RICHARD THOMPSON BAND AT THE DOME
(9 March 2003)

we sail from a fair port
to convene
a music of islands
where minutes thread seconds
from calm to pounding breaker


a blue guitar
blue as inlets
pulls the wind’s breath
through the sigh of a flute
while drums listen for the tide


rhythm gathers from loose
skimming
jazz-tender skiffs
breaking shells
from voice to shout
curling strings
spitting
the sun back into the sky


drums thicken
sweet mandolin frenzy
shrieks
to acoustic bass
deep keeled
tail drunk among shoals


and colour thunders
as light
sweeps sound before it
an audience awash
in salt float billows and swells

a thousand musical hearts
making pearls




GILLIAN WELCH AND DAVE RAWLINGS
play St George’s Church, August 2003

guitar angels spread hot wings
on an altar of sky blue light
that swirls lifts falls into
the heart of the church

chords glow water slipping colour
that touches feels
heads necks frets
a mist that knows
the furthest reaches of her voice


flat flying sing and pick
his guitar breathes in moons
swirling lifting falling
squeezing note from gut
scooping
the hole’s heart from the wood
from lungs swelling bursting
with escaping light that
swirls lifts falls
sky blue sunlight
into the furthest reaches of the night





TOM RUSSELL AND ANDREW HARDIN
(at the Greys, 7 July 2003)

low fires flicker
on the mirrors of his dark glasses

his voice draws muscle and thickens
a rising river gorge taking whole trees in its flood

green branches spring back thirsty and strong
their tips curl high in the air

while the undertow pulls mountains
from the edge of desert

border spray flies from Andy’s guitar
Spanish ruffles and heels knuckle and drum

white beaches are bone
blue sky the skin holding until

cloud meets wind in voice soaked collusion
drenching the rain in low fires

water swirls and stills
the delta settles





GEOFF MULDAUR
(at the Greys, May 2003)

milk pools into cream
split of honey to butter
fattening without churn

voice sting slivers
cool ice in a bucket
crystals whiten soften

warm yellow rising
buttermilking through muslin
curd thickened murmur

Blind Lemon’s grave is warm and clean





MUSIC

music deepens in the bone
smoothes wrinkles from the long quiet of night
and I abandon the shape of my clothing
to its fierce wash and flow

it moves through rib and tibia
hollowing their reeds with rivers of fire
years drop away
flesh wraps closer to the spinal cord

I glow in the dark
a skeleton dancing a percussion of bones
drumming on my own burial places
with a festive grin to a musical currency

of bones
box
dust
time’s pyre


© Jane Thorp 2004