Category Archives: AUDIO

EARS WIDE OPEN // anastasis tree

Earlier this year, we wrote a poem called anastasis tree. It’s one of our personal favourites and it seems this was also the case for many of you, our dear readers. Oh, and guess what? We were lucky enough to have the inimitable Miljenko Williams do a reading of it for us. We think you’ll agree that he’s done an absolutely wonderful job. Please do sit back, relax, and enjoy! (Also, may we recommend that you cast a curious ear over another of his readings here? It’s one of his own poetic efforts. Seriously, check it out. It’s SO good!)

anastasis tree

thick scabbed bark like a panoply
but tenderer than a wing-stroke
stealthy touches, airy kisses,
cracking, cracking

i’m but a breath, thinly stretched
by potter o’er clay and bone
i’m a tumbleweed in tumbleland
a noose dropped at the hanging tree

gnawing trails through rotten caudex
weaving cocoons inside the heartwood
quivering fibrils, feeble pulse
waiting, waiting

you are closer than the wisp of lips
you are deeper than oceans mere
you are greater than fears all brung
an empty space at the hanging tree

gentle stirring feels like convulsions
nobody asks you when you’re ready
voiceless screams, waterless tears
waking, waking

we all submit that need to know
we know love that seek out truth
we love true another’s name
our troubles left at the hanging tree

you want me for you
i want you for me
so let it be
a butterfly sways
on a hangman’s noose
at the dead tree

Text by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
Audio by MILJENKO WILLIAMS
Image by TETIANA ALEKSINA
© All rights reserved 2016

THE CRUMBCAST // Talking Without Hearing

Previously on The Crumbcast, Tati was trying to teach Tony Ukrainian, and Tony kept failing. This left her wondering what crimes she must have committed to be saddled with such an idiot.

Ever the kind soul, she kept persisting in this fruitless endeavour.

Meanwhile, Tony sighs and begins rambling about anything and everything that his poor, addled brain can think of. His infected ear. Sound’s cheating ways. Racist weather conditions. Yup, he yammers on about it all.

Dear lord. Such a to do! Will Tony ever learn to cope with Ukrianian? Will Tati ever learn to cope with his nonensical singing? Find out by clicking the picture below. It’s real magic for the digital world!

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2016

THE CRUMBCAST // Simon Says and the Fresh New Hell

Argh, it looks like I let my guard down! It was another nice and unalarming evening. I was not doing any mischief, not touching anyone, fixing the Primus and stewing in my reflective juices…

“HULLO!”

Tony decided not to sweat about politeness and just poked his head through my window. Yuck! Time differences are tricky things when you’re halfway sleepy, and your writing companion is boiling and spluttering with words and emotions at the other end.

Oh my God! Did he want to talk about God?! No-no-no, may God keep me from discussions of God! With my brain on autopilot, I muttered something in Ukrainian. Maybe I didn’t even realize this at the time. All I know is that Tony stopped speaking and goggled at me.

“Ah, what?”

Oh… I explained that “Слава Богу, Бога немає. А якщо, не дай Боже, Бог таки є?” roughly translated meant, “Thank God, no God. And if, God forbid, God is still there?” Tony was like, “Okay, I still have no idea what you meant, but… sure!” and giggled. I don’t know why. Maybe my Ukrainian seemed funny to him.

I decided to give him a second chance. “It’s an oxymoron. Nonsense. Like that anecdote about the doctor and his patient.” Tony’s eyes lit up with interest. “Oh, what’s the anecdote? I like anecdotes!” I sighed and said, “A doctor wakes a patient by saying, ‘Patient, wake up! It’s time to take your sleep-pills!’” Tony chuckled at this.

“Yes, I definitely need to use this in my podcast…”

Why didn’t I pay attention to his fuss? Again, blame it on my drowsiness. Well, guys, що маємо, те маємо. Here you can listen how Tony parrots my Ukrainian, prattles something about Stalin and Simpson… and maybe something else. I fell asleep in five minutes, to be honest, and didn’t listen to all that Tony craved to tell me. Maybe you, my dear reader, can listen to the end?

This is a bit strange, but if you want to listen to the sound then you should click on the picture below. Yes, it’s real magic in the digital world, I tell ya!

