You are at War with Yourself

you have followed yourself into battle; you have answered the call, the clamour of armour and the rising mists.  You have perceived the enemy, the enemy is you outside of you, the enemy is a mirror pointed at the sky like a lake of still reason reflecting the concept of emptiness, that owned by all eyes that you cannot understand without hatred.  The conscience is for the conquered, lost in the cries of the wounded and the stories of the dead – common sense carries no political weight, fact no truth,  the future was yesterday.  You are a war with yourself, there is no time to deliberate.  There is only one truth and it falls like a gavel crushing fact beneath it’s strike.  The truth speaks only one word; yours.  There is only one tactic and it is cheap.  There is a deliberate one move checkmate too radical to be considered by most, and un-defendable by those of charity.  You are at war with yourself.   The hatred oozes from every pore.  Black tides that wash away streets, faces, memories as the favoured moment is right now; the place where you exist elbow deep in blood, swinging the axe of conviction without hesitation because you say where the truth is facts even in the face of facts and life is nothing but the next objective.  You are at war with yourself,  your fields turn to mud.  Whistling arrows whisper mortalities we write poetry with the dull thud of rent meat.  The last breadth of conjecture spells your name, bodies just fall to the ground.  The objective is ahead.  You are at war with yourself.  The dead wear your closed, resting eyes.  You are at war with yourself.  What if you are wrong?   What if the wall always stands?  Always was?  Was always supposed to be?  What is the truth cannot simply overcome fact one day?  What if there is a price for everything, and we pay in the end?  Has the flag grown heavy in your hand, or heavy with your hand?  You are at war with yourself.  You must learn to take prisoners, and salvage something for yourself.

2010

*Commentary: “You are at War With Yourself”

Silly fool.  The Hawks live in the trees outside.  They commit genocide on the squirrels and rabbits every day.  I don’t see you waving a placard about that.  Do you protest outside city hall when skunks take over from the racoons?

Shut up and join the feast, or don’t complain about it.

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Proroguation: How would you like to see this resolved?

 

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Meanwhile in Hudson: Photos 2007-2008

 

Photo’Journalism?’

If a picture can be a thousand words, what could a series of pictures put to music do?  Perhaps the answer is in the numbers; stringing together angles on a photo when taking that photo isn’t necessarily a bad thing when if you take those angles and put them  back together in a slideshow.  I know that what I’m seeing is the perspective I was looking for when snapping the shots - and looking at this the full unedited version I see  a definite future in this practice.  I was even tempted at one point to start filling in the captions with lines that could make a completely random, however the perspectives are collected, poem.  Not perfection, but more like what you’re really looking at.  This is an intensely personal study of things - as the eyes look for something else in what’s there. How you see this defines your approach  - as much as seeing it for me made me realize what it was. 

 

Adding captions in the next one will be part of the process, but I like this one for that.

J.

 

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The Village Voice Hudson: Print Version

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Now available:  Stories you may not have heard in the News.

Open publication - Free publishing - More hudson

The @WebCrawler Series: Searching out Talent on the Internet

JennyM's album is available for download on her Facebook Page: Recordings from the Bright Side in 2008 Ada released their studio album "Leave That Town", a very polished piece of work, definitely worth a listen - and also a free download. You can get it at the website For a taste you can listen to selections from both albums on the Music Player on the Village Voice Hudson’s Main Page

Keep the Fire: Jenny.M You can find many things on the internet - there's an old saying that goes "there's a lace for every old boot" but let's face it; crawl around YouTube long enough you'll get bored of the drab videos people upload of themselves doing various things - while everyone and their brother has a band on MySpace, and will spam you to let you know just that. This can sensitize you to the true nature of the talent that is trying to break through out there in the opensource cyberworld where anyone can publish anything they want. Jen Mahon, a Barbadian artist who splits her time between Toronto and Barbados, is definitely a case for the latter; armed with rich songwriting she encapsulates the quick draw for metaphor and sublime rhyme, a style fluid and easy to listen to it takes the listener just for a little while hostage to enjoy the flow of her storytelling. Her voice edges effortless between the sultry and the sweet, molding the lyric to make the words entirely personal between her and her listeners. I first came across her in the band "Ada", which was also based in Toronto. They came up on MySpace with their demo tracks as free downloads in their page's music player. They had an definite edge, and after listening for a while I knew what it was. Something quite clear in JennyM's new download "Keep the Fire", a whirlwind six song acoustic album made in only one day. I asked Jen a few questions about her music and the music scene- Tell me a little bit about the format you're choosing: releasing free music over the internet kinda flies in the face of all the copyright kerfuffle. What's the marketing strategy, and what are the future plans? Seems like the industry has changed rapidly. though many people say its for the worse, I really think it's for the better. there's an even playing field for musicians like me now, who just want to share their songs with anyone who may like them, and i don't have to get past any record label gatekeeper at this point. I think that allowing free downloads is important for keeping up a fanbase , and cd sales of your first independent record are limited mainly to gig sales. I do plan on making the cd available as a digital download, and maybe even as a physical cd, but i'd like to keep the option open for free downloads. I'd like the music to eventually be shared for free anyways! Why be weird about it. Obvious question: Record labels, or not? I'd love to get signed! Who wouldn't? It's not my holy grail though. About the Music: Tell me about some of the inspirations for the songs; the songwriting is fabulous, a sublime use of rhyme and melody I haven't heard in a very long time. Give me some of the backgrounds on where you all found music, what you like in today's scene, and maybe who inspired you along your way. I'm very much inspired by growing up in the Caribbean, and it's wonderful to return to the basic sound of playing a beat-up guitar on the beach. I feel like I've gone full circle, where I left the beach songs as a teenager to seek the very driven environment of the big city rock scene for some years, and now I'm back to writing simple mellow songs. My musical influences for the acoustic album were rooted in folk and blues mostly, some classic artists would be Nick Drake, Bob Dylan, Bessie Smith, some newer would be Alexi Murdoch, Emily Haines, Josh Ritter, Mason Jennings. I also get inspired by the general vibes of some bands, especially of the cat empire, Beirut and Gogol Bordello...they're all about the good times Any tour plans? I'd like to start with playing shows again in Toronto, then maybe a tour down the road j.c. Technorati Tags: Music,Indie,Free Mp3 Download