Member Since: 10/25/2006
Band Website: ellenzaks.net
Band Members: Collaborating with Subliminal Attraction on my soon to be released CD – Outcries.
Influences:
OUTCRIES is the first collection of poems from an outstanding new poet – Ellen Zaks.
In a dazzling fusion of myth, fairy-tale and the metaphysical, her unique voice cries out with fearless passion and sensuality.
"With rich and often startling imagery, Ellen Zaks creates in her poems an emotional charge, which is both spiritual and erotic. An exciting talent." D.M. Thomas (Author of The White Hotel)
Her darkly beautiful world resonates with underlying romanticism and mysticism that is never sentimental. The images are profound, often visual and eminently quotable:‘Did we not write our names upon the black porcelain of night, fingers dripping with gold?’ (Lament).
Writing from a 21st century viewpoint on quantum physics and cosmology, Ellen Zaks bravely addresses the rites of passage of life and death. This viewpoint also leads her to explore the strange underbelly of the ‘living, breathing’ internet.
‘Outcries’ the CD – with soundscapes by Subliminal Attraction will soon be available.
SNOW QUEEN
Northern lights hook at the sky,
race the magnesium flares
roaring along the route.
Flocks of birds of one mind
bank and rush into depressions,
white in the chemical brightness.
A hush rings quarter-notes
off the sleigh-runners,
marking the intervals before arrival.
The Home-Coming Snow Queen
trails ice-flows, her childhood,
rocks crushed by her passing.
APOLLO
I met the god-form Apollo in my sleep.
He was real, for I could smell his sweat
but his eyes I cannot describe.
There was one who stood in the way.
She had red shoes and hair
and looked just like me.
He shook his head at our rivalry,
so the jewels in his close-cropped hair
ricocheted and spun
and he laughed in a manner not at all human.
The diamonds in his teeth
shone like tiny suns.
We said we had been waiting for him a long time.
Then he held us safe and close
and we feasted in the windfall of his smile.
Today I like -
Passion, movement, life, saying yes, saying no, stamping my feet (flamenco), excitement, flirting, being lazy, letting my hair grow long, stretching, hot sun on my skin, the smell of jasmine, jokes, red wine and Coca-Cola, bicycling, ballet dancing, the cosmos,
psychology, the esoteric, new inventions, losing myself in a novel, de-constructing TV, films etc., the times when I have to write poetry, learning to speak Spanish, cacti, because no two are alike, fast cars, rituals, processions, frankincense, renaissance art, Egyptian art and Isis, Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn, Maria Callas, although I cry every time I listen to her, the view of Africa over the Mediterranean at dusk, Mediaeval music, eastern music, reggae, Stravinsky's 'Rite of Spring' Rammstein, warm summer nights, playing castanets, the pageantry of Semana Santa, horses at the ferias, cloud patterns, stars, eclipses, comets, the smell of turpentine when I'm painting, the glory of colour, the miracle of a painting coming together, life drawing, the beauty of the naked body (well toned of
course), laughing at myself, wondering what's going to happen next, romance, dressing up and going out, cats, cups of tea with toast and honey, the endless riddle of why we are here and where we are going, all the answerable mysteries we shall maybe only solve when we are beyond life.
Me
Born screaming small into this world
Living I am.
Occupational therapy twixt birth and death–
What was I before?
What will I be next?
What am I now?
Cruel answer carried in the jesting mind
of a careless God
I will not bend and grovel
When I die. If He says my sins are myriad
I will ask why He made me so imperfect
And he will say 'My chisels were blunt'
I will say 'Then why did you make so
many of me?'
Poem by Spike Milligan
Sounds Like: My poetry set to music.
Record Label: None
Type of Label: None