albumen.
Where the birth and the death of unseen generations
are interdependent in vast orchestration
and painted in colors of tapestry thread.
When the dying are born and the living are dead.

Every pulse of your heartbeat is one liquid moment that flows through the veins of your being.
Like a river of life flowing on since creation.
Approaching the sea with each new generation.
You're now just a stagnant and rancid disgrace
that is rapidly drowning the whole human race.

Every fish that swims silent, every bird that flies freely,
every doe that steps softly.
Every crisp leaf that falls, all the flowers that grow
on this colourful tapestry, somehow they know.
That if man is allowed to destroy all we need.
He will soon have to pay with his life, for his greed.

-Don McLean

Phoenix Series

 

 

Children of the Winter House

 

the clear note of summoning

greeted by the dawn

children of the winter house

tracks across the moors

sorceries cry shrill and clear

stillness by the tarn

Cypress shadows fall across

the windows of the world

needle dark and blue beyond

the buds that break the bough

words that bind the soul

entwined enfolded come the notes

I hear the distant drum

that bids you start the lifelong dance

and cuts the ties of blood

the twilight call in shadow locked

the figures drifting slow

children of the winter house

now empty and alone

winter stars wheel silver bright

above the dragon stone

and far below the winter house

awaits the next alone

-Martyn Bates

Some Unholy War

If my man was fighting
Some unholy war
I would be behind him
Straight shook up beside him
With strength he didn't know
It's you I'm fighting for
He can't lose with me in tow
I refuse to let him go
At his side and drunk on pride
We wait for the blow

We put it in writing
But who you writing for
Just us on kitchen floor
Justice done
Reciting my stomach standing still
Like you're reading my will
He still stands in spite of what his scars say
And I'll battle 'til this bitter finale
Just me, my dignity and this guitar case

Yes my man is fighting some unholy war
And I will stand beside you
And who you dying for
B - I would have died too
I'd have liked too
If my man was fighting
Some unholy war
If my man was fighting

 

-Amy Winehouse

Death

A vision begins through the eye
the spirit resolved in weaving
of fates intertwined and dying

You are woven without shame
the redemption is a cloth laid bare
and you stand in nakedness

Truth unfurls like a mast: blue,
uncontrollable, a bottomless meaning
on which we sail, ongoing
We ask ourselves this day
where the wind will take us
where the sea will wash us
are we cleansed in this process
by which we are taken
from sunlit harbor
to rainswept pier?

Uncontrollable, the rolling waves
The maker must be unmade
the vision must be born of blood
The lines of red must point the arrow
the death-drenched dirt of the unpaved road
These feet must walk, unprotected

Emotions born on stones
bleached white from summer suns, like bones
from those who came before, unmoved
by the promise that someday
the road would end.


D.B Rocca, 2011

You are a summer where I have no purpose

Catch the braided roses
A forest of radios
protects the energy blossom
that radiates august...

August: that was when I became an oracle
Ask me something important

-D.B. Rocca, 1996

Running down a central reservation.
Last night's red dress
And I can still smell you on my fingers
And taste you on my breath.
Stepping through brilliant shades
Of the color you bring
But this time, this time, this time
Is whatever I want it to mean.
If this is where memories are made,
I'm gonna like what I see.
And everything I ever took for granted,
I'm gonna let it be.
I step through every shade
Of the color you bring
But this time, this time, this time
Is whatever I want it to mean.

And everything and nothing is
As sacred as we want it to beWhen it's real. Make it real.,
Compared to what?
It's like living in the middle of the ocean
With no future, no past,
And everything that's good about now
Might just glide right past.
I'm stepping through brilliant shades
Of the color you bring.
But this time, ths time, this time
Is fine just as it is.

