Sunday 29 December 2013

May Your Words...

(photo from unknown source)


This poem dedicated to the power of a poetic moment. Dedicated to chance lovers and the choice to leave things mundane or step out of the box and be daring, be you, seize the game by the controls and jazz trick your life to freedom-love. Poems note; "Flaneur" means "stroller", "lounger", "saunterer", or "loafer". Flânerie refers to the act of strolling, with all of its accompanying associations; en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fl%C3%A2neur




Friday 20 December 2013

The Light in Fawkner Park

(Photo from unknown source)


In 2012 I was lucky enough to be driving an old friendly, lost-license roof plumber to work and ended up in Melbourne's Fawkner lush-Park for a few weeks. My time there for study and poetry could not have been more blissful, meditative, big dream, all with its dreaming hobos, playful children, motivated exercisers, and rushing, funny-greedy- weird business people. So, this beat poem is about talking to the surrounding beings and focussing on the trees and their consciousness. About feeling like an enemy to them, an enemy that has caused all their pain. And yet its also about the dialog between nature and humanity, navigating past this pain to true consciousness, mediating with love, understanding and awareness, an going with this all together...   



(apologies for the ad at the end, bloomin good station though...)

Thursday 19 December 2013

Pan Stayed on our Porch Once....


This poem is namely dedicated to the diety Pan, but also my bro and mum, living in a house five minutes from Nimbin main street back in 92. No. Not exactly an average experience and reason Paganism shines strong in my heart, (amongst quite a few fellow friends...). No, in fact I have given the whole year and a half experience a whole new collection of mine called "my inner child smiles at the art of time." For there, exploring my past with the meditation of poetry, O so many piquant spiritual experiences and shamans like this passing and leaving magic for my future youth, these with nameless and nuanced sorcery I find, the chaos godhead is still spellings smile...







Friday 13 December 2013

2 into 1 at Dharma, Essence of Time...

(painting www.alexgrey.com)

I admit, I have a tendency for macro romantic dreaming. The huge realms of humanities great meaning, collectively evolved as one. So I ask; if enlightenment is the goal for the individual soul, a goal reached when we arrive at absolute zero, zero past the .07 second reaction that time has made possible on times great paradox of event and thought, then what of collective enlightenment? Is it possible, if we see our great mother earth as one soul consciousness, that she too is on the path to enlightenment? What would it feel like to be alive in the future incarnation of bodhisattva earth?


Monday 2 December 2013

Losing the Shadows...



As performed @ To the Ends of the Verse, this poem is inspired by a micro memoir workshop lead by Cameron Semmens at End of the Line festival (phew! what a day!)  There I decided to write the beginnings of this piece about my past; meeting my fiancee Elise O'Connor at a Doof festival called Fool Proof 2 back in the dark winter of 2008. Combining it with a freestyle workshop, it thus transformed into the abyss piece here; mainly spiraling into social dysfunction, deep depression, un-existentialism, and the out, out into the fire twirling arts of losing all prison boundaries around the self, the act of ones destiny...



Saturday 16 November 2013

The End of the Line Festival



Yess! Air punch! 30th of this month End of the Line festival is on once again! And with the massive 8 stages of musicka, including Bastian Killjoy, Mulder, and of course the great Fats Wah Wah there is poetry, rich luscious poetry. Yes local To the End of the Verse poetry group is initiating a star dusted anti-pesto poetry delux around the town of Belgrave including:

  • 730 -late at the Lyrebird cafe is set for the 1st birthday of To the Ends of the Verse, all geared organically, the open mic night will be in full bloom! 
  • A bunch of workshops at the Tiffany Bishop Collective, including an open panel work group on poetry writing lead by Matt Wilson from 12 o'clock, a dynamic 'shape of the word' group about performance lead by Icia Malloy from 1pm, a micro-memoir group by Cameron M Semmens 2.30pm and freestyle group by Bastian Killjoy and MC Convict at 4pm. 
  • Thoughout the day, a base camp - info canopy at the Tin Shed and solo and collaborative performances there and at Earthly Pleasures stage, Market Stage and the Lyrebird cafe. See the web site for location details. 
  • Micro message poems scattered around the town ready to enrapture your mind in a dance of joy,
  • Fresh as the spring  performances between music sets by such local talent as Matt Wilson, Justine Walsh, Icia Malloy, Tigs and myself, just to name a few! 
Ahh yes open your mind and your tracks of time people, the great slow down of festive spirit is upon us! For waaay more info go to;

 End of the Line Program






Wednesday 6 November 2013

Channon Market '92

(photographed by me Channon market)


This poem and its subject contains a particular resonance for me. Not only because it was about my first ride on a Clydesdale drawn horse and cart, but because of the true and powerful nature of the market and its effects on my dreaming childhood. For a market truly is a thing of collective beauty, of song and rich organic essence, a market is where empowered muse is en-skilled and crafted, where fresh gardens spring and overflow, where old friends and long journeys always meet again and new ones dance with spiritual abandon...




