E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG BY TODD SWIFT

MYSTERIUM PASCHALE

It happens like this
in writing, a man
is brought to a hill to be raised
to die in spring

so that God's will
be done. Never kill alone,
use Romans when you can,
and let care down by a kiss.

I am born in words
and reborn reading; when the ink
from the black well spills.
These trees here are torn

between bliss and dismay, it is confusing
how the world is making progress
even as it staggers back
on one bleakest Saturday;

a chasm opens like a speech
the monster of all creation makes
but that is a volcanic belch
instead; God is dead to live,

the twisting snakery of organised
deception at the tricked hinge
of Easter, where the magic
is love's risk of everything.

But fixed. Stacked. A house
that knows its odds. I never complain
that Christ rises on the Sunday,
it is good theatre and good news.

It is truce with warring nature;
why spar with Caesar forever?
The people who said no
become those who say yes, later.

The mob is just indifferent
ignorance; it gets confused,
as I say, when sung or spoken;
it …

Eyewear, the blog  is pleased to feature a new poem by Irish poet Colin Dardis, who appears in the Best New British and Irish Poets 2016 anthology. The poem was commissioned for, and broadcast on, Sky One's What's Up TV last month. This is quite the St Patrick's Day today, in terms of its echoes and shadows, as the controiversial (to some) centernary of the Easter Rising approaches.


I Have Looked For Inspiration

I have looked for inspiration
in all these streets:
some now forgotten by man,
only recalled by the dust and the dead;
others set on the possibility
of the here and the now.


I have looked for the unmarked grave
and stood at the memorials, touched shoulders
with both the grieving and the fallen.
I have observed the minute’s silence
and cried out in celebration
when the guns were laid down.


I have walked the roads of Omagh,
of Kingsmill, Greysteel and Enniskillen,
tramped the dirt down in Belfast,
Derry, Londonderry, Maiden City,
and in everywhere, found a future that longs to be f…

M. Ward is a Portland-based singer-songwriter - a description that will either worry you, or not. Eyewear, the blog thinks he may have just under-the-radar delivered one of the best albums of 2016, already. Ward is known to his fans, and has been making albums like this, more or less, for 15 years; this time, he is accompanied, as all reviews elsewhere also note, with subtle support from Neko Case, Peter Buck and k.d lang - and indeed the overall effect is a bit like a languorous twangy lang album, or the quietest R.E.M. LP ever.

With effortless charm and aplomb, More Rain manages to capture precisely what made albums by Lloyd Cole & The Commotions, The Blue Nile, and more recently Boy & Bear so impactful - the holy trinity of superb vocals with a hint of doo-wop, expertly deployed Americana melodies just shy of early Smiths (with some country echo-chamber), and whip-smart lyrics easily the equal of prime Elvis Costello.

With simple but effective production that balances a sense…

50 years ago, in 1966, the most important person in the world of pop culture was 40-year-old, thin, patrician-looking smart-suited George Martin, the Abbey Road, then AIR, music producer who was the Beatles' main ally (the '5th Beatle' of lore) from 1962 to their end; and fifty years later, he still is.

For as The Guardian reports today, in interviews with various pop, alt, indie and rock producers, no one has ever come close to bettering what he first imagined, first achieved - not even the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson (who came close).  Nor were Martin's ideas lofty stale things - but the truly best of British - a working-class London East End* mesh and mash of comedy recordings, sentimental string arrangements, melody, harmony, and virtuosic (and stoic) professionalism - he was Sterling when it was Gold standard. As Stuart Price suggests, Martin took the idea of the studio as instrument and made perfection from it.

Martin's idea of perfection, and the studio as in…