Tag Archives: Herr Tamarin

EARS WIDE OPEN // four in the morning

Dear Readers, Watchers, and Occasional Listeners, welcome to another instalment of Ears Wide Open!

Our main page states that you won’t find an overabundance of brightly coloured pictures, hit songs or other such paraphernalia here. Why? Because we simply want to keep your focus on our texts. This is a literary site after all!

We have, however, also been known to switch things up from time to time. Yes, we’re justifiably leery of shoehorning in things that don’t fit with what we do, but we also like to allow creativity’s natural flow to have its say. This time, we’re listening to that flow, and it’s taking on the form of one Magsi Rover.

Who is she? Well, we don’t know a whole lot about her yet, but we’re fairly certain (but cannot guarantee) that Magsi is a fellow WordPress blogger, Filipino, and loves to read things aloud. And we’re fairly certain that she’s read most of our stuff too. She’s even recorded a couple of our poems and sent them to us! How lucky are we?

Needless to say, our ears are wide open and receptive, and so we’ve decided to share one of her efforts with you, our Dear Readers, Watchers, and Occasional Listeners. Please do enjoy! Oh, and don’t be shy about joining our Ears Wide Open challenge. If you’d like to record one of your favourite poems by us, then please go right ahead and do so. The more the merrier!

four in the morning

time is a wheel
and it’s bearing down on me
time is a wheel
and it’s bearing down on me
how to outrun what isn’t free?
i still don’t know what i can be

hope is easy
when it is the first time
hope is easy
when it is the first time
but not when bells have lost their chime
and not upwind the squalls of mimes

be my comfort
deadly jesus, yeah be my friend
be my comfort
deadly jesus, yeah be my friend
brake the wheel afore story’s end
my soul to keep and ever mend

time is a wheel
and it’s bearing down on me
time is a wheel
and it’s bearing down on me
stars like dewdrops across my knee
lacuna matata on the cliffs of scree

Text by TONY SINGLE
Audio by MAGSI ROVER
Image by HERR TAMARIN
© All rights reserved 2017

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