Sunday 3 November 2013

Tea Bee in the Garden





This beat poem is dedicated to all my friends and when we manage to part the doors of our times and converse our souls as truth.  For when that Vitamin D and all else chi-positive recedes in grey cold shadows and in thought damage, and when the post-modern depression of all human souls today close in around us, there’s nothing better than to remember a smiling face, a smiling place, the playfulness of all inner and outer children, and the being of who we are…  





Wednesday 23 October 2013

Inner Relationship Advice for Poets

(photo: www.AlexGrey.com)


Julia Cameron's book "The Artists Way" and well just about every other creative writers book I can imagine offers this poems same advice. Personally, I didn't believe it nor followed it until it happened to me in a big way. So, in order to capture the essence of poetic loss, resurfacing in my life recently in a PC based virus attack obliterating whole Aeons of my work, this poem about poetry alludes to that moment of clarity so pure the angels in the all-black-ink-and-paper-wood-grain-Christ-cross would weep and shudder together in orgastic bliss. Yet of course, as all beauty is brutally fragile in the possibility matrix, i.e. when it comes to the physical mechanical process of actually writing it approaches, this poem also alludes to when the dimensions fall and shrivel, as if all the shell skeletons had spiraled back into the inky dot and the fires of hell blow dry the puddle for good measure...








Saturday 19 October 2013

dedicated to the spring rains



This poem dedicated to the spring rain so amazing to my garden, my life, in abundance and inspiration and mood changing grace. The word 'equinoctial' comes to mind here, a treasure word find of my studies, meaning pertinent to the balance of all things, meaning flowers that open and close at specific regular times, meaning in the veins and hearteries of the great mother gia earth of all things not least of which a helping hand to community conversation and togetherness everywhere...





Saturday 5 October 2013

Eagles Spiral Downward...



Eagles in their love dance clasp claws and dive in an impossible death defying  spiral. Alchemy suggests gold is the synthesis of metal because it cannot change into other metals or elements an thus retains memory. No surprise eagles dive down towards this in a double helix. No surprise past womanly blood lava flow and manly iron logic, gold is there in the centre of the earth, waiting, holding it all for us...



Monday 30 September 2013

Dear Everything...


Enlightenment is said to be a wall-less sound and indeed "today all young men on acid realise that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration" one that creates the Hicks Boson inscription on the plank scale everything, where macro biological dreams sway in the great space body. But you don't need astro-physical math nor acid to realize this. You just need the starting point within the idea of compassionate signature consciousness. That is enough to entangle you to the path of befriending everything completely...


https://soundcloud.com/jasonmaxwell/dear-everything





Dear Everything,

I'm still going to say sorry that its taken this long to write you,
even though you know everything and taught me to take time till there's no time left,
to take until my life here has been squeezed through the successful perpetual free energy systems of the chaos death wise machine,

Everything, 
I hope that your here with me on this computer blinking,
and like me, knot denying that your temporal experience is the infinity of divinity with thousands out of try-billions of finally decided imperfections and so the snake tail eye once spokt in the sky,

Everything, 
I know that you know how to 
quickly paraphrase the vicious quaking teeth-in-the-neck attack to the giant decepticon sentinels of capitalism vs the free acid water tanks in everyone’s back yard 
with some form of peaceful understanding...

Everything, 
I hear that you can formulate
 triangular solar powered hats on everyone’s power polarized existence and plug them into a matrix with no black smith carving a nuclear bomb against gods centre of gravity,
please, can you now in now?

Everything, 
thank you for teaching me 
to take only to give back, one to ten from Saturn’s Zen a-when and ignore ache… to give all relaxed deep in Capricorn un-paradoxed and independent in tea ceremonies of all heavenly light agreement, to give the spiraling race tracks slow wonder spoon hand reaching in godhead, pullin out the big flow of Pisces...

Everything thank you again for the
 illuminating Illuminate’ of  these friends we've known together for years and their quirky immortal faces in strangers and strange things and light years in range of the dimensional alignment of the truth that team shall be captain planet dragon nothing u-nites in blissful Brunswick blur,

Everything I dream of you in 
 the days of the Holodeck, the Hyperdrive, the hydro-powered lotus elise, the spaces of time that the mind may share in a cup-catch the heaviest dam purest water of Jimi Hendrix power from heavens deep blue tears, radiating the gardens skins on the sky scrapers...

Everything O please
promise me you'll remember in the deep mundane, to get outta your head in love with that unseen world that dances in unseen window frames and then know the same art will grab you by the ankles to pull you down into it’s bed pillow puzzle pieces dripping with ecstasy,

Everything,
 I just want to let you know that in my mind your sitting grace stable in the trinity, the trinity in every fractal coded genius child that claws through the junk of Samsara’s disposed-of needle-car-greed hypnotism's of advertising that would flash over and over that speed in mass consciousness doesn't kill,

And everything
know this from the depth of my very word, I will travel with you
to the end, perhaps on a note loved by the myriad of all forms equals perhaps, a graduating weight, the bed time story of your future grand parents imagination…









Thursday 26 September 2013

The Truth In-Verb...




What is an action? Well, I can only really tell you this by telling you what is not an action. So, given there are many chaotic interpretations of what is not an action, lets consider this; in a metaphysical cycle of universe after universe, all inaction is the inaccurate mistake where evolutionary possibilities have been missed and therefor have never really happened.

But of course, I must also explain the obvious, 'doing nothing' is still an action. In fact if you can successfully achieve the action of nothing (a state of stillness not forgetfulness) then you have achieved the action of enlightenment and you ARE everything. If you fail, you'll merely achieve a fly up your nose, end of story.

But this philosophy of mischance, of faults, failures and ignorance's as 'inactions' and therefor non-events in space-time evolution, of course, doesn't mean I'm advocating that you smash your car into parliament and 'that's o.k.' because it didn't really happen. 