And everything is sacred here,
And nothing is as sacred as I want it to be,
When it's real.
Compared to what?

http://beth-orton.net/

Suspicions

Old and cold and filled with ghosts
Your house on unnamed streets

The faded foes you served as host
Now hover at your feet
interwoven fingers form
A ring of outstretched hands
To call upon the spirit storm
Your memory commands

In dusty half-light,

pale with fright
These strange aparitions
fill the vapors
with sickly whispers
Of gentle suspicions

A fragrant smoke that's tinged with sage
And the arogance of youth
A cardinal in a copper cage
And ambergris to seek the truth
Within the flaws of crystal orbs
You find yourself transfixed
to task the gods and ancient lords
with potions that you've mixed

a divination
By thin maidens
of stern disposition
Stir the caudren
Of all you hold in
To brew your suspicions

I gaze into the looking glass
These monstrous scenes unfold
Where saints of old sleep below the grass
Their secrets still untold
But there upon their molded lips
Confessions bloom like fire
To reach again with blazing tips
Of uncontrolled desire

Sacred voices
Speaking choices
with every vision
In the mind's eye
the divine lie
Of all these suspisions

In the half-light
trembling in fright
You make the decision
To hear the whispers
The gentle whispers
Of all your suspisions

-D.B. Rocca, 2011

In the mornings
I was anxious
It's better just to stay in bed
Didn't want to fail myself again

Running through all the options
And the endings
Were rolling out in front of me
But I couldn't choose a thread to begin
And I could not love
Coz I could not love myself
Never good enough, no
That was all I'd tell myself
And I was not well
But I could not help myself
I was giving up on living

In the morning
You were leaving
Travelling south againAnd you said you were not unprepared

And all the dead ends
And disappointments
Were fading from your memory
Ready for that lonely life to end

And you gave me love
When I could not love myself
And you made me turn
From the way I saw myself
And you're patient, loveAnd you help me help myself
And you save me

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpV8j8P994U

www.pbs.org/art21/artists/josiah-mcelheny

"The definition of being a modern person is to examine yourself, to reflect on yourself and to be a self-knowledgable person.  So this is to be a history of whatit is to be twentieth century.  These objects that represent culture that is around us, and then reflecting on themselves in an infinite regression, a kind of infinite narcissim. "

There will always be the poem

I will climb on top of it

                                     And come

In and out of time

Cocking my head to the side slightly

As I finish shaking, melting then

Into its body, its soft skin

Is not a lie....

-Jim Carroll

 http://www.catholicboy.com/index.php

 

It is your work in life that is the ultimate seduction.

-Pablo Picasso

Called out in

the dusk of the night

almost as if I'd

hoped to light

some weary corner of me

with just one word to confirm

the light of me

Filled out with

the gathering shade

drawing in

feeling so frail

so ill at ease

almost afraid

to think to much

as it would shatter

the calm of touch

 

Old Album Reviews

Brave New World

I can't help but think of a term thrown around in the seventies when I hear Kid A: Future Shock. The idea was that modern technology was transforming our society at such speed that the world one was born into would bear little resemblance to the one of his/her adulthood. While "OK Computer" outwardly attacked the homogenization of modern society, "Kid A" works its way inside-out from the belly of the beast; here, Radiohead captures the language of isolation, and expresses the apathy, the ennui, and, finally, the repressed violence of a lost generation.
"Kid A" is set in a very different context from "OK Computer," embracing keyboard sounds, filters, computer processing: this furthers the overall metaphor by placing more distance between the listener and the artist. "Soundscape" is a term thrown around when people refer to this CD. The songs are set into large, open musical spaces that give a drifting feeling to all the songs; this effect is brought foward in the instrumental "Treefingers" as a strong expression of helplessness. "Treefingers" is a bridge between "Kid A's" primary section, which is more contemplative and complacent, and the secondary, dealing more with anger and violence aimlessly escaping into its evironment of complacency. "How to Dissapear Completely's" refrain "I'm not here, this isn't happening" is a disassociation from the world and from one's self. It's mirror image, "Idiotecque" rebels against this in its warning "We're not scaremongering, this is really happening;" the voice now looks with fear and hatred.
What begins in the lines of "Everything in its right place/yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon" (ie a good, organized life in which one feels a nagging sense of incompletion) later comes to terms in Morning Bell: "You can keep the furniture, A bump on the head...Where'd you park the car? Clothes are on the lawn..." A divorce scenario ("Cut the kids in half") describes the breakdown of and breakaway from modern institutions and societal pressures.
This might seem ridiculously analytical, but Kid A is that kind of CD. As "Everything..." concludes "There are two colors in my head:" the noise of modern society, of modern living, fills our minds all the time, and is often at odds with itself. Radiohead attempts to come to terms with this dichotomy, or, perhaps, decides, "I think you're crazy, maybe..."

