Rice paddy dream

Performed in the stage show Take me To Paradise at OzAsia Festival 2008.

On my first visit to Bali in 2002, Ketut the driver from my guesthouse took me driving out into the countryside. We stopped at a few tourist places he thought I would like, but mostly we drove through the rice paddy landscape . It seemed we were driving further and further, deeper and deeper into green. I didnt want him to ever stop driving.
 

Rice Paddy Green

Drive me forever through rice paddy green
I want to drive with you forever in your rice paddy dream
together
just driving
never take me home
forever in your rice paddies
I just want to roam

Drive me forever to your rice paddy temple
I don't want to go back to my life
It's that simple
I want to stay forever
I never want to leave
It's here I begin my rice paddy dream

Luminous, irridescent
bright emerald green
wild green, growing up through the wet earth, green
growing as I watch green
sprouting seeding, seeding, sprouting
duck eating, bug eating green

I want to drive forever in your windy roads of green
round green corners, up green mountains, into green ravines
through green, all over green, cover me, feed me with, love me with GREEN!

Drive me forever to through rice paddy green
I want to drive with you forever in your rice paddy dream
together
just driving
never take me home
forever in your rice paddies
Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiie
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiIIIIIIIIIIII
just want to
roooooooaaaaaaaam



(c) Jan Cornall  Ubud 2005

When I go Home

Back not so long ago in Bali as you walked along the street, all the drivers would incessantly ask 'do you want transport' or 'transport, transport'. Now they just hold a sign saying 'transport'. Did someone complain, did the government bring in a new decree? Like all really annoying things, once gone you miss them. So for this poem to work now, you have to imagine the guys still hassling and doing that crazy steering wheel mime as you approach.

When I Go Home

when I go home
I want a Balinese man
to stamp my documents
with his warm smile

to greet me at the airport gate
holding high a sign with my name on it
as if he has been waiting for me
all my life

when I go home
I want a Balinese man
to take all my luggage
and lose it!

when I go home
I want a Balinese man
to ask me every day
what i would like to eat and drink
and even if it takes an hour or more to arrive
I won't mind
as long as he walks by every few minutes
and gives me
THAT smile

when I go home
I want a Balinese man
to sweep away my sorrows
with his morning shwishk shwisk shwisk

to oh so languidlly
dust off all my hard edges

to pick me
like the red hibiscus flower
and place me
gently on the bed

when I go home
I want EVERYONE I meet
to be SO interested in where I am going

and when they ask
Do you want transport?

I'll say

take me

TAKE ME

take me back to your Bali
so I can remember
how beautiful beauty really is.

Poem (c)Jan Cornall Ubud 2004
Winner of peoples choice award at the first poetry slam of the inaugural Ubud Writers and Readers Festival.
Paintings (c) Jumaadi, courtesy of the artist and Watters Gallery.
http://www.wattersgallery.com/artists/JUMAADI/Jumaadi.html

About Archipelagogo

Archipelagogo is a collection of poems, songs and stories, penned during my travels around the Indonesian Archipelago in the decade beginning 2004 (and a follow up to the novel I wrote during my Asia Link Residency in Jakarta in 2006). 

Many of these love-song-poems about people, places and the complexities of cross cultural relationships, have been spoken and sung (acapella - archipela) at different times to intimate audiences at literary festivals in the Asia Pacific: Ubud Writers Festival, Utan Kayu Literary Biennale, Darwin's Wordstorm, Braidwood's Two Fires Festival, St Kilda Writers Festival, Hong Kong International Literary Festival.

This beautifully presented book, published by Saritaksu Editions, is illustrated with painting by Indonesian artist Jumaadi and had its first launch at a wonderful full house cabaret performance at Bar Luna, during Ubud Writers & Readers Festival in October 2013, and again in New York City, July 2014, at the Bowery Poetry Club.

Take a sneak peek inside the book here. Read reviews here.


 GET YOUR SIGNED COPY HERE

 In the process of readying them for print they were originally presented here, one piece per post with accompanying images from the collection of wonderfully whimsical and poignant paintings by Indonesian/Australian visual artist JUMAADI..


You can click on the titles individually or go to the top of the blog archive and scroll down. Some of the titles are:
Praying In the Macet, Lampung Boy, Jogja Cowboy, Pleasure and Pain, Balinese Eyes, Follow That Thing, When I Go Home, Sugar Mummy, Mid Life Crisis, Exotic Erotic, Married Men, Lonely in Lampung, Indonesian Handbag, Rice Paddy Dream.

 
ARCHIPELAGOGO as a live 45-60 min show/presentation is available for bookings at festivals and events. Contact Jan for booking info.

You can find related short stories by Jan here.
The Girl With A Suitcase (set in Jogjakarta).
Close To Heaven (set in Jakarta).
Sea Massage (set in Lovina, Bali).

Singing Up Ghosts in Lawang Sewu (set in Semarang, Central Java).
Listen to an ABC Radio interview (12mins) with Jan and poet Sitok Srengenge (with music tracks), talking about their collaborative jazz poetry CD, Jan Cornall Singing Srengenge. 
 

Text (c) Jan Cornall 2012

Paintings (c) Jumaadi, courtesy of the artist and Watters Gallery.
http://www.wattersgallery.com/artists/JUMAADI/Jumaadi.html