No, interestingly the word 'sin' is actually derived from the word 'miss.' Unfortunately, the static nature of a resonance memory field of what NOT to do next time you come back to that place-time doesn't exist.  However, there are resonance fields around a potential true action. Indeed, a field the previous universe remembered for you, a field where you can think "ahh this moment is close to an action of truth, an action of compassion and existential accuracy... lets see if I can..."




Friday 20 September 2013

Our Fortress of Time...



This poem brings you some of my thoughts at the recent losses in the federal election. For now, (even though some would argue it always has) the Australian Government definitively stands for naught but the destruction of our environment, the alienation of the refugee, anti-intellectualism, rampant misogyny, mass media censorship, and profit margins.

And yet with a very large green movement here, we are now in a war of sorts for our children's future. A war that can only be fought, it seems, by learning the better way an acting locally, and thus building the best fortresses of community and knowledge that we can so that when it all falls apart, our children have the skills to lead the repair back to our environment and the human group consciousness,  within perpetuality...





Wednesday 18 September 2013

Witch Dream (Date Unknown)



In the crowd of a witch hunt,
 walking in the main street of the village.
The firm violence of 5 men,
her numb limp body.

In the electric circuit of the trial,
I spoke up for her in her eyes. 
I did not see the sneers, 
though I felt the lines of fingers crossing throats.
 The crowd was a mess,  
healer vs dark witch. 

In 
the 
end: 
Banishment.

 (Painful psy, not in vain)

The crowd was satisfied taking her children from her 
and dumping them in a home for adoption.
Their law I could not speak. 
 Fuming aura. 

This is 2013.

The clouds into fire. 
As the bridge-heart-nerves 
of their maternal-seeking arms break,
 their screams…



Saturday 14 September 2013

A Nameless Psychic War Scene



A poem adventing into the future from todays corpocractic foundations. When the world has finally fallen into a constant war, this experience castes us into the existential link between brothers on the front-line and the power of intent-vibration...



https://soundcloud.com/jasonmaxwell/nameless-psychic-war-scene



Wednesday 11 September 2013

When There is No Enemy


No, haven't bought myself a sniper weapon yet, I'm still here. Even after the screaming torturous exercise of corpocracy last 7th of september 2013, with marine parks already gone, fracking about to take over and monsanto sure to waltz in. Apart from being a father and not really all that violent, the reason is that I know and trust the protest of our people. A massive only going to snowball-juggernaught as social media and the internet continues its broadcaste and the rights of the environment and our children are swept away by the financial army of the multi-national. For even with the Murdoch Death Star distraction technique, we will know. The people will always know. Here in the midst of this battle, this poem reaches out to the intensity of love and compassion within our movements cause, the centre of it common in all humanity on either side and whereby the matter of time until the truth is enacted at last...

https://soundcloud.com/jasonmaxwell/when-there-is-no-enemy




Thursday 1 August 2013

The Truth of the Tecoma People




This Poem/rap is inspired by the fight for a McDonalds free Tecoma. A grass roots protest that started after all the democratic principles had been exhausted by their council who were unanimously opposed to the restaurant chain.

For VCAT over-ruled them with a decision that even James Merlino, state planning shadow minister said was "disgusting" , as it would place the restaurant 50 metres from a primary school, 800 metres away from a state forrest and it simply does not fit in with the community who are very health and small business minded.

Today with international media recognition, a change.org petition over 72,000 strong, new roof protesters, a union supported picket line and an extensive media campaign including local artists, the battle of these Davids & Devas Vs McGoliath continues...

Many Thanks to the Tecoma Eight for their stand, the many protesters still standing, Bob Marley and Triple J's Hack program for the samples, aand Glenn Scoyler for the Bass Ukelele used in this track...


https://soundcloud.com/jasonmaxwell/truth-of-the-tecoma-people


Monday 17 June 2013

through 7 colours of you



on this day my 30th birthday, my gift to you; a poem of the rise through the charkras, my healing prayer to all souls... to be the you of you... special thanks to mark wood for the guitar and backing vocals...




1. Root Chakra - Represents our foundation and feeling of being grounded.
  • Location: Base of spine in tailbone area.
  • Emotional issues: Survival issues such as financial independence, money, and food.
  • More on Root Chakra healing

2. Sacral Chakra - Our connection and ability to accept others and new experiences.
  • Location: Lower abdomen, about 2 inches below the navel and 2 inches in.
  • Emotional issues: Sense of abundance, well-being, pleasure, sexuality.
  • More on Sacral Chakra healing

3. Solar Plexus Chakra - Our ability to be confident and in-control of our lives.
  • Location: Upper abdomen in the stomach area.
  • Emotional issues: Self-worth, self-confidence, self-esteem.
  • More on Solar Plexus Chakra healing

4. Heart Chakra - Our ability to love.
  • Location: Center of chest just above heart.
  • Emotional issues: Love, joy, inner peace.
  • More on Heart Chakra healing

5. Throat Chakra - Our ability to communicate.
  • Location: Throat.
  • Emotional issues: Communication, self-expression of feelings, the truth.
  • More on Throat Chakra healing

6. Third Eye Chakra - Our ability to focus on and see the big picture.
  • Location: Forehead between the eyes. (Also called the Brow Chakra)
  • Emotional issues: Intuition, imagination, wisdom, ability to think and make decisions.
  • More on Third Eye Chakra healing

7. Crown Chakra - The highest Chakra represents our ability to be fully connected spiritually.
  • Location: The very top of the head.
  • Emotional issues: Inner and outer beauty, our connection to spirituality, pure bliss.
  • More on Crown Chakra healing

(source: http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-91/The-7-Chakras-for-Beginners.html)

Thursday 6 June 2013

My Daughter falls asleep in my Arms

                                                        (photo care of Elise O'Connor)



A poem meditation based on the patience and compassion of living with samsara... dedicated to my two daughters of 10 months and 3. Ever shinning their way past the teething chaos of this world with a lifeful grace and gifting the universe with their smiles... thanks you my little darlings, the 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin and my fiancee for being there through all the hard and joyous times...

https://soundcloud.com/jasonmaxwell/my-daughter-falls-asleep-in-my

Monday 3 June 2013

The Star and the Cross, there for a Moment...


