Arts
Performance poet Caitlin Saunders joins me under the disco ball in Castaway Studios for a chat about imaginary friends, favourite words and poetry! Check out the video for My Honest Poem, which was a year in the making! Produced by Rat Race Visual Media. Many thanks to Jaymee Leyana for providing the creative prompt 'Make-up Remover and Maccas' which inspired my poem this week and became title. Both Jaymee and Caitlin were special guests at the More Than A Whelan live show at Merri Creek Tavern, dedicated to the theme of melancholy. You can also see more of Jaymee's work on her Instagram page. Also many thanks to Cameron Semmens for the prompt 'Intergalactic Elephants' and Kim Jeffs for the prompt 'Frost Fractals.' Make-up Remover and Maccas Just under the lip of a freeway overpass on Eastlink there resides a Catalogue Spiritghost. Catalogue spiritghosts or Catagods as they referred to in the biz, place themselves in high traffic areas for humans and they watch and catalogue their daily toils. And the end of the day they collect their notes and report back to their superiors by riding an interstellar elephant back to an undisclosed location. This particular Catagod has a name unpronounceable by the human tongue, so we’ll just call him Ralph. Ralph has the power of knowing every single action moment of a person’s like with just one glance into their eyes. He records their struggles into a tiny star and once his bag of stars is full he knocks off for the day. On this day, an automobile passes by that catches his eye and then he catches her eye in his mind. She’s getting by as well as she can. She has been destroyed but now she is rebuilding. Heavy scaffolding surrounds the construction site of her soul. Behind the scaffolding something remarkable is happening. There is an ocean of love in her heart. This ocean is always there. It replenishes itself on a daily basis. Love is her preferred method of communication. Love of friends. Love of family. Love of words. Love of speech. She photographs the sky as a form of meditation. In the sky there is everything and nothing. She shares the sky. She is generous with her findings. Sometimes when the sky falls, she falls too in solidarity with its descent. And the night turns blue and pink and purple. And she swims through the colours like an Esther Williams bath bomb and when she comes up for air the colours are gone. That’s the price the night takes from you sometime. The ferryman always demands a fee. And in the morning all that’s left on the shore of her bedcovers is crumpled empty bag of maccas and the makeup remover she forgot to apply before she fell asleep. And she yawns and stretches and she steps from her bed to draw the curtains open and fractal frost covers the leaves of the trees as punctuation marks and the light of the day pours into her like orange juice into a glass and she turns and looks for her camera. Ralph the catagod pauses and reflects upon the life contained in the star within his palm and he says to himself ‘this will do’. And he whistles for his interstellar elephant that dutifully appears for the long ride back to an undisclosed location to report this important news to his superior. By Sean M Whelan Inspired by creative prompts from Jaymee Leyana, Cameron Semmens and Kim Jeffs. Whelan and Stealin' For Whelan and Stealin' both Caitlin and I read the work of the wonderful [Sabrina Benaim] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabrina_Benaim). Caitlin read First Date and I read The Loneliest Sweet Potato. We finished the show discussing an hilarious incident that occurred in my life as DJ HOT WHEELS which has spurred this range of merch. And don't forget More Than A Whelan will be appearing at this years Melbourne Writers Festival!! We will be presenting at special live show called Sad Is Rad, celebrating all things melancholy through music, comedy and poetry at the Toff In Town on Sunday 8th Sept 2:30. grab your tickets here now before they're all gone!