Staccato Chromatic
13th June 1999, 6:07pm
At my desk, Perth
It's 24 and 9 and 6 and
your chromatic reassurances
are compelling but somehow
I think there's no colour
in mine, as unimportant as
that is at 24 and 9 and 6
Surely I'd like to share in
his lucidity though I feel
the optimal is sleep before
single notes in succession as
red and white and blue
fights stripes
You see what your four does?
staccato chromatic, a label
infinitely better than
the point of no return
purposeless words.
deconstruction...
Staccato Chromatic revolves around a CD by the Elektra String Quartet I was given by a friend. I enjoyed it, but the quality of the CD reminded me of the inferior quality of my own digital "music"... so I guess this is all about my own inferiority. Thank goodness I'm not that insecure anymore! The poem is filled with lots of obscure references:
"no colour in mine" is a comment on my own music, but also hints at the catchphrase for the old SyneRyder website at Geocities: .nocolournohorizon.
"His Lucidity" refers to the band Jacob's Dream, a Christian band I had been invited to see perform live, but I decided not to in case I did something that offended the crowd (I had fairly anti-christian sentiments at the time).
"Red and White and Blue fighting stripes" comes about since this was written during the war in Kosovo, which was getting heavy media coverage at the time. Red/White/Blue refers to the Serbian flag (I think? Or is it the Russian flag?) and Stripes refers to the flag of the USA... but it's written in such a way to try and suggest internal conflict between the separate parts of the US.
"A label" hints at the fact that Elektra is also the name of the record company that the electronic musician Moby used to be signed to.
"The point of no return" is a reference to the namesuppressed album Rubicon (crossing the Rubicon river was regarded as being the point of no return for the soldiers in some war I forget the name of....)
Don't bother asking me what "24 and 9 and 6" means - it's been so long since I wrote this that I've forgotten what that meant... but I note that this was written 39 days before my 19th birthday..