Abstract:

Time heals what reason cannot.  ~Seneca

Prelude:

It didn’t feel like any old ordinary day in my garden that March 1960, as the Australian Raven flew up onto the power-line and barked its call. The power-line swayed a little, attached to a graffiti plagued power pole that was attached to a particular transformer that buzzed too much. The reason it wasn’t all that ordinary was because I was feeling rather dreamy and relaxed. Everything was slow and THAT wasn’t all that ordinary, especially  with three year old grandchildren most weekends, two respected literature blogs to maintain, messy year 7 school assignments to mark and a husband who swears at me in Italian when the sink has only a few dirty dishes. Yet at that indulgent lazy moment, for no reason I could ascertain, the transformer seemed to amp its buzz, just a minor decibel or two. This I found was a little eerie, not to say rightfully curious, but on top of that it was right before, splash! Tock! The hose tip I was using to water the white Chrysanthemums launched itself head-first into the wooden fence. These curios events however were nothing compared to when all of a sudden, everything, including time, seemed to slow to a near pause and I was suddenly entranced by the flowing sounds and sights of the clear tube of water,  how it flashed in crystallization in the straight spokes of the butter-autumn sunshine. 

 

Three Visions:

In a two world blink, I was suddenly back in a familiar dancing meadow, the forest outskirts of Grazzanise, Sicily, 1943. Back looking into the flowing brook waterfall near the foot of a large hill that towered like a sitting Buddha, looking out over the nearby seaside. Being there again, ahh, it just felt so vibrant with life force, as if everything glowed with little inner lights under the cellophane of existence. The wild rosemary, the honeysuckle, the daisy bushes, the geraniums, the spring! O the spring… Yet it was crossed with a fearful memory, no! They can’t come here…. No! That sound, it’s just a bee hive… Forget about it, I bet the silly Domarcos have been throwing rocks at them again. But where has the bird song gone? Why is it so dark all of a sudden? Was I so busy picking flowers that I missed the approaching darkness in those clouds? Then the shadows! O the unnatural shadows struck me.  NO!!! Not here! The birds of hell have come! Demons in the sky!! I screamed at them from my heart “YOU AREN’T MEN!!” And then the town’s air raid sirens began to scream too. I leapt like a dear from a forest fire towards the house with my only two thoughts, where were the bomb shelter keys? And most of all, where were my children, all alone.

 

Two of the latter thoughts of fear rushed to quell me as I rounded the slate garden path, clinging to me as I tried to calm them with fearless words; “don’t worry, they won’t come here…” yet the truth remained, I was trembling as they lifted their heads from my dress towards the formation darkened sky.  And where was Ariana? Where was my eldest? Why did she have to be so in love? Fungula! Calm yourself. They have a shelter too, family quarrels can wait, wait until it’s over. Find the keys quick, O by the grace of Christ! Let me find the keys. A second wave of P-38’s passed overhead, I had remembered their name from when Lorenzo listened to the news on the radio. Lorenzo thought the Allies would never bother with Sicily, we were much too small, and the Fascists would blow over the Parliament in time, nothing would really disturb our peace. Boom! The first root shaking blasts, a couple of km’s away, they were carpet bombing Civilians! The Criminals! The spectre servants of Lucifer! Where were the keys? Not in the kitchen cupboard spots, not in the lounge coffee table draws, where would he have put them? Was he so angry that he lost them? Why didn’t he tell me!

 

Boom! Another blast shook my memory, the night before he left to fight in Egypt he had been reading a book of mine, actually reading Dante! My heart leapt for joy as the ring tinkled on the shaft and fell into my hands. I ran out of the kitchen back door as I heard and then saw my hearts greatest fear, a low flying angel of death beginning an arcing swoop for my home, our life. Quickly as I could, I swooped my children into my arms and ran into the underground cellar in the back yard. But as I went to close the door, the door with a star on the handle, my soul almost pounded out of my body, “Mumma! Mumma! I’m coming Mumma!” But Ariana was too late, a world ended in a fiery boom, the words “mumma” echoing in my empty consciousness as it all went white.

 

“Mumma! Mumma! Wake up Mumma!” it was Jianna, her high cheek bones below anxious crystal blue eyes, but I didn’t recognise her at first, she was so grown up, “are you ok mumma?” she said. I was so confused, my head was aching “what? Where am I? ARIANA!” I rushed to find her, but getting up caused my head to explode with a giga-watt throbbing pain. They all looked at each other with concern, “Ariana?” I suddenly realised where I was and shook my head, I was safe, back in the new home, back in Doncaster. My husband was franticly talking on the phone, no doubt wasting time and other people’s money on an ambulance I didn’t think I’d need. “Lorenzo!” I commanded, “why are you bothering them Lorenzo, I’m ok there’s nothing to fear about a little day dream.” “But mumma” Adelle protested “you passed out mumma, little Joey came to find me mumma, o he was so worried, he said that you were standing there looking at the flowing hose for ages mumma, just standing there, then you fell over in the garden with a yell! We have not been able to wake you for…” But as the rapids of her concern flowed over me I couldn’t concentrate, all of a sudden the room started to spin, “look at mummas eye Vito” I felt lightheaded, a deep vertigo, I then remembered Dantes poem, the one where the bomb shelter key was hidden, Lorenzo looked at me, dark penetrating eyes from the phone, he put it down without saying good bye.

