Five Prephases + Chuck the Duck by Antares

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Part One of a 5-part tone poem written by Antares (the entity formerly known as Kit Leee) at age 22. Resurrected 42 years later as a spoken word project with funky background music by Shpongle & laptop visuals courtesy of Windows Media Player. Thanks, Russell Duffy & Steven Schwarz, for causing me to dredge up my paleoanthropological past for public display. It gave me orgasmic pleasure. Poetry may well be the ultimate form of solitary vice :)

Prephase I

Hail to the power of the printed word
All hail the permanency of the press!
Ah but how evanescent the jewel vision in the mystic lotus...
This is the chronicle of a bubble bursting in the ooze of Chronos:
A word portrait of an old man's waste matter.
And now, for the plot.

Prephase II

There is no furniture in my mind.
I can't sit down anywhere for a smoke.
I can't find a couch upon which to confess my complexes.
I am not at home.
Home as we know it is where the heart is.
My heart might be in my stomach.
On a transplant bench.
On a valentine card.
It ought to be on earth
We're ready to believe that much.
Well, my ears are on my face, and that's a fact
As far as I can tell.
But my face, I've left it in too many mirrors.
Mirrors are easily broken.
Like faces.

Life, feces, forces, lost in the crack of glassy doom
At the back of the classroom.

Prephase III

My mind is a white room.
A black light shines.
Weird phenomenon.
My soul is a darkness
Where a white light dwells.
I am day and night.
In a night and a day one could be all Time.
Which isn't much.
Because Time runs out.
Sandflow beachtide hourglass soon gone.

Here's Part Two...

 

Prephase IV 

Size is no measure of volume.
One is not less than many.
When one becomes many, many become small.
When small, one is a little too many.
And many are none at all.
Oh what a sudden wonderment you underwent
When you discovered the truth about digits.
Never have you felt dumber or number
Knowing that there are giants and there are midgets.
And that size is no measure of volume.

Here's something else to ponder:
Mass doesn't really matter.
The key to the mystery
Is velocity.

Prephase V

Watch where you put your foot.
Don't let the firm ground fool you.
The land yawns.
Your tracks are sucked into the canyons of undersea
Emptinesses.

You are here by courtesy of the Cosmos, Inc.
Don't insult our presence.
Your absence of faith is a truancy of the spirit.

But hold it!
It's a bit too late
To quit.

[Written in 1972. First published 1994 in MOTH BALLS, scatological & eschatological poems collected over nearly 30 years]



In 1970, I wrote this bit of doggerel never suspecting that 20 years later, this sort of staccato rhyming by free association would explode into a global art-form called rapping or hip-hop. The title was inspired by the late Charles E. Gaunt III, my drama teacher, nicknamed Chuck the Duck.

Of course, I can't lay claim to having invented the rap form. According to Wikipedia, "rapping can be traced back to its African roots. Centuries before hip hop music existed, the griots of West Africa were delivering stories rhythmically, over drums and sparse instrumentation. Such connections have been acknowledged by many modern artists, modern day griots, spoken word artists, mainstream news sources, and academics."

Anyway, 'Chuck the Duck' was turned into a hip-hop number by the versatile and talented Rafique Rashid - back in the days when we used to hang out together. He still has the original 4-track cassette master. The cassette dub he made for me has yet to be digitized, so I can't upload it online.

A few years later, in 2001, the prestigious Australian a capella Song Company, under the baton of Roland Peelman, actually premiered 'Chuck the Duck' as a six-part polyphonic fugue in Kuala Lumpur. 

How on earth did this happen? Roland Peelman had commissioned Malaysian avant-garde composer Saidah Rastam to contribute an original work to the Song Company repertoire - and, of all things, Saidah decided to use 'Chuck the Duck' as the libretto for her astonishingly witty masterpiece. 

