Yondercast 005 - The Soft Crunching Sound of Isolation

If Only

If you only were not scared of water.

After all, seventy percent of this planet's surface is covered with the stuff.

They always told me not to date a woman from a desert planet. I thought we could work it out. I promised not to carry bottled water on our dates. But I never realized that your fear carried over to all other liquids. Having coffee with you was weird; most people don't fill their cups with dry coffee beans. I can still hear that soft crunching sound.

Intro

Greeting, Traveller! Welcome to Yondercast, Episode 005: The Soft Crunching Sound of Isolation.

Friends in Days

You and your
state-of-the-art biometrics,
and that vast, quiet no man's land,
and those silently circling security drones.

But most of all,
the tall, thin wall
keeping out the sight
of bright blue (wild yonder) sky.

You haven't seen your friends in days.

Safety

by Amy MacClain, found on the Podsafe Music Network

Resolve

It's high time I resolved
the umteen guerrilla wars
raging like wildfire
deep inside my head.

I've been crawling
belly-to-ground for
far too long:
trouble wouldn't find me if I just
kept on moving.

But now, covered in mud and eating dirt,
I've forgotten how to face
any one, any thing, any more.

The Yondermen,
steady, solid, men,
and dark-coated,
would draw
loaded resolvers from well-worn holsters.

Though besieged,
tall would they stand,
praying for Kingdom Come
with blazing guns.

Time I stood on a hill and let
come-what-may
come for me.

Sandbar

Nobody is an island,
but I am convinced that you
are an ancient sandbar.

Wild horses roam your sandy length.
Sandpipers scrounge your endless shore.
Ships in full sail
break themselves
on your unexpected thereness;
you are surrounded on every side
by shipwrecks and their scattered treasure.
No tree dares take root on you,
but tribes of wild grasses reign free.
Wind, ocean shape and reshape you.

You are inhabited by those who need your sparseness.

Outro

Shownotes are at www.yonderman.com. Contact me at shane@yonderman.com.

The theme music of Yondercast is Lost Mind by ParaVerse.

The background music for the readings was Structure by Brian Drotar, found on the Podsafe Music Network.

The outro music is Light of the Heart by Suzanne Teng, provided by Magnatune.

Yondercast 004 - Flight and Other General Impossibilities

Yonderman

[theme music: Lost Mind by ParaVerse]

Leonard Yonderman,
being of sound mind,
and desiring to touch sky,
often launches
himself
from planes, precipices and piers
into the
wild blue something.

Unbeknownst

or

Zeppelin Girl

[Inspired by my Muse.]
[background music: reading the leaves (by moonlight) by Falling You, provided by Magnatune ]

Flying high above me,
you seemed alive and free.
You flew in the
clear air;
I swam in envy.

Unbeknownst to me,
you were flying
a doomed airship.

(Feel free to hate those last nine words.
I do.
They are ineffectual and gutless.
Only an agonized
scream
can express my
retrospective
panic and
terror and
shame at
opening my eyes
just in time
to see you
fall.)

*

Knowing that you were born to fly
only by holding angelic hands,
my heart broke to see
your burning zeppelin
fall from the weeping sky.

Knowing that you were born to reply
to human pain with heavenly song,
my heart broke to see
you burn and
f
a
l
l
and cry.

*

Unbeknownst to me,
as the zeppelin fell,
a band of angels rose as one.

Unbeknownst to me,
they carried you to the ground,
a band of angels singing as one.

Unbeknownst to me,
a band of angels was watching over you
all along.

Craze

by Blake Morgan, found on the Podsafe Music Network

Settled

[background music: The Beholder by Ambient Teknology, provided by Magnatune]

You and your myriad of stars.
You and your endless choice of worlds.
You and your oh-so-useful starship.
You and your faster-than-light.

According to all reports,
you've travelled far since you last stopped here;
you've stayed nowhere for long.

I've dismantled my starship,
piece by piece.
Piece for peace,
I've settled here.

I don't want to fly faster than light.
I like light catching up with me.
I'm content to live in the light
of this yellow dwarf sun.

Outro

The only problem with flying is that we just can't all seem to get aloft at the same time. I don't mind looking up at you, but I don't want to look down on you. Some of the pleasure of free and effortless flight is sapped by knowing that you are walking through mud right now.

Traveller, travel well. Hopefully, I'll see you in the sky soon.

[photograph found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star]

Yondercast 003.5 - Old Man Snoring

Intro

One moment, you rule the entire kingdom. The next, you're King Lear, standing outside in the rain.

Poem

Old Man Snoring

Don't want to do this day,

want to sleep it away,

want to recover from

wanting too much, and

wanting too little, and

saving my life for

a rainy day.

Don't want to hurt this way,

want to hide pain away,

want to recover the sofa

hiding the million dollars, and

hiding the time bomb, and

saving dropped candy for

a rainy day.

Don't want to have my say,

want to write it away,

want to recover old territory:

drawing shiny new maps, and

drawing ancient rivers, old dirt roads,

weather-beaten houses, torn-up tracks,

with brand-new coloured pencils:

something to do on

a rainy day.

In the six hundredth year of Noah's life,

in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month,

the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.

And the rain was upon the earth

forty days and forty nights.

Music

Sit Up

by Kill the Alarm, provided by the Podsafe Music Network. I first heard this song on Chowder Radio podcast!

Poem

Warrior-Poet

Fire your rockets at me;
I'll respond with poetry.

Thanks

Thanks to my friends who helped me celebrate my birthday all of last week!

Background Stuff

rbh rain 04.wav by RHumphries, provided by The Freesound Project
Light of the Heart by Suzanne Teng, provided by Magnatune

Inexperienced Podcaster Playing Music Too Loud

"The listeners are really, really unhappy with me right now," says Shane Shennan, 28, slumped glumly in his podcasting chair. Shane is the creator and host of an audio show called Yondercast. "Podcasting is supposed to be a revolution, you know, the common people producing their own content, thumbing their noses at the mega-corporations controlling the world's media. But I can't even mix the background music of my show properly!"

Listeners started protesting Thursday evening when it became apparent that something was very wrong with the latest episode of Yondercast. "The music is just too loud," shouts Muriel Flanghoop to the small group of protesters preparing to march on Yondercast headquarters. "And I was bass player for the Tolerants for ten years!"

A podcast is usually a MP3 file containing a radio-like audio show. Many people think that they have to own an MP3 player to listen to a podcast. "Not true," states Shane in a private interview. "Anyone with the Internet can listen to a podcast on their computer. People chained to their desks all day are slowly discovering podcasts. And a person with a microphone, some free software and a lot of time can figure out how to make their own shows."

Shane admits that the learning curve has been steep for him. "I can easily write the poems and stories that I read aloud, but balancing the background music for the show has been difficult. For some reason, I just can't tell when the music overpowers my voice. Even I can't listen to the episode." He takes a sip of root beer and quickly wipes a tear from his eye. "It was just horrible. It was just a bunch of music, with me muttering indistinctly in the background." He pauses, glancing at the poster of rock group Easily Distracted hanging in the tiny studio. "I wanted to make a difference, you know, like those guys. Change the world. Now I don't know whether to try to fix and re-release Episode 003, or just forge ahead with the next episode." He gets up and walks to the window. "Assuming I survive the next few hours. There are previous listeners out there, with pitchforks and paintball guns."