 

I felt the urge to speak to him, to recite, they were a poetry sensitive family and a calm hush fell over them as I spoke; “Here vigour failed the lofty fantasy, but now was turning my desire and will, even as a wheel that equally is moved, the Love which moves the sun and the other stars.”  And as I spoke the last syllables, I looked out the window looking for the evening star, my daughter. Yet with no stars in the sky I felt the grief at losing my eldest hit me like a tsunami, an age old grief returning from the depth of my soul, I began to sob , crashing convulsions and heaving breathes and my family embraced me, heart and soul. “I’m not waiting” said Lorenzo, and Vito agreed, the girls put a grey woollen blanket around me and I was hustled into the car. I was feeling so delirious and beginning to think they were right to be so concerned. My head was full of throbbing pain and everything was so slow, dream-like and blurry.

 

We got out onto the freeway and the blurs increased their ghost streak on the world, everything, as if in a white rapid. All until a moment of clear-quartz clarity where the sky was filled with huge grey beast like clouds and a single silver-golden ray illuminated an old green farmers truck next to us.  There in the passenger’s seat, a small girl was looking at me with a furrowed brow. I couldn’t handle her look, such fear and worry from such innocence, I averted her gaze. But looking back again she was suddenly my eldest, she smiled, “Ariana!” I yelled, but in a blink she turned back to the farmer’s daughter who, to my numb wonder, fogged the window with her breath and drew a six pointed star and then behind the star she then made the sign of the cross with her hand as tears streamed down my face.

 My youngest Adelle embraced me “she’s in heaven mumma, she’s ok mumma, she’s with god”. Sobbing, I averted the girls penetrating gaze again. Yet a moment later, I understood and felt a kind of divine bliss at this strangers blessing, a bliss I had only known in my younger days in the church, in prayer with god. I then smiled back at her and looked down to the whirring wheel, the hub cap glinted just like the water from the garden, everything silenced, slowed to a near pause once more.

 

In a two world blink, I was suddenly sitting on hard wooden slats of a bumpy troop carrier, looking at the glinting hub capped wheel of the carrier next to us. Then I looked down, reached under the grey, drenched woollen uniform I was wearing, pulled out a necklace, kissed it and said a prayer to a god I did not know. A soldier to my right laughed and in Italian said “Giavani you mad man, which heathen God do you think is going to help us here? These are easy gates of hell my friend, you’ll only find the test of our strength and skill in this place…”  I looked at him and smiled defiance.  Yes I knew this stocky, dark chiselled man talking here, I would know that confident humorous undertone anywhere, it was my husband, we were about to approach the Egyptian front at Sidi Barrani, 1940. 

 

Boom! A mortar shell hit the far side of the truck I was staring at, which screeched off and ditching head first into the grey muddy bank. Our driver swerved and hit the accelerator and I could hear the radio man going crazy. A few more mortar hits barely missed us, one making my ears ring as the bumps made the world utter chaos, but we had made it, we were lucky, we had a trench at the top of a hill, we had machine guns, thick sand bags and the safety of some of the best armoured vehicles Italy had ever made. “They say they’ve broken through to the south” I said, “ha! Let them come… I can shoot fifteen at a time from a place like this” boasted Lorenzo, I believed him too, the British were foolish in trying to take this city, we were expected to win easily when our reinforcements arrived and then storm through the rest of Egypt. 

 

As we disembarked, another mortar shell hit close by, I started to wonder if these actually were mortars considering the size and intensity of the explosions. As I wondered about this my fears were quickly confirmed with the groaning whir of an enemy Bomber in the cloud. Luckily, a mobile anti aircraft truck pulled up beside us and started hammering flack shells into the air, shortly after, as we headed into the trench, a distant cloud alighted with a warm boom, illuminating the hearts of the troop in a great “hurrah!” “Still think we need God my friend?” said Lorenzo, I only smiled and ducked over the edge for a few shots at the enemy.

 

Then it was de’ja’ vu, I could hear another heart thumping whirr of an aircraft engine close by, on approach to our position. And then it appeared, like a phantom hell-bird out of the grey-beast cloud, a Hurricane fighter, machine guns aimed right at our trench.  I thought; this pilot is a demon! This attack is surely suicide! Our anti-aircraft gun levelled, aimed and boomed, but it missed by a mere foot and ran out of ammunition. I nudged Lorenzo on his machine gun, who wheeled it around as we all rose our weapons skyward. But we were too slow, I heard the rattling of its weapons, the trench ground before me erupted in a shower of men, mud and blood and then with a white striking flash, a deafening thump, the world disappeared as my ringing ears took over. 

