“as cool as marrowbone jelly, I’m on to you… I can track the droplets of fear, bare-boned on your long and solitary road… too late now to call for your doctor… I have all the time in the world…”
Inspired by David Bowie’s “Diamond Dogs”, the text and music was written to be performed at a tribute to David Bowie, supported by Adelaide’s Paroxysm Press. Most of the raw footage was shot around the Adelaide CBD, and was then composited together and animated to make a series of dystopian cityscapes.
This video has had incredible success, having been screened to acclaim at festivals all around the world:
• official selection, Artist’s Film section Aesthetica Short Film Festival 2019 (York, UK, November, 2019)
• official selection and winner Best Video Poem, 2018 Film and Video Poetry Symposium (Los Angeles, 26-29 April, 2018);
• Honorable Mention for Best Animation and screened at Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival 2018 (Worcester, MA, USA, 2018);
• official selection 2020 International Screening of Experimental Films and Videopoems AT THE FRINGEinternational arts festival (Tranås, Sweden, October, 2020);
• official selection, REELpoetry 2020 international poetry film festival (Houston, TX, January, 2020);
• screened at Brave New World: performance-poetry-film (Plymouth, UK, 31st May, 2018);
• screened at the 6th International Video Poetry Festival (Athens, January, 2018).
• screened at the 2019 Film and Video Poetry Society Symposium in Moscow, Cinema Kosmos, Moscow (Russia, July 2019);
• screened at WE OPEN SPACE (Vienna, Austria, November, 2019);
• screened at the 2019 Newlyn Short Film Festival (UK, April, 2019);
• screened at Grindhouse iii @ Zoetrope (Bolton, UK, June, 2019);
• Honorable Mention in Experimental Forum Film and Video Art Festival (Los Angeles, July, 2019);
• screened at Something Unexpected, The Wreckers Live (Goolwa, August, 2019);
• featured in Judging the First Atticus Videopoetry Contest by Marie Craven, Moving Poems Magazine(January 26, 2019);
• text published in Solid Air: Australian and New Zealand Spoken Word (eds David Stavanger & Anne-Marie Te Whiu, UQP, 2019);
• text performed at Adelaide Writers’ Week 2020, Hear Me Roar (March, 2020).
dog daze as cool as marrowbone jelly as hot as chocolate wax I have diamonds on my collar sapphires and emeralds ignite fire storms in my eyes my skin is burnished bronze I’m inked with ruby and quartz my braids are barbed wire slipknots cast-iron blades hackle my armour-plate spine my nose tracks so close to ground I can smell trouble oozing up between the flagstones between the spreadeagled entrails of your precious little conquests but who gives a flying fuck? it’s always about you... I can track the droplets of fear the rank apprehension smirched between your toes smeared beneath your slip-shod heels as you search for safe retreat amid the unexploded shells of your inglorious past your friends in high places cannot help you now your rheumy Lord Mayors and pitch-forked company directors, your billionaire bankers and bit-coin junkies will never lift a finger to stem the shit storm building around your arse because I am on to you I’ve got your bases covered with nowhere to hide you are out there on your own bareboned on your long and solitary road you see, I have the dirt I have run the numbers your files will be deleted without a trace and only I can log you in only I can authenticate your identity your pixelated captcha code and only I will have the encryption key to your darkest imagination your very worst nightmares as you skulk within your hypothetical corridors of power as you mindlessly warp your sense of priority, privilege, privacy as you fruitlessly bend your game plan to your inevitable defeat under cover of darkness you will not hear my footfall on rattling floorboards my breath fogging your double-glazed window panes I will be your back door man your front door man your pit-bull, your lone wolf howling for restitution baying for repayment of your festering debt and your mouldering IOUs too late now to call for your doctor that pain in your chest is yours for keeps but rest assured be secure in the knowledge I will be watching you and I have all the time in the world yes, only one of us is counting and I have diamonds to spare I have dog years by the million I have dog years to burn