ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE
★ ★ ★ ★
SEAMUS KIRKPATRICK
O William!
(in response to William Blake’s ‘To Winter’)
William, I feel your horror.
She’s a creeping cruel terror
No doubt. Deep cutting chill.
Monstrous murderous fiend.
I see you admire her slow savagery,
It’s anonymous thoroughness;
Her dance is all pause and balance;
Delicate poise and containment,
Spinning where worlds draw breath and
Open faces turn to Sol and pray,
She turns antipodal to a direful
Demon; red roaring butcher of children
The hero killer, he salts their skin
Desiccates them like fruit, their dull
Eyes wilt and bake on relentless
Red rocks, blood boiled and drained.
But then! We were seduced, and the
Demon was freed, his fists flailing as
She shook and lowed, cracking
Bones and collapsing glaciers.
Now we tremble terrified in
Holey wooden houses where
Every breath is a battle and
We pray for her return.
O William! You saw with clear
Eyes what we took for granted
O William! If you could see
The devil dancing at Winter’s retreat.
Seamus Kirkpatrick is a Brisbane-based writer, singer and multi instrumentalist. He mixes songs and poems of loss and grief with moody pop, cinematic textures and noisy, soul guitar.
It’s an immersive, abrasive, ambient and affective combination of electronics, voice and visuals. He is a previous member of beloved Brisbane funk/punk band Taxi, as well as folk groups Cole, Kirkpatrick and Van Dijk and One Straw, jazz trio The Charlie Moreland Trio and The Shenzo Electric Stunt Orchestra. He currently performs with Luke Jaaniste in his HHAARRPP.collective, Nick Watson And The Bawdy Dicks, Fronz Arp and is a regular collaborator with writer, artist and film maker Jake Connor Moss.
For more on King Colossus see https://kingcolossus.bandcamp.com/
ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE
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