 

Then I was looking up to the sun setting sky, the only sounds, my heart beat and a faint buzz.  I heard distant shouts, as I saw the evening star, so bright in the clearing dusk-purple, the evening star where a dark figure appeared in slow motion. Turning into Lorenzo streaming with tears, I could tell with his noiseless lips that he was trying to say “hold on, don’t die, it was going to be ok, we got the bastard, they were going to get me to the medic…” But I, feeling the truth, put my hand up to my chest and felt the gaping bloody hole and felt the short frantic breaths from drowning lungs. I knew death at that moment and reached into my uniform, I looked him in the eye and pulled out my sons golden star necklace from my chest, held it out to him as I told him what was in my soul… “I’m sorry Lorenzo…”  “I like you… but I feared the love of our children… forgive me… I know not the designs of our separate faiths, but tell my wife, love is life… please… do this for me… give this to…”

Epilogue:

In a dark room with one dim glowing lamp in a silent sobbing part of the hospital, the great Lave Drago of Sicily, loved by many and brought through dream to stroke, had died in her coma.  Yet as the tears flowed and the cries of ‘mumma’ filled the air, Lorenzo quietly leaned over to pick up the Bible, the Bible he had never touched since the death of his mother. And as he rose and began to speak from the chanced page, one of David’s psalms, each word was timeless familiar to the family, the centre of love in their meaning;

1    The Lord's my shepherd, I'll not want.
2          He makes me down to lie
     In pastures green: he leadeth me
          the quiet waters by.
3    My soul he doth restore again;
          and me to walk doth make
     Within the paths of righteousness,
          ev'n for his own name's sake.
4    Yea, though I walk in death's dark vale,
          yet will I fear none ill:
     For thou art with me; and thy rod
          and staff me comfort still.
5    My table thou hast furnished
          in presence of my foes;
     My head thou dost with oil anoint,
          and my cup overflows.

6    Goodness and mercy all my life
shall surely follow me

And in God's house for evermore
        my dwelling-place shall be. 

And then it was that Georgio, cried out for Ariana’s love from his sleep on the other side of the
world, as the Drago family said amen, and sobbed again as the buzz from the hospital machine
faded. It was then that the ghosts of Lave and Ariana, leaning on Lorenzo’s last syllables, on his
shoulder and holding his hand across the void, were there, yet only for a moment… 

 

Wednesday 29 May 2013

Monsanto of War


                                                     




Did you know that millions and millions of protesters world-wide took to the streets on the 25th of may to protest against GMO foods? If you didn't you could be forgiven, you haven't been helped all that much by the media regimes that seem to dictate world news... But just in case, heres alittle update, GMO foods or genetically modified organisms and their by-products, are flagshipped by the behemoth, multi-national corporation Monsanto, a company that has signalled its intentions to mute labeling requirements world-wide, mute scientific investigation into its products, set ex members of its corporation into FDA positions world-wide, sue, bully and mafia gang farmers for the use of its product, a product that has been proven to kill the pollinating bee population and cause tumors and brain damage world-wide... in short, they must be stopped before the future of their failed science murders the future completely.... [for educational purposes]

to learn more visit:
www.march-against-monsanto.com/p/learn-a…anto.html


Thursday 23 May 2013

On a Community's Shift of Power: From Gardens to Computers...




at 900 × 599 in Photos by Glenn Stephenson
                                         http://www.burgeroff.org/photos/photos-by-glenn-stephenson/day-one/




an Essay by Jason B.R. Maxwell,
29th March 2013.
Bachelor of Art student,
Curtin University.
For educational
purposes
 

Abstract:

 

Activism today has at its disposal unprecedented means of New Media representation,
 but does it amplify the power and number of activists engaged in the actual physical process?
This paper attempts to identify where the new medium achieves an international resonance
and a cultural link to new media consumers political engagement, while undergoing
a theoretical examination of a case study in the “No Maccas in Tecoma” protest.

Key words: Activism, New Media, No Maccas in Tecoma, political engagement.


Introduction: The complexity….


The ways in which the “active audience” (Thompson via Jenkins, 2006) signals a shift in
power from media institutions to media consumers are varied and many.
Yet to paraphrase Bakardjieva (2012) on their quality, theorists in the past have expressed an
over-enthusiasm for New Media’s power-political agency and its current form and future
 potential has turned out to be far more complex than first imagined (p.64). That being said,
New Media IS a significant advantage to whoever can weld its power and, in the interest of
exploring how to do so in regards to the protester-consumer, this essay
attempts a case study of the new media savvy “No Maccas in Tecoma” (NMIT) community
(burgeroff.org, 2011). It does so in two ways; analysis of group formation with plurality
of a digital "Mediapolis” and second, how these groups form a New Media culture
that requires “direct connections” to the ‘real world’ people and cultural practice to gain
its significant consumer advantages (Savvas, 2013, Bakardjieva, 2012, p.66).

  

Alert the audience!

 

The first way that the “active audience” (Thompson via Jenkins, 2006)
signals a shift from the media institutions to the media consumer concerns a new plurality
of the “Mediapolis”, which is described by Bakardjieva (2012) as a “heterogeneous web of
media technologies, actors and practices that spans the private and the public realms” (p.66).
This ‘mediapolis’ in current form enables community spheres to ‘link’ and frame new
“possibilities for collective action” (Bakardjieva, 2012).  Used extensively by protesters today,
the ‘mediapolis’now organises and directs attention in a real time environment previously
unavailable to pre-mobile groups (Wall, 2005, Gordan, 2006, Bakardjieva, 2012). For example,
in the case of the protest against a McDonalds restaurant made by the relatively small
community of Tecoma, the communities organisation techniques were successful in
directing institutional attention which proved vital in the formation and effective sustained
community engagement.

