if i was a pearl i’d feel itchy scratchy stuck inside an oyster shell if i was a tree i’d  be a big fat redwood fantasizing about Julia Butterfly Hill living and peeing around me if i was a dog i’d be a Catahoula hound if i was Italian i’d be Sicilian if i was pasta i’d be spaghetti if i was Icelandic i’d be Bjork if i was a rock star i’d be Elvis Presley Bob Dylan Jimi Hendrix Jim Morrison John Lennon Bruce Spingsteen Maynard James Keenan if i was i writer i’d be Herman Melville Mark Twain James Joyce William Faulkner Thomas Bernhard Yukio Mishima Naguib Mahfouz Phillip K. **** Gabriel Garcia Marquez Annie Proulx Lydia Davis if i was a poet i’d be Walt Whitman Sylvia Plath Ted Hughes Gwendolyn Brooks Pablo Neruda  Heather McHugh Carl Sandburg Robert Frost Arthur Rimbaud Dante Alighieri Homer if i was a painter i’d be Leonardo Da Vinci Michelangelo da Caravaggio Johan Vermeer Rembrandt van Rijn Paul Cezanne Marcel Duchamp Jackson ******* Mark Rothko Ad Reinhardt Anselm Kiefer Susan Rothenberg if i was a photographer i’d be Man Ray Ansel Adams Edward Weston Diane Arbus Robert Mapplethorpe Sally Mann Helmut Newton Richard Avedon Annie Leibovitz if i was a philosopher i’d be Socrates Plato Aristotle Jean Jacques Rousseau Sören Kierkegaard Immanuel Kant Karl Marx Georg Hegel Friedrich Nietzsche Henry David Thoreau Ralph Waldo Emerson  Jean-Paul Sartre Jean Baudrillard Michel Foucault if i was a singer i’d be Woody Guthrie Otis Redding Grace Slick Bob Marley Joni Mitchell Marvin Gaye Johnny Cash Patsy Cline June Carter Patti Smith Chrissie Hinde Nick Cave P J Harvey Beyonce if i wa a band i’d be Velvet Underground Ramones *** Pistols Clash Cure Smiths Joy Division Uncle Tupelo Pixies Nirvana Nine Inch Nails Madrugada Sigur Ros White Stripes Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra Justice of the Unicorns if i was a boot i’d be Chippewa Frye Ariat Red Wing Tony Lama Wellington if i was a shoe i’d be Christian Louboutin Jimmy Choo Kedds Chaco Chuck Taylor p f flyer if i was a dress i’d be Channel Dolce & Gabbanna Giorgio Armani Marc Jacobs Comme des Garçons if i was a cowboy shirt i’d be H bar C Rockmount Temp Tex Karman Wrangler Levis Strauss Lee if i was a hat i’d be a Stetson Borsalino Stephen Jones if i was a fruit i’d be a mango apple banana blackberry if i was an scent i’d smell like fresh perspiration jasmine sandalwood ylang ylang the ocean if i was a doctor i’d be a gynecologist neurosurgeon if i was a flower i’d be a hibiscus rose orchard if i was a stone i’d be a sparkling ruby diamond opal if i was a knife i’d be a k-bar switch-blade machete if i was a gun i’d be a Remington Winchester Beretta Glock AK-47 if i was a car i’d be a Lamborghini Ferrari BMW Saab Volkswagen GTO Ford Mustang Dodge Challenger if i was a  TV show i’d be Law and Order if i was actor i’d be Charlie Chaplin Humphrey Bogart Steve McQueen Robert De Niro Ed Norton Shawn Penn if i was an actress i’d be Marlene Dietrich Ingrid Bergman Natalie Wood Audrey Hepburn Marilyn Monroe Helen Mirren  Meryil Streep Brigette Fonda Robin Wright Julianne Moore Angie Harmon if i was a female comedian i’d be Gilda Radner Lily Tomlin Nora Dunn Joan Cusack Sarah Silverman Tina Fey if i was a  football player i’d be Sid Luckman George Blanda Walter Payton **** Butkus Mike Singletary Joe Montana Jerry Rice Payton Manning LaDanian Tomlinson  Drew Breeze if i was a celebrity i’d be Charlotte Gainsbourg if i was a rapper i’d be Tupac Shakur if i was a movie director i’d be Sam Peckinpah Robert Altman Stanley Kubrick Roman Polanski Werner Herzog Rainer Fassbinder Louis Bunuel Alfred Hitchcock Jean-Luc Godard François Truffaut if i was a bird i’d be a eagle hawk sparrow bluebird if i was a fish i’d be a dolphin shark narwhal Charlie the tuna if i was breakfast i’d be a French toast pancake folded in half with 2 strips of bacon in between if i was a cold cereal i’d be snap crackle popping rice crispies shredded wheat cheerios oatmeal if i was tea i’d be Japanese green matcha Irish breakfast Tulsi Thai holy basil Lapsang souchong Luzianne Lipton if i was a soap i’d be French hand milled ayurvedic Avon Ivory Dove Pears Aveda  if i was a man i’d be a football basketball baseball tennis swimmer athlete if i was a woman i’d be a track star runner writer painter gardener doctor nurse yoga mom i'm just scratching the surface and the beat goes on lahdy dah dah

