Get all 5 Simric Yarrow releases available on Bandcamp and save 20%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Thickly Mulched Fields of Peripheral Visions, The Interpreter, Alphabet Tales, Far Beyond the Currently Possible Horizon, and Lucid Demos EP.
1. |
Baptism of Ashes (demo)
03:34
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BAPTISM OF ASHES
[Agni mile purohitam – I sacrifice myself to the fire: first
sukta of Rig Veda]
pounding with cauldron-cackles she comes
pulverizing the last mosquito’s wing
in dark and siren storms she comes
while bone-washing dirges we howl and fling
voices drowned ’neath a chorus of tin
we huddle for the warmth of fire-soaked cats
her promise like a Kalahari snake’s shed skin
we duck and hide and shrink again
holding breaths makes us brittle
makes us crack makes us shatter
in winter’s death
now I lift up my knife in my tiny hand
bearing the child I am mourning to the altar
ready to cut all I have loved and dreamed for
ready to cut in the face of the hunger
of a people shrunk by hope-o-suction
into blankness
the cruel earth demands my aching dagger
my own storms cascading in grief
the good earth witnesses and holds me still
torrentially pulsing in lonely tornadoes
and so we meander with labyrinth lanterns
small and mighty we enter the night
thus reminding our children of truths we are learning
releasing all humbly brings it back with more light
breathe in the memories of summer’s dance
breathe in the vast subtle space that is also you
feel the angel cast away your blade
in feline repose stay easy on your small self
breathe the last whiffs of snow-tinged excess
the last flakes squeezed from the midnight hag
pour her pestle-poundings in a lavender bag
all will be well in an inkling of an ‘I’.
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2. |
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AFRICAN MOUNTAIN HYMN
seeping in resin-sticky moments
rubber cracks in the sky force memories through
wailing incantations incarnate from the time-trunk of fear
carnivorous carnival
across a continent with the scars to show
matchlock burnt-black monarchs
selling bodies to the caravels
and their sweet sugar slavery
as the train hoots through the vlei I recall
the blood in the rivers of humanity’s homeland
the rancid fame of knighted cream cannibals
crimson-reeking caramel
in every nut-brown melting mouthful
wrapped conveniently in history-hiding plastic
before we pale wanderers returned from our
hundred-thousand year journeys
copper was the African metal of choice
now decaying mines poison our water
in the City of Gold and buchu alone will
not heal all the scars in the night sky
Ha! Welcome the ancestral voices (light the mpepu)
Pass around their naïve vices and sluk a little mampoer
Uncurl from the deep-set whiplashed shape of old
Or from the daily bent-back trowel-tasks of the office chair
Find the daily wail that lies within and calls for the
Lifting of out-of-Africa-amnesia and a
Global shake-down with the spirits streaming in our veins
Unveiling our cracking seams and streams
Today, this is my song –
I declare solidarity with my soul-siblings from
The lives where I chose deeper tannins to colour my flesh
And I declare freedom from the gnawing guilt of six violent centuries
And I declare freedom to spiral out from the epicentre of a new storm
In epic centredness
From the heart of our granite-bound ground
With palms caught in heavenly crossfire
Throbbing with the juice of forgiving mountains
Where the herbs grow taller than the frogs jump
And trains are but the distant toys of children
I declare that integrated incantations will enthuse us
Leaping like salmons to the source of a
Fluid rock-power which seeps soft and healing
In resin-sticky moments of fresh milkwood joy.
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3. |
Response-Ability (demo)
02:12
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RESPONSE-ABILITY
They say
Something went wrong
When magazines got full of shiny Tartrazine
And mosques filled with magazines fired by Marines
I say
Listen to your feet’s frantic backbeat
backpedal fretful squeeze and feel
the mud between your toes
They say
Something went wrong
When we started guzzling hydroponically
Saturating fumes without a hands-free set
Accepting fries with our burning forests
I say
Taste the success of your hips’ swirl sway
in a bonsai hurricane of your own creation
your own motion crop circle commotion angel-slow
They say
Something went wrong
When a few hundred witch-burning Dutchmen
Planted a hedge and the first Cape vineyards
In the name of a Godly grasping Company
I say
Hear the music of your belly wiggling
joyfully grunting hopping through
hoops and loops and organic soups and the
sheer noisy sanity of children in groups
They say
Something went wrong
In Nagasaki and Auschwitz and Rwanda
All is still.
I breathe.
I smell lavender flowing in the tears
Of your opening heart’s dance.
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4. |
Sacred Life (Demo!)
03:20
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SACRED LIFE (first published in "Flying on the Lucid Fringe" 2009)
we climb above the moist decaying triumphs
of the tree line into gypsy territory
carried by lichen dust and the presence of reindeer
a world where horns have horses and
icicle kaleidoscopes hang over
cotton wool valleys
shattering the blue
somewhere here lies the truth
(obscured by quartz crystal balls and scissor-wielding so-called
scientists desperate to uninvent the water-wheels of the soul)
in the cold grand breath and the alkaline cadences
of pulsing palms hoisting our flagging torso temples
we witness our own glory
flaring down – flying back – no need for visas
from a future hoed by calloused hands
the music of butterflies expands
over space that’s rippling thick as honey
tempting us, teasing us, pizzicato pricking us
in gypsy colours of the mind we sink
drowning in the scent of geraniums
back below the line of fire
where luminous fungi rage and munch in gooseflesh steps
along the pathways of the monochrome brain
but we ride bareback and whinny and sculpt
unsolvable riddles in the wind
joining lightning fingertips until the
water-wheels of our soul become yet again
the engine of the ocean of the Universe
joining breasts and hips in quiet massive causing
sometimes the beasts unleashed are merely parasites in swarm
sweeping acid storms into spirals of inter-tribal torrents
crusading beyond the asteroids of feelings in a
quest for one-size-fits-all pain
then we’ll remember where the gypsies live
skip once more to the surface of the crater
embracing and thanking and becoming the air ’neath our feet
thick with thoughts
full of futures
resonating with spirits
glowing in the shattered blue
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Simric Yarrow Cape Town, South Africa
Simric beats out his words with a magician's eye and a musician's ear, performs poetry with a wide-awake humour that thought- and-feel provokes, scintillates, and makes love to the future in a positive joyful celebration of the now... all from beneath Table Mountain in Cape Town, the planet's heart chakra in the heart-shaped country of the rainbow nation, take off to new dimensions in his company! ... more
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