 
However, the Dandenong’s community has history of successful local political a
activism without engaging new media, as poet Duggan (2002) states in February
1992; “their message to McDonalds go elsewhere, we love the hills and for the hills
we care” (p.17) and they were “three times” successful in dispelling McDonalds
(Johnston, 2012). Therefor this communities case study can only be used in-so-far
as a marginal new media shift.  What made the NMIT shift special, was the way in
which citizens combined with “netizens”  (Bakardjieva, 2012, p.71) to transform
individuals in and out of existing groups to a stable network of anti-McDonalds
supporters called “Burger off”, a website and group with elite members, political
supporters, finance and media campaigns spanning events, council engagement,
social media, art spheres and institutions
(burgeroff.org, 2011).

 
Yet in the early stages, when restaurant planning was knowledgeable to
consumers via traditional institutions in March 2011, new media amplified it using
individual spokespersons to alert an even greater public via blogging-politician Cr. Dunn
and online members of the Tecoma Village Action Group (TVAG) (Cr Dunn, 2011,
tvag.org.au, 2013).  Using their blogs, institutional influence, and Facebook accounts,
more individuals combined with these politicians and pre-existing institutions to educate
the community action, which managed  to form an unprecedented council response, with
“over 1,100 individual community objections … lodged opposing the proposal”
(burgeroff.org, 2011). 


Thus, it could be argued that had not council objection instructions and
promotions’ spread across new media with such timeliness and visibility by these ‘netizens’
online, that such numbers would not have been previously possible.  This line of civic agency
inherit in the internet merges with Bakardjieva’s  ‘private and public Mediapolis’ in a
new way to produce what Dahlberg (via Bakardjieva, 2009) calls the “emergence and
growing visibilityof “counter publics” composed of groups and interests that are not
represented in the mainstream public discourses.” (p.91). 


Despite minor initial mainstream institutional engagement, the protest today
represents the ‘active audience’ as a major emergence of a politically empowered
grassroots organisation (burgeroff.org, 2013). For this is an organisation that was able
to build collectively, enough momentum to direct the ‘Mediapolis’ of worldwide
institutions, from California to Japan and has initiated a permanent political act with a
“new planning statement” to prevent further planning developments
(burgeroff.org, 2013).

 


The cultural context: Should we be Gardening?

 

The second way that the contemporary “active audience” 
(Thompson cited in Rosen, 2006) signals a shift from the media institutions to one
of the media consumer, concerns a contextually cultural engagement of an online
“living space inhabited not only by images and discourses, but also by people with
their daily thought and action” (Bakardjieva, 2012, p.67). In a working paper on
creating engaging sites such as these, research by Bukowski, Newcomb & Hartup
(2006) has found that “friendship ties were a key motivation for members to join
such groups and stay involved.” (via Vilenchik & Shresthova, 2012, p.19).

 
Yet to engage the friendship groups that make an online community as vibrant
and richly frequented as the NMIT community, Vilenchik & Shresthova (2012) outline
 three methods; method one: “Build Communities: Build, encourage and sustain
community affiliations and friendships, not only to promote civic goals but as valuable in
their own right.” Method two: “Tell Stories: Create and use narratives in ways that
encourage emotional investment and connection to the organization” method three;
“Produce Media: Encourage and sustain action through media creation and circulation”
(p.19).

 

As has been stated in the NMIT case, the first method; ‘building communities’
had already (partially) occurred, even in the youth, yet as one NMIT Facebook participant
 Elicia Savvas (2013) has commented; “Young people [in Tecoma] are highly politically engaged,
despite the rhetoric from some older people, but it doesn't seem successful without making
direct connections beyond social media.” This mirrors Westlakes (2008) view that generation
 Y has increased levels of political interest but tend to recoil at the point of protest action
(pp.37-38). So, the question was; how can one thread youth and seniors together to make
a group with these ‘direct connections’?

 

This was when the protest came up with a brilliant game changing idea. After the
civic council action had failed to stop the restaurant in a late McDonalds appeal to the
powerful institution the “VCAT tribunal’, the community rallied around the grassy public
space that was now undemocratically scheduled for destruction and on October 14th 2012,
 they planted a community garden (burger.org, 2011).

 
This action not only gained massive public attention as it borders a major arterial
road for the Dandenong’s, but it also claims a very public space as community owned
instead of privately owned, an action similar to the Occupy Movement, but with a more
permanent result. Shortly after, the gardens peak media moment occurred when the story
made the “seven nightly news” and it is clear in that report that NMIT encompassed all
generations in true grass roots activism, including many students from across the road at the
primary school (egymoh52, 2012). After that the garden continued to form a central
meeting point for the campaign and truly ‘built, encouraged and sustained personal
relationships to promote civic goals and as a value in their own right.’ 
 

But as these sites proceeded to ‘share the storey’ on social media, a counter
culture developed at the same time.  This formed as a rather abusive Pro McDonalds
site simply labelled “Tecoma McDonalds” (2011). Here, unless one counts a single case
of arson vandalism to the NMIT garden, (Webb, 2012) ‘Tecoma McDonalds’ group
actions remained mostly in the private level of the mediapolis, in what is known as
“subactivism”, (Bakardjieva, 2012) a level of activism where “identity construction [takes place]
through subject positioning vis-Ă -vis social and political discourses and relations, [and]
friend–enemy distinction and identification with collective formations
[are made]” (p.71).