CHUCK THE DUCK 

how now laotse maotse cowboy tung taodung
need ye grow olde if you never been jung
why sigh fakeye take a break snakeye
recall being born forget to die
bake a cake stay awake cry for joy
O! blakeye

shout aloud jump about fall on your rump
pigs roast slowest that are most plump
cook a plot write a book rob a crook run riot
keep quiet look tired don't sleep go on diet
smart tart twit her twat now what
don't fart

big ben beats crime pleasemen cheat time
peahen eats grime in the pigpen
bleed greed breed weed feed your mind
go blind grow grass quit the line feel fine
smoke a toke don't choke vat 69's no joke
ice floe nice shmoe g.i. joe gung ho
edgar poe deathrow

now bow say grace meow ratrace great place powwow flatface
tightroped pooped pope wallops trollops in the craptrap
rubin rude rapes bob hope & raps the cape of good dope
grunt grope chomp chow chew bread it's homemade
dull as lead get weighed your shell be shed
your soul be free so flee fly flow fled
go right ahead mister blister my sister
who can resist her she's such a sprightly maid
but don't sue me if you don't get laid

the mayor learned his trade well
the player played the part swell
they made their cellmates burn in hell

blue petulance expels true flatulence propels
your dad poohpoohs smells bad he's a cad
sells your mum to alan ladd
mum's glum dad's sad you're mad we're glad
platypus flatus & oedipus status are to blame
shame shame! captain ahab's bladder's inflamed
and jacob's ladder can't take the strain
it'll crack that's a fact you'll land smack whackthwack
on your backside & spill your brains
what a pain it's insane too much! you'll be crippled & lame
as such you'll need a crutch:

maurice suggests you stop your game
horace requests a change of name
but boris professes you'll be the same

everything's done where's the fun? there's none
every song to sing's sung every pun to spin's spun
honkytonky monkspunk anybawdy anynun granny franny
jurisprufrock's earthquacker in hanniballoon crunch
sanny franny petticrockers crisco crackers
for cannibaboon brunch
think of gin sink in gum drink some rum dream of rintintin

all's fair balls square scream in fright uptight delight
in lassie's breath & aleph beth
henry stanley & livingstone's bones
huge rods huger cones buck jones &
being alone with death

flint splinter frog frigger
dread fred be bold don't enrol feel blue
see red lose your head regain control
prayers said so stay in bed
flip flop plip plop gyrotop wobbles
stops & drops down manhole &
polecats tapdance on tiptoe
with pipco tadpoles
click clock bloody cop with hickory cock
goebbels shit hot in the pit of the pot of
the ruddy rotten ruck
fuck ladyluck!
get sucked
get pluck come unstuck
let yourself be struck
dead
chuck the duck

[1970]

As featured on this beautiful double CD from the Song Company released in early 2014. 

 

The Creation of Justice by Charlotte Rodgers

Charlotte Rodgers is the author of, 'The Bloody Sacrifice and 'P is for Prostitution: A Modern Primer.'  She also conceived and co-edited, 'A Contemporary Western Book of the Dead', Charlotte is an artist who creates spiritually directed art works from road kill and found objects.

The Ridlee by Steven Schwarz

The Riddlee

The Riddlee asked the Riddler
“Oh won’t you riddle me?
that I may pass from hence to thence
upon the Count of Three?”

“Just one riddle,” the Riddlee said
“no less nor even more
that I may move along the groove
that leads to the Earl of Four.”

Quoth the Riddler to the Riddlee
“A riddle I’ll contrive
that you may travel across this gravel
towards the Duke of Five.”

“For Fuck’s sake,” quoth the Riddlee
“Quit your stupid tricks
time is fleeting; I’m late for my meeting
with the Marquis at Six!”

The Riddler grinned an evil grin
and counted to eleven
but all four nought: he stopped three short
upon Viscount of Seven.

The Riddlee pondered for a while
then said “I’ll tell you straight:
just add one, now I must run
to meet the Baron Eight.”

Steven Schwarz is a self-styled "unemployed pantheist, provocative iconoclast, abusive solipsist, and failed psychopath." He has written on three and a half continents -- lately in Australia, surrounded by gum-trees and funnelweb spiders. With no visible means of support other than an over-inflated ego, he continues to defy the Second Law of Thermodynamics, leanings towards chaos notwithstanding.

