Welcome to Phoenix’s world-changing Salon

A port­manteau. A treas­ure trove. A time cap­sule. A poetry book. A diary. A photo album. Memor­ies. Dreams. Wishes. Hopes. An open letter to an unsus­pect­ing public. An intim­ate con­fes­sion to close friends. A declar­a­tion of intent. A whis­per of love. A per­sonal record. An exper­i­ment in intro­spec­tion. A per­form­ance space. A polit­ical rant. A wild yawp. Why do any of us pub­lish our words and images online? Come, dream with me.

stress season

by | Aug 2, 1997 | ,

I have grown old and crabbed early in this winter air muscles filled with the crack­ling of dis­dain throat grown pained with clenched rep­rim­ands i am too soon snarled in a twine of neg­at­iv­ity i do not startle when others cannot pen­et­rate to the spring and autumn…

“I’m not even touching the bait”

by | May 27, 1997 | ,

I’m three kinds of awk­ward: the tack in the carpet the crumb in your throat the foot in my mouth I’m dead silent down­cast eyes I’m a steam train in a daisy meadow my words are lepers shunned I’m infec­tion I’ve got so many jagged edges no hole will ever be cre­ated that…

Work poem

by | May 16, 1997 | ,

She asks me to write about work, as if there can be any hues worth com­ment in this dusty place. The clam­our and the end­less cry of tor­tured equip­ment, squeal­ing beeps and elec­tronic col­li­sions. I parry with flutes and viola de gamba. We are drowned together. Through…

Greedy

by | Mar 16, 1997 | ,

if i am writ­ing to you again (and it seems odd, i admit) i turn to you to lament if i am writ­ing to you now, i con­fess, it is merely pro­cras­tin­a­tion: i should be writ­ing dull news for other read­ers partly, this letter is because it seems you have now found something…

fetish of tresses

by | Mar 14, 1997 | ,

For Michelle and Thorfinn What stirs me is long flow­ing hair and a tend­ency to touch the sky with easy fin­ger­tips. Cas­cad­ing strands of amber, coral, jet, burnt umber, fall­ing past smooth throats, slim torsos, down to jaunty waists and lean hips Lanky thin limbs…

i’d like to do a piece on breathing in general

by | Jan 24, 1997 | ,

in hos­pital Pho­to­graphs of hos­pit­als always look more pro­saic than the real thing. The sur­real nature of bore­dom and com­plete lack of stim­u­lus is not really con­du­cive to poetry. Any writ­ing will come much later when the idea of being attached to the oxygen in the wall…

Queer is…

by | Mar 1, 1992 |

… not con­ser­vat­ive. It is my strong hope and desire that queer is not het­ero­sex­ist, homo­sex­ist, sexist, racist, or holds any other pre­ju­dice but exper­i­ence within the ‘queer com­munity’ has sadly proved me wrong. Queer would usu­ally be used to describe gays,…

Dakin

by | Mar 1, 1990 |

The room is white with camp beds set up in rows. Dakin sits up on one of them, rub­bing his arm as the nurse with­draws the needle. “You can go out to the food now,” he says. “It’s free.” “I know,” says Dakin. He gets up and walks out the door in the oppos­ite direction,…

Sound & Image log book, University of Technology, Sydney

by | Mar 9, 1989 |

wow! sound poetry for s&i was phe­nom­enal… tried to incor­por­ate some ideas into my work, but it felt forced. pos­sibly it will come more nat­ur­ally later… found myself won­der­ing how the new atti­tude to the envir­on­ment will change our per­cep­tions, and think per­haps that…

Sound & Image log book, University of Technology, Sydney

by | Mar 2, 1989 |

col­oured cel­lo­phane left ideas imprin­ted on my retina, along with amaz­ing dis­cov­er­ies that 1970 stereo tapere­cord­ers do have auto­stop built in… listened to some of simon’s reel-to-reel of wood­stock… felt like being embed­ded in a dif­fer­ent era… dis­cussed dada in s&i……

Sound & Image log book, University of Technology, Sydney

by | Feb 17, 1989 |

the images i find are col­lage… pas­tiche has a nice sound to it but i have dif­fi­culty under­stand­ing a very vague defin­i­tion… this week’s favour­ite is glossy gold and silver images of a harley engine and one of an indian, found in an italian pho­to­graphy magazine… too…

Sound & Image log book, University of Technology, Sydney

by | Feb 10, 1989 |

this motif of repe­ti­tion that showed up in s&i keeps appear­ing in daily life – more so for myself than for simon – it seems that the con­di­tion­ing that I received in front of count­less repet­it­ive tele­vi­sion pro­grams has increased my immunity to bore­dom – two hours of…

Elegy for Tracey

by | Sep 12, 1988 |

I A dream in which the women were like Venus made me think of art and you. You’re a bot­ti­celli-baby; if I dipped a sheet of paper into your mind, it would come out marbled in oils and water­col­our and with bits of moul­ded clay on the edges. Equally, you sculpt with…

Unsolicited Advice

by | Sep 9, 1988 |

Wor­ship where you can lest life become empty earth­en­ware or barren circus rings. For some it’s a world of water­col­our mood: search for it, hold it fast if you find it. Where you feel like scream­ing, do. Sound also can lift into the void and echo some­where. If you need…

Phoenix Emberstone

Phoenix Emberstone

pas­sion­ate polit­ical poet

These are poems and mean­der­ings that made their way to the page. I’d love to hear what you think of them. Want to get in touch? Drop me a line!

Photo of Rosanne Bersten

View my portfolio

I am also known as Ro Ber­sten, a com­mu­nic­a­tions spe­cial­ist with more than 20 years’ exper­i­ence. See my CV and pro­fes­sional projects.