Sapphire

 

Listening to the young bossa nova Cubans 1964:

What is your love and what is your drink?

Voices of the dead

Crooning like New York heroes, their spark, their fame-portion,

Nightclub after nightclub.

Tight rhythm, twisted pitch, perfect bend,

Their respect for the lines, getting it right, every time.

Voices the past meant nothing to,

What would there be to change their minds?

He, staring at the bottom of his rum glass,

Little hands and little handsome feet,

A chevron walk on starless lane.

Don’t let it eat your liver, little Orpheus.

Only one of the guys on this CD is still alive (believe it).

Sapphire (January)

Noise from Velvet Underground loops in Warhol-Weiwei next door (‘Blue: Alchemy of a Colour’, NGV January 2016) grew so intrusive I left. I guess that’s why they call it the blues. What is it about blue-patterned porcelain and blue-dyed archipelago cloth instils tranquillity, best enjoyed in silence? Why does the Gallery seem not to know? Outside I wait in tree-lined sunlight for No. 1. The woman beside me texts. She wears light-blue sandals, toenails painted blue. Sapphire, I’d say. We share a silent minute under china-blue sky of St. Kilda Road, before she steps neatly onto ‘Glen Iris’ (No. 6).