Voices is intended to be a collection of poems written and illustrated
by Mike Burr .
wave goodbye
idiosyncratic wave
primsy whimsy arching wave
breaking with your wave-face
in its wave-crest
overshadowing the volcano
as fire and and water war upon the earth
in Hokusai's definitive Japan
overwhelming destruction
followed by rebuilding
a deconstruction
a reconstruction
as in art
as in science
that follows the star of art and realises its dreams
often in malfeasance and hurt
waste and detritus are its fruit
only then the new things grow
and this is the realm of image i have of my father
first he worked hard for nothing
then made security for himself
and in those years scarred by massive war in Europe
he was one of the paranoid children
running scared and cowering
from the volcano
beneath the wave
as insecurity cast its long arc
and its long legs over that world
and its long hair and back
it trailed destruction
and then with the finality and efficiency of machines
all men died
or lived in fear
and were not men as they were designed to be
he may have wanted to leave me a legacy
probably a sound financial one
as if he hasn't already done enough
through years of obeisance and labour
anguish where the stresses were so great
he was sick in the mornings like an ancient pregnant girl
when birth also stood in the prospective shade of fear
well he struggled through it
and the good fortunes of chance
and hard work
saw him to decent retirement
my dad
he showed the kind of example
the obduracy of old age as he saw
the fires of death on the horizon
and tested the machine which he built in the early eighties
and we sent its notions off to get a patent
i was encouraging
not because a patent might equate to money
but because he would be able
to praise and be praised for his achievement
and the machine would be cheap enough
to power a humbler world
and so it proved except we didn't get a patent
and my dad was sanguine
and i was disappointed for him and his dedication
a vaguely similar idea was patented by Siemens in the mid seventies
though if they built it
they would have found the probable
but as yet unproven inefficiencies which racked my dads science
and caused him the many trials of isolation and mensuration
of the component parts that make the sum
this is the essence of analysis
when has the alchemists stone not been just a silly rock
my dad knows
attentiveness is the wife of charity
in this circumstance it is time
the gift of time
time shared
there can be no greater experience
and you must know that
to make these paintings and your books and your machines
many people have enjoined that caravan adventure
like gipsies across the wild and often dark places of prejudice
and carried with them the heavy baggage of experience
and in the end those prejudices have disappeared behind them
as they entered a new world and a new landscape
and passed that legacy of their journey on
that journey has to be made largely with other people
and of those relationships
the conflict and struggle has often been its sad motive power
and its on-marching burden
so we shared time
and when we were not sharing time
i was making first a book of pictures
then a book of poems
poems at the request
of some publishers
a whimsical
unhappy trouper sort of book
too stage and performance art
and not my book
but
then i made this book
my book
to share with time