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2016

GUEST POST // Ears Wide Open (Dublin – A Rite of Passage by Miljenko Williams)

The voice of Mils makes butter melt.
His poems are lush, heart-freakin’-felt.
Yeah, lend an ear and you will agree
He deserves to be our first nominee
For audiohood on site Unbolt.
His talent is a much needed jolt
To lift our game and write effin’ good,
To not fear being misunderstood.

Dublin – A Rite of Passage

Before I was soiled: I was
oiled unhappy;
toiling and boiling like
cauldron of darkly wizard-
like pose;
a fingerpinch of spite,
of masculine passivity,
of man who never was become.

Now is another matter:
now he is become:
now he runs like training-
man; now the game no longer judd-
er[r]s, shakes or shudd-
er[r]s out of mind, or sight of flailing
in-
com-
pet-
i-sham.

And of all the sites and scenes delivered,
like rapt-
tured box of heavenly gifting,
the rite of pass-
age which most delivers me
is the right of
so
passing close
you do
give me.
The laughter and tears;
the fears and the hurts;
the love freely expressed:
the goddamn life you contain and inscribe
and so simply
define, with your brain and your being and your
goddamn beautiful face;
your his-
and your her-
and them-
stories bloody out there you unfold and retell and
spin ingeniously around me and my soul and my
being and my hell;
still untold, still unfollowed, still unknown by
most out there.
Dublin: I love you, more
than you
know.
Dublin: I love you, because you and your people
weirdly know how
to make me this [s]well: [s]weller
than [s]weller ever was.

And whilst time is still ours, the future is still
built – upon pasts that are passed;
upon guilts that begin slowly to wash away in
[time-
{s]-
hhh} I say, as
I discover the suddenly that the man
I become is more than the son of his father.

And pictures and faces and sounds and dis-
graces; sexual wroughts that pilfer
my thoughts and make me
happy again; as
happy as free man and
woman can be.

And the days and nights I pass
in remembrance of Dublin
past, and future maybe perfect too,
remind me all the time of you.
And a life recovered
is a life remade;
retaken as warriors burrowing violent
under-
growing and gnawing and
hurting and sad,
and ultimately the [bad-
d-
es–
{t]-
i-
me} of all
is what has recalled me away from
the life I could
live.

And maybe it’ll work, and maybe it won’t,
and maybe it’ll break us;
but if we don’t try and see, and check in and check
out,
we always shall rue the night-
and day-
t-
i-
me-
s
we refused to
pursue the
one life we’d lead
and even enjoy:
good Lordy, oh my …

:-)

… that really such a sin?
To hope for such win?

So I begin where
I start: before and after a-
part of so many experiences,
imagined and real; the soul
and the heart I have refound in
Dublin.
And then what is real if not in the hug
of your embrace?

For a future
begins to replace the before and
after which started so hurt,
and now begins rightly to
away fade to
black …
… not the black of all bad, nor the
black of all pain; just the
black of all colours: the
rainbow of
sane.

Text by MILJENKO WILLIAMS
© All rights reserved 2016

EARS WIDE OPEN // Glass Tantō

First we had the disarmingly lettered Madam Marmoset. Now we have the mellifluous Herr Tamarin. Where on earth are these highly literate and articulate primates coming from? We sometimes find ourselves hoping to evolve into them. (Shouldn’t it be the other way round?)

Herr Tamarin seems gruff and unyielding on the outside, but inside he’s really a soft, marshmallowy romantic who loves to show off his impressive reading abilities. Just listen to his dulcet tones! Is his voice not like honey being poured down your starving lugholes? Oh my god… the endless eargasms!

So, today we present the first installment of a new feature. Dear reader, we want to share with you audio recordings of some of our past poems, but we don’t want to hear only ourselves prattling on. No, we want to hear you too. Do you have a favourite piece on Unbolt Me that you’d like to record for posterity? If we dig it then we’d love to use it for a future post in the Ears Wide Open series!

Glass Tantō

spring unfolded on winter again
like a skewbald origami dream
in time for the seeker’s return
empty-handed he slipped behind
the windowpane
the windowpane

he’d left to claim her heart again
she who’d growed beyond the pines
she who’d made the seeker return
empty-hearted he slit behind
the window pain
the window pain

Text by TONY SINGLE
Audio & Image by HERR TAMARIN
© All rights reserved 2016