Album release 2/12/22 Lou Salome Empathy With Daisies by Fall in Green

Excited to announce that our 4th album, Lou Salome Empathy With Daisies, is out today, 2nd December 2022!

Born in Russia in 1861, Lou Andreas-Salomé is remembered for her friendships with the great thinkers of her day. As well as being a poet, author, narrator and essayist, Salomé was the first female psychoanalyst, and muse to Friedrich Nietzsche, Paul Rée, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Sigmund Freud.

In 2022, Stefano Santachiara, the Italian author of a biographical play about Salomé’s life invited us to create a new work on the theme, and this album is the result; a new biographical work which explores the life of Salomé, and her relationships.

Each track explores a different aspect of her personality and relationships. Entwined in Infinity, for example, explores the minds of Salomé and Nietzsche. The Bird in Borrowed Feathers looks at Friedrich Carl Andreas, and Cosmic Solitude, Give Me Your Pain, and Sit With Your Ghost explores her deep relationship with the poet Rilke.

The album is rounded off with a new musical version of Richard Dadd’s poem The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke, and a new translation of the Rilke poem, The Flower of Farewell.

The music for the live premiere performance was based on solo piano. Here the music is enhanced with orchestral instruments, guitars, synthesizers, music box, and even the rhythmic mock-quill of Neitzsche!

Click here to purchase.

Crewe Tree of Light Ceremony: Sky Robes of Celeste

Sky Robes of Celeste

Sky robes of Celeste sparkle in winter’s breath
Studded with polished buttons of silver stars
Swish of indigo silk cyclorama
the smile of a golden crescent
the Plough edged with violet lace

Tree roots dormant
Oak stasis in weathered rocks
The sleeping burrow of tiny worms await
yet the cemetery carries whispers of rich veined springs

From emerald to russet
the chlorophyll fades as centuries turn
yet through frost iced ancestors’ soil
beloved snowdrops peep…

Sandalwood curls conjure
the labyrinth of memory

We dance with our ancestors to a silent tune
We listen to their gift of crimson treasure
pulsing their song
lit by her moon

©

This poem was commissioned by Crewe Council for the Tree of Light Ceremony. Performed by Fall in Green at Crewe cemetery, 3rd December 2021.

Things To Make and Do

Bikini clad dip
into giant moving body of blue
without flinching
yet he flinched
Memories of a science lesson
where you had to draw the digestive system from memory
make a list of pieces then jig-saw them in
to the red nosed man in Operation
so if you unravelled the gut
it would stretch around four houses
and all that time she sat in warm blood
thinking it was a bit of warm wee
and the old school cleaner got her a hammock pad and said it’s your period

Uncle Jonathon strode in
like he was in a movie
Her dainty breaststroke versus his front crawl
head turning to a macho rhythmic gasp
to check if each side of the sea was still there
thinking of the coffee dribble by the kettle
He was thinking of his sums
The end of the tax year
to take his mind off the bikini
Tables, graphs, pi squared, algebraic muddles, leaky pens, computer screens
Pens in Star Trek cups
Pencils with dirty cracked erasers like his eye wrinkles
Formulations, cogitations, lines of logic
Timetables, clients, pound signs.
That coffee dribble
has been there since last week
Then he thought of the chimney that he could fix when he got paid.
Front crawl

She thought more of guts, liver, heart and spleen
Holding hands, the beating heart
Memento mori
Forcing blood as a blanket of soothe
Where was the list of things to jigsaw in?

Taken from Super 8 Magicscape (2021)

Dead Hand poem translated by Chandra Gurung published in Nepapese Magazine Sabdha Sanyohan

My poem, Dead Hand, from Solitary Child: Friend of Immortals, translated by Chandra Gurung, is published by Sabdha Sanyohan. Dead Hand is a tribute to Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, about a passionate yet destructive love that transcends death. The poem also is performed by Fall in Green, on our album, Apocalypse of Clowns, with music and visual art by Mark Sheeky.

Dead Hand

Night
On the moor
Ragged as you were
I saw you
through the cracked window
Where my dead hand touched yours
Where my name was etched in three on the wooden desk

Your dark long locks fought the wind
like your soul
Heathcliff
MY Heathcliff
You destroyed everything

Yes, I became a lady, yet, I loved Edgar not
it was always you

Your face I saw
when I tangled in flesh
trying to make a hybrid us
with the wrong man

You walk this earth without me, yet
I walk with you
in you

I look into your eyes of pain
and I weep
until you return to me

Rest in Peace, Dear Chlorophyll (from Wilkommen Zum Rattenfanger Theater 2019)

Patchwork overcoat of amber
waits for gust
Hark back to the days when
we used to store sunlight

Leaves
sighing
after the laughter of summer
when our green architecture
supported flowery pedestals

We used to store sunlight
from green to brown to black to light, and back, we will return

Juicy to dry willow trails
Crunch
Cracked midribs
Mellow to the core
before
the freeze

What was vert, grün
turns to
schokoladebraun
noir

We will show you the passage of time
Rest in peace, dear chlorophyll
Our russet wreaths lie in
Pembrey Woods, with fellow garlands

We used to store sunlight
Richly veined pipelines
of original solar panels
Memories of snap
Snap
Snap
Snaps of gold
Swallowed

Leaves

Protection and fun
We make hedgehog duvets
Snails’ hover-boards

We used to store sunlight