Signs, by Lorna Wood

This poem was first read and published on Untitled, with Passengers.

Lorna Wood is a violinist and independent scholar in Auburn Alabama. She has a Ph. D. in English from Yale University and has published essays on British and American literature. Recently she placed her homeschooled children in the Cleveland Institute of Music and Auburn High School’s International Baccalaureate Program.

The Spoken Word

In the 1990s, the poetry scene in the United States saw an increased interest in spoken word poetry. This, however, was not the first emergence of spoken word. Spoken word, or poetry spoken aloud, was pioneered in the days of troubadours and storytellers who would recite their poetry aloud to gain recognition. It was not until the invention of the printing press that the emphasis on performance poetry shifted to publishing because of the possibility of increasing the works’ availability. Again, in the 1950s and 1960s, spoken word was revived. The Beats began using spoken word to express their anti-academic beliefs, and their dislike of societal norms. Then spoken word slipped under the mainstream radar again, until the 1990s.

The strong, aggressive and, frank style of poetry in the 1990s caused for another surfacing of spoken word in mainstream society. Unlike The Beats, this emergence of spoken word was not necessarily politically driven. This movement focused more on increasing diversity among its performers, reaching out inspiring amateur practitioners, and sending messages of positivity and tolerance. In short, the movement was about bringing poetry back to the people. Poets such as Maggie Estep, Reg E. Gaines, Henry Rollins, John S. Hall and Dana Bryant each gained acclaim as spoken word artist as the art form made it to the television screen. MTV took notice of this demand for spoken word entertainment in the mid 1990s. MTV created a television show “Spoken Word Unplugged” to showcase major talents of the movement, but the flame fizzled before a massive interest could take hold. Most of the performers of the generation have branched out into other fields, notably novel writing.

Having struggled to re-ignite this blog sites focus, trying to steer it toward a still floundering sub-genre, whilst retaining the art of collagist Michael Leigh and supremo poet Roger Steven's input, finally, still nascent in its workings, things are starting to blossom.

Dearie? No, a different gal completely, far more truculent and difficult to motivate.

With a host of 'named poets' on board (yes, they not only have the gift of words they have names too) such as Jennifer K Dick and David Caddy, we now have joining us others of a more experimental bent.

Coming soon the words of Anthony Donovan, he of Murmurists notoriety, as read by David 'my beards a small principality' Cunliffe, the shimmering elegance and modantique eloquence of Doriandra Smith, one half of Balkh but also Egle Oddo who, currently on third amend, is still beavering away.

The sutra is bright, the furniture is porridge. 

John Hegley - I Need You

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"Mister Myth" by Inconsequential

"Passing the Cross" by Lisa Dabrowski

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Russell CJ Duffy reads 'Dots on the Page'

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Russell C.J Duffy is a writer and blogger. Known for his ribald stories of life in a fictional Wessex village - "The Village Tales of Fekenham Swarberry. He is also the editor of spoken word poetry site 'Something For The Weekend, Sir?' When not sleeping he is writing.

Rap by Antarma Djembe

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Bringing Hearts together with the voice and the drum  Antarma has played sounds at many different location at the royal albert hall with alex boye opening for olivia newton john, the sanderson hotel  @ The British Film Institute BFI on south bank waterloo as part of Refugee in film festival10/11/2012
At a Private Birthday party in Stoke Newisngton 4/11/2012, A featured Artist FREEDOM BEATS @D’Gaf Stratford 03/11/2012 , performed at Energize London @ The Chelsea Theatre 02/11/2012, featured Artist At Softly Spoken Word @ The Queens Head in Picadilly Circus 01/11/2012  and on the same day Performed live on air and was interviewed on live Radio station on the Bar Etica show at extramusical.com also freestyling with the dub lion dub selecta live on air…on that same morning Antarma played at the C.a.f.e in coldharbour lane brixton for a musical workshop, on the 31/10/2012 he performed the Harrow Arts Centre as part of the Refugee Youth Halloween Celebration, on the 28/10/2012He performed at an African Heritage day for black history month at the Harry Caddick Community Centre in Camberwell.