Childe Rolandine

Dark was the day for Childe Rolandine the artist

When she went to work as a secretary- typist

And as she worked she sang this song

Against oppression and the rule of wrong:

It is the privilege of the rich

To waste the time of the poor

To water with tears in secret

A tree that grows in secret

That bears fruit in secret

That ripened falls to the ground in secret

And manures the parent tree

Oh the wicked tree of hatred and the secret

The sap rising and the tears falling.

Likely also, sang the Childe, my soul will fry in hell

Because of this hatred, while in heaven my employer does well

And why should he not, exacerbating though he be but generous

Is it his fault I must work at a work that is tedious?

Oh heaven sweet heaven keep my thoughts in their night den

Do not let them by day be spoken.

But then she sang, Ah why not? tell all, speak, speak,

Silence is vanity, speak for the whole truth’s sake.

And rising she took the bugle and put it to her lips, crying:

There is a Spirit feeds on our tears, I give him mine,

Mighty human feelings are his food

Passion and grief and joy his flesh and blood

That he may live and grow fat we daily die

This cropping One is our immortality.

Childe Rolandine bowed her head and in the evening

Drew the picture of the spirit from heaven.

Stevie Smith

driving music

history's door- husky
road regrets- dan mangan
memories & dust- josh pyke
feeling the pull- the swell season
the rain- the swell season

 ...some thing I've made recently. lots of colour for a change.


it's not my usual thing, but I volunteered for ms badge day today. it's interesting that as soon as you look like you're asking for money you can become quite invisible; even while wearing a bright red t-shirt. I'm not really about judging the generous or ungenerous (because I know there is more than my side of the story), but I found people's reactions interesting...

there's the people who want to do their good deed for the day, the people who nearly run in to you and then scurry off. the people who know someone who is sick or are sick themselves and the people who seem desperate to avoid your gaze. the woman emptying the spare change from her car and the people who look like they can't afford to give it away. there's the guy who pulls out a handful of change and then drops in a single twenty cent piece, the people who don't seem to have any idea what it's for but stuff a fiver in anyway, and the thirty-something on his phone who manages to chuck in some coins and nod as he rushes past...

my favourites are the kids who get given a coin by their parents, shyly drop it in the bucket and then smile when you thank them and hand them a sticker. I saw one boy later with his sticker stuck over his mouth like some sort of silent protestor...

anyway

did not expect to get all d&m here, but I reckon there's hope for the world if we can teach children to be generous and abandon the cynicism act occasionally in favour of caring indiscriminately.

...and there should always be stickers.

...and thus it was (I mostly just wanted to say 'thus')

some photos I took today in the alley by my house.

and the reason I am here, now, doing this: how to steal like an artist (thank you alex)