Johan you are my favourite poem
Of illusion
Memory and dreams
Of victory and in it defeat
Johan you are the poem
That's bigger than my heart
That's at the mercy of God
The power of prayer
You are my honour and bravery
My sickness and disease
You are the poem
Between twilight and dusk
With sleepy eyes
The one I wake to
My day and night
Johan
You are my favourite poem
Of art and music
With almond honey eyes
And dark curls
The poem about
The thrum of a pulse
The one I'm closest to
Like the moon drowning in the sea

i used to be, what you might call husband material, and i stress that i used to be; i can count the number of girlfriends i had with one hand, no relationship lasting long enough to celebrate anniversaries.

i moved up in life, i'm still drinking
a £10.80 bottle of scot club whiskey,
but the mixer has been upgraded from
a £0.17 bottle of coca cola to a £0.55
bottle... and noticeable differences,
waking up with a hangover i used to
drink up the leftover mixer in the afternoon
(obviously the mix to get rid of insomnia
is really effective - naproxen is a more
effective version of paracetamol;
and in relation to the poem
*rock bottom england, everyone's
abusing antibiotics these days,
people are making viruses cleverer,
all this darwinism against theology
has made us teach darwinism to viruses,
one cough, one sneeze and you're dead),
so yeah, conjunction usage like a comedian
on a stage, you never know what you're
going to say next, a bit like an r.e.m.
gimmick salute to nirvana, about
how many times you can say yeah in a song
(man on the moon, smells like teen spirit,
indeed i'm in that age bracket if you're asking,
i know more about steve tyler than swift tailor),
anyway... what was i saying?
oh yeah, the £0.17 bottle of coca cola is
over-fizzy, they jazzed things up with excess gas,
too much carbon dioxide,
it's too acidic,
i know because yesterday i bought
a bottle of pepsi, drank it today
and i didn't get heartburn... well, serves you
right for buying the cheap **** i thought,
so i upgraded to the £0.55 bottle
and guess what... no excess fizz!
but that's how it goes, the best albums
to listen to when walking in english suburbia
are burial's untrue album,
very experimental dub-step that's not really
about dabbling in a pigeon or chicken strut,
i.e. no "drop" that's a signature of drum & bass...
and susumu yokota's grinning cat,
both albums work perfectly with the illumination
on suburban streets of essex
(oh look, urbanity - consciousness -
suburbia - subconsciousness -
the countryside - the unconscious);
so the talk in the supermarket was
a guy stacking freezer products damning it
all with, quote: 'money is the vilest of evils
of this world',
true that i said out-loud walking back to
the automated cashiers with another £1.50
bottle of amstel beer...
england was playing the Netherlands
and was winning one nil,
a bad joke about the flatlands
and how the dutch were good when
johan cruyff played, getting to the final
in 1974 losing to west germany,
and how the germans cheated playing
in unplayable circumstances with poland
in a bog rather than a pitch, the rain man,
the swift polish players were no match
on a dry pitch, with the german heavy cavalry;
so then on the walk i peer into this one house,
a massive blue aquarium in it,
Poseidon's wallet... and i thought...
was i rich enough to own a house,
or if i were to be like a moralising Confucius,
teacher of humanity, i'd replace all
modern fireplaces that televisions are,
and install aquariums in every household.

The author has a story to tell
whether its romance, fiction
poetry or horror
in his own mind is where he will dwell

So many topics to choose from
drama, comedy
non-fiction, or on life
he wants to be greatest not just hum drum

To grasp his readers attention
and coming back for more
he takes  you on a journey
for this is his authentic invention

The sweet sounds of Johan Sebastian Bach
His story has only begun
a beginning of a tale
it must be firm but yet solid as a rock

Weather he writes a poem or a book
placing you in with his words
that are penned
he captures you with his  rod reel and hook

He sits back and takes a drink
wine or beer
brandy or whiskey
he gives himself time to think

The author has only one fear
not writers cramp
or running out of ideas
just the dead line as it draws near

He tries his best to stay on the beaten trail
not to lose his train of thought
he stays on point
for he knows he cannot fail

As the deadline comes to a cease
he over looks his work
kisses the pages
for he completed his masterpiece

Eight Thousand and twenty games it took
before Howie could put it in the books.
There was, here and there,
a base on *****.
One desperate catch against the wall.
One possibly disputed call,
but Johan Santana got them all..

Bob Murphy would have loved this night
The Park in Queens alive with cheers.
Fans walking out in a gentle rain
with his happy recap in their ears.

I'm gone Bach to decompose
what took me a lifetime to
orchestrate ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~




Johan Sebastien Return
1685 – 1750

I often choose Schubert and not Beethoven though he revered the latter so much.

He achieved sublimity without having to assert unlike Beethoven.
His music is more tender and gentle but it touches the very core of our heart in every measure while Beethoven insisted that his music must be heard..

Schubert was humble and congenial but Beethoven was wild, irascible and hurtful.  If there were gratitude, look to the life of Schubert who owed so much financially to his faithful friends.  

Schubert almost never performed in public--only twice unlike Beethoven.  Greatness can be defined in many ways. In music, I admire the life and personality of the composer as much as his music.  

Mozart was a master of melodies and Schubert was equal. Who could write over 600 lieder?  Dvorak was a great melodist like Tchaikovsky but there's only one Schubert.

Why did I not mention Johan Staruss junior and the other Strausses?  Their music is mainly ball-room music, to be heard for the moment, pleasurable but speaks little or nothing of the larger issues of human existence--they were great but of much lighter weight. I would die for the longing of Schubert's  but certainly not of the Strausses'.

  Some of you might not agree. I live in Melb, a music-lover.  
  Music is my religion