 

In contrast the ‘subject positioning’ only strengthened this media savvy community and
they  continued to share the storey of the unanimous council-VCAT rejection via
the garden site which ballooned media creation onto online spaces such as Youtube.  An
example of this is the evocative “remediation” (Bolter, 1999, p.45) “reclaiming Tecoma” which
can be seen linking a community cultural heritage of healthy organic food with the garden
 and aiming this statement at the McDonalds restaurant (MrTJsmith79. 2012). These
combined cultural acts mirror what Bakardjieva, (2012) describes of in her anti-logging case
 study, where public spaces where used for similar, effective “physical … dimension[s] of the
mediapolis [which] proved to be an essential space of appearance … [bridging]
the online and the traditional media” (p.71).

 

 

Conclusion: A strong Community reverberates

 

Despite the fact that the McDonalds restaurant will probably go ahead without
 a massive high court apeal, that in complexity, it could be argued that without the
“active audience” (Thompson cited in Rosen, 2006)  engaged in new media the NMIT
protest would still have been as large and as passionate as ever, it must besaid that
the shifting powers to the media consumer is there in this strong example.Strong
because in this essay the ‘No Maccas in Tecoma’ community provides
stable evidence suggesting an increased level of participation from well organised,
 informed and internationally recognised online groups engaged in a Mediapolis that
 has positively and permanently affected the local and state governmental process.
Strong because the Tecoma community culture is now firmer than ever in its cross
generational social ties of both new media and real space and the spin off effect of
 grassroots health food culture has been spread far and wide. Strong because in the
interest to further research, this article suggests the idea of the new media political
family agency and identifies interest-action borders to be explored in a greater depth
so as to ensure the audience is always not only politically active, but potent where
 and when it counts.    

 

 

 

Reference List:

 

Bakardjieva, Maria. (2012). Reconfiguring the mediapolis: New media and civic
 agency New Media Society. 14(63). Pp. 63-79. DOI: 10.1177/1461444811410398.
 
_______________. (2009). Subactivism: Lifeworld and Politics in the Age of the
Internet. The Information Society. 25(1). Pp.91–104. DOI: 10.1080/01972240802701627

Bolter, J. D., & Grusin. R. (1999). Remediation: Understanding New Media . Cambridge,
 MA: MIT Press. pp. 44-50.

Burgeroff.org. (2013). Accessed 23rd May 2013: http://www.burgeroff.org.
 
Duggin, Francis. (2002). No, They Don’t Want McDonalds in Belgrave. Songs
of Sherbrook. AUS. Self-published. p.17.

Dunn, Cr. Samantha. (2013).Cr Samantha Dunn: The official blog of Greens
Councillor Samantha Dunn, Shire of Yarra yanges. Blog Posts May 21st 2011 to present.
 Accessed: 21st  May 2013: http://crdunn.blogspot.com.au/2011_05_01_archive.html.

Gordon, J. (2007). The mobile phone and the public sphere: mobile phone usage
in three critical situations. Convergence. 13(3). pp.307-319.

Johnston, Chris. (2012). No fries with that. The Age Victoria. December 16th.
Accessed 23rd May 2013:
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/no-fries-with-that-20121215-2bg4y.html.

Kligler-Vilenchik, Neta. & Shresthova, Sangita. (2012). Learning Through Practice:
Participatory Culture Civics. Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.
USA. University of Southern California. P.19.

MrTJsmith79. (2012). Reclaiming Tecoma. [youtube]. October 17th. Accessed 21st
 May 2013:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1wDZZDboZM&feature=player_embedded.

McDonalds Tecoma. (2012). Facebook Group.  Facebook.com. Accessed 21st May:

Savvas, Elicia. (2011). Facebook Group Posting. 21st May, 5:51pm. No Maccas in
the Hills. Facebook.com. accessed 21st May 2013:
https://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/168109379936618.

Seedy, Kimberly. (2011). HAVE YOUR SAY: Do you want a McDonald's in Tecoma?.
Free Press Leader. 13th April. Accessed 22nd May 2013:
http://free-press-leader.whereilive.com.au/news/story/hungry-for-the-hills. 

Singer, J.B. & Ashman, I. (2009) ch. 19: User-Generated Content AND Journalistic
Values. In S. Allen & E. Thorsen (Eds.), Citizen Journalism: Global Perspecitves.
New York: Peter Lang. pp. 233-242.


Rosen, J. (2006). ‘The People Formerly Known as the Audience’. Press Think.
http://archive.pressthink.org/2006/06/27/ppl_frmr.html.


tvag.org.au. (2012). McDonald’s. [July] accessed: 21st May 2013:
http://www.tvag.org.au/McDonalds.html.

Wall, Melissa. (2005). Blogs of war: weblogs as news. Journalism. 6 (2), pp.153-72.
DOI: 10.1177/1464884905051006.

Westlake, E.J. (2008). Friend me if you Facebook: Generation Y and performative
 surveillance.The Drama Review. 52(4). pp.21-40. Accessed 23rd May 2013:
http://muse.jhu.edu.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/journals/the_drama_review/v052/52.4.westlake.pdf.

Webb, Emily. (2012).Tecoma Maccas fight turns ugly. Free Press Leader. 29th October.
Accessed 21st May 2013:
http://free-press-leader.whereilive.com.au/news/story/tecoma-maccas-fight-turns-ugly/.

 
My deep thanks to the "burger off" community group for their continued fight to
save our community from this corporate disease...

w a lentil burger
-Jas: D