Icarus in the clouds # 2

Forty years is a long time to take to write a song, but having found a forty-year old scrap of paper with some lyrics on it I have done just that. Bit of a record for me, really, but I have to say I am quite surprised by the result. Perhaps not so much the lyrical content, and that may change in time, but at least I got it finished. And now I am recording it, although its a bit rough here in this scratch version:

Icarus in the clouds # 1

Head in hand, head in cloud, thoughts drifting between lucidity and puzzlement is a common place for me to be. I am puzzled by how the USA and the UK can mobilise an army huge enough to invade Iraq, twice, and Afghanistan, with virtually no warning and yet we can't get ourselves into disaster zones quick enough to stop more people dying. The Philippines is just one example. For goodness sake we are still trying to help Haiti sort itself out and its right next door to Guantanamo Bay - go figure. Perhaps if they spoke English rather than French and Creole we might react differently.

If I had a helicopter I would fill it up with water rice and beans and fly them to the Philippines

The news is on now and they are talking about the desperation, I've just had my eyes tested, a B12 and a flu jab, and now I feel so bloody middle class. Neruda writes:

Comes a time I'm tired of being a man… I don't want for myself so many misfortunes I don't want to keep on as root and tomb, alone, subterranean, in a vault stuffed with corpses, frozen stiff, dying of shame...

I probably need to get my head out of these clouds.

Icarus wondering # 5

I have just seen an article I wrote in a mad 3-4 hour burst of writing energy http://www.textjournal.com.au/speciss/issue22/content.htm (thank you Jen, Donna and Sandra eds) I am not quite sure how they come out that way. I mean all those quotations and ideas that always seem to be at hand because I rarely reach further than my own shelves above my desk for books - and if I am honest I fit the article around what I can access at the time. Yikes, should I say that? But I guess all these things are just a way of explaining how I see it. Or is it me - maybe I have a ghostwriter, an inner presence that uses my eyes and typing skills, it is possible. Yesterday I received a review of my book, Here Comes the Bogeyman, which was also written in a huge burst of energy. The reviewer said, 'There is an irreverence to Melrose’s writing style that is consistent throughout the work and may be found in his use of jokes, comments placed inside parentheses and exclamation marks... Melrose’s engaging writing style and useful marriage of scholarship and creativity mean that both the student of children’s literature and the aspiring writer of children’s fiction will be relieved that Melrose did, eventually, find a pencil.'

- oh yay - someone who got it, understood it, that, me, my work, the way I work, oh yay to that - do I need that? Of course I do, you are damn right I do, everyone who writes needs approval. Time for this, I guess, desk-dancing to Salif Keita, there is no better moment than after a good review, they don't come every day (thank goodness, I would hate to be happy all of the time):