Nothing Else Sounds Quite Like This

The Japanese indie band Ghost are something of an enigma to me: the word is that they live as gypsies all across Japan, thus embodying the hippie spirit conveyed in their psychodelic albums. Lama Rabi Rabi is the strongest of their cds; a compelling mixture of psychodelic rock and roll, ambient world-folk balladry, and jazz-like musicality.
The opening track, "Masttillah," is an 8-minute drone that feels like a hashish den tucked away in Tangiers; then the title track cuts in with its rythmic chorus chanted repeatedly. "Into the Alley" is a gorgeous ballad with acoutic guitar echoing into the distance. The rest of the album is a blend of electric guitars that feel like they came right from Led Zeppelin I, mythic flutes blowing faintly in the distance, and ambient percussion and found sounds. "Marrakech" and "Mex Square Blue" stand out for thier very clever compositions and impeccable production. "My Hump is a Shell" serves as an interlude and uses a theremin against a gentle acoustic guitar. The album then winds down and rounds off with "Agate Scape," a lush, jazzy piece showcasing Masaki Batoh's haunting voice and melody, as well as the etherial piano playing that comes to amazing climax. Remarkably, this cd goes from point A to B with such grace that one almost forgets the shifts in style it makes!
While all of Ghost's albums are worth a listen, this one really shines as a coherent work of great songwriting and awesome production, with each song working off the others to create its own time and space.

The Dao of Sade

Probably the most remarkable element of Sade's albums (and what sets her albums apart from the "smooth jazz" moniker), is what is not played instead of what is played. "Stronger..." maybe the best example of this "less is more" aesthetic, and denotes the band's broadening musical palette.
The title track is sort of a thesis for the album: minimal percusion, subtle vocals harmonies, and the controled use of guitar and keyboards create a certain atmosphere, a feeling of tropical islands and breezes. "Nothing Can Come Between Us" is a good example Sade's simple (in a good way) lyrical potency: "in the middle of the madness/
when the time is running out/ and you're left alone/ all i want is you to know that/ it's strong still/ can't pull us apart." It also introduces some gospel and blues themes. There's the gorgeous "Haunt Me," which does just that with its lush piano. My favorite is "Give It Up;" it has such a subtle build up, and then layers the lyric elements in such a perfect way.
Not to say the album doesn't have its duds. "Clean Heart's" soft elegance borders on monotonous (plus, I've never been a fan of her "social conscience" songs). "Turn my Back on You" is a rather limp attempt at funk, though the guitar rift is pretty cool. And "siempre hay esperanza," well, I think I've skipped this song every time I listen the album, so there you go.
Still, all in all, this is really the first album where the Sade sound came into adulthood, and its uncommon depth amazes me (as it accomplishes it so subtly). So few in rock and pop understand how to use negative space in their music; Sade is one of the masters of that technique.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/ASI4XTK4TFAER/ref=cm_cr_dp_pdp

Sono Luminus

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NjO7fR6FGQ

I never thought that I would reach you
Though I've been searching for oh so many years
This place I am seems unfamiliar
But there's a light to break through all my fears

Still, time and time again
I'm looking for the love
The one that can inspire

Lift me higher
High as heaven can be
Sono luminus
Love is here
Where it always will be
Deep inside of us
I'm looking out into the distance
The sound of thunder is rolling in my head
The sky is stretching out before me
Thanks for today, everything is blessed

So here we go again
Searching for the truth
Until the twelfth of never

Lift me higher [Higher]
High as heaven can be
Sono luminus
[Love can move a mountain][Yes there's nothing that it can't do]
Love is here
Where it always will be
Deep inside of us
[Love will fill the darkness when you're gone]

Lift me higher [Higher] [Love can move a mountain]
High as heaven can be [Yes there's nothing that it can't do]
Sono luminus
[Love can move a mountain][Yes there's nothing that it can't do]
Love is here [Love will fill the darkness when you're gone]
Where it always will be
Deep inside of us
[Love will fill the darkness when you're gone]
Lift me higher [Higher] [Love can move a mountain]
High as heaven can be [Yes there's nothing that it can't do]
Sono luminus [Love will fill the darkness when you're gone]