This fragment – an accidental improv featuring Greg Hopen on saxaphone, Jordan Wallace on bass, Dave Kimpden on drums and Nik Beeson on guitar – was recorded live off the floor in Dave Kimpden’s drum studio by a boombox around 1997. Nik’s voiceover was added a couple of months later.
climbing without ascent
running without advance
were you thinking about dying?
or are you dying to be reborn?
Between the straight line of evolution
and the circle of revolution,
in a held tension,
is a gyre.
In tension, creation,
In tension creation,
In tension, creation.
Snake advances by vacillation along the ground,
gyrfalcon’s wings beating up and down.
In the greatest tension, the greatest creation,
and the greatest creation is the gravest danger,
and destruction is tension held taut beyond limitation.
Taut ’till broke,
bent ’till rent,
the acrobatic art
splits apart,
and the acrobat
falls.
The fearsome fire white hot burning up,
white knuckled clenched fist gripped tight,
the teeth that grind in the night.
The parched string screaming taut,
bow pulled,
quivering,
arched,
shivering back,
bent to point of rent,
releases
the piercing pointed
arrow of light,
seams bursting,
splitting
apart.
FLAME OF CHANGE
WELDERS FLAME
FLAMES TO BURN THE PAST AWAY
Enantiodromia through the wall that is the inside of an egg.
Primal instinct in integration with x-ray vision.
A bow of hope pulled to the tightest taut,
bent to the quivering razor edge of rent,
knocked with an arrow that was blackest coal
but through fear’s anguished energy
was crushed, fused and crystallised
into a piercing pointed diamond
of sharpest compassion.