The keyboard sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti (1685–1757), and a poem I wrote about them, have a close connection to my favourite rental place, an historic mansion in Newtown, Geelong.
You see Clarence wore an old “Lou” reed like a bamboo cravat and a fine felt suit of ebony the colour of half the keys on a honkytonk piano named Hank
I peer into the rear-view mirror/ at my sister’s baby face/The tears brimming
Flashback to the sixties, people living in the cities you got beatniks crossed with hippies sporting horizontal stripes and small goatees play a jazzy, minor chord, learn to smoke, renounce the lord
day one and two Zep II, day three and four Zep IV, four sticks/ the ciggie slim-jims keeping company with Bonham fills of tom-tom
And though not the worst/ part of our on-again off-again ways,/ the latest loss of you stings me anew
headlights splay across a country roadway/ single lane both ways in groovy groovin’ grooves/ to the smooth, smooth sound of billie holiday
and the singer goes yeah babe yeah yeah yeah/ then electric guitar wangs wah wah funk
Every now and then we publish poems: thoughts and ideas about music. Sometimes they tell a story. Sometimes they don’t. It doesn’t hurt to bend the rules on the odd occasion.
I have a vivid memory from that time of watching this wonderful film near the end of its run in Mid-City’s main cinema, which seated close to a thousand people, with only a couple of others in attendance.