The Comb

You are the honey
The sweet essence of the flowers
Distilled by hungry honeybees
For their beloved Queen
Saved in a jar to drizzle
On toast or flavor
An exotic Greek morsel
A comb still floating in the pot
A hundred chambers of life therein
Each filled with the loving labor
Of a thousand brave bees

Clifton Goodwin
Autumn Twenty Twelve

Luna

Luna

The moon is a judge at midnight,
An angry parent, disappointed teacher
Telling us important truths that we mustn't forget
I will outlive you mortal,
You haven't many turns of my face
A thousand at most, so Go! Live! Shine!
Don't waste another second of moonlight!

Clifton Goodwin
Autumn Twenty Twelve

Not Love You?

Love you? How could I not?
How could I learn to train my heart to pale,
to turn away from beauty?
To shrivel in its thumping to a shadow of life,
to form the word NO
for the heart is made to dream,
the heart IS dreams
and my heart dreams and calls and cries and swoops for you

Clifton Goodwin
Autumn Twenty Twelve

Walking

Lost, he walks the earth alone.
He doesn't quite know how he lost her,
What was done or said or meant,
He couldn't recreate the steps
That led so far away from her,
Did he lose her, or she lost him?
Why are they now so far apart?
Was something unforgivable?
A heart betrayed, a harsh truth made him fail?

Maybe they weren't meant to be,
Maybe she was never his,
Maybe fear trumped courage cold
Or passion died in arms of lies
The million ways a love can die
Have left him all bewildered, lost
And she is silent now.

Clifton Goodwin
Autumn Twenty Twelve

Primary Colours by The Horrors

Stately, haunting church bells, misty washes of synthesizers, this is the becalmed beginning of this stunning record. A minute, ninety seconds of peace and yes it is going to be disturbed. An insistent drumming comes up through the floorboards of the chapel, the bass player wakes up with the melody while a guitar seems to be playing backwards. The main synth line runs bright major-key blips up the stairs to the belfry and back down again before the shattering drum and chainsaw lead guitar crash through the stained glass windows. Faris Badwan wakes up in his black velvet lined coffin and starts singing about you needing to leave a beautiful woman, telling you to "let her memory die, walk out into the night." The loss is borne by you, he's very detached even in the midst of this roller coaster of a song. He's detached from the proceedings throughout the album actually, with the exception of the moment on Who Can Say where he dumps his girlfriend, kissing her "with a kiss that could only mean goodbye." On other parts of the album he might well be singing from Ian Curtis' grave. The music is a wonderful blend of the weary, haunted introspection of The Psychedelic Furs, the inventive intriguing rhythm section interplay of Joy Division and a lot of the splashes of the shimmering glow that My Bloody Valentine captured in the studio. The titles of Three Decades and New Ice Age are particularly overt in reverent reference to the legacy of Joy Division, the bass and tambourine intro to I Only Think of You is very mindful of the JD song New Dawn Fades or The Psychedelic Furs' Sister Europe while the last half of Scarlet Fields could almost BE an MBV song. Lots of shoegazer synth candy to digest on the record, like the sonic wall of guitars on Do You Remember and the beautiful central musical theme of the title track. <br>
The last track, Sea Within A Sea takes the beautiful grooves laid down by Neu! and Kraftwerk and sails them "across the shallows" to the end of this brilliant record.

Poem : music...

Music of the Heart

A bell chimes ever in my heart
Or sometimes strums a box guitar
An angel's chorus sings on high
Or a child singing a lullaby
I seldom ever hear the words
I only know the steady beat
Sometimes the music plays a verse
And then your name's the chorus, repeat
Until your name's the song in whole
Your name is all I need to hear
Your love song playing in my soul
Your own sweet voice sings love clear

Clifton Goodwin
Autumn Twenty Twelve