All Episodes - The Aural Scroll
Darren Moore is a freelance writer based in Ontario, Canada. He has worked for newspapers, online magazines, and now performs at slam poetry events and open mic nights. Now his poetry is available here in podcast form. Enjoy!
View Podcast Details12 Episodes
Theory of Karma
Not all my poetry is about thoughts or feelings or other denizens of the insubstantial world. Sometimes there's not much mystery to what I'm saying at all. I was at a second hand store looking through their collection of books when I noticed a spine that was really intriguing. It was an odd paper, for one, hardcover and small. I pulled it off the shelf and noticed it's title and that there was a script in another language around that, and thought I'd stumbled upon a really neat find. Even though it wasn't quite as I expected, I bought it anyway. And there it sits on my shelf - but I'm not going to read it. Click'er and take a listen to find out why - and why I bought it anyway.
Bottom Stone
I have a real interest in things that aren't seen. I mean, really, most of what affects us in our lives is totally invisible; other's emotional responses to us, the thoughts that compel them, what might have happened earlier in their day, what might be rolling through their minds as we're interacting, the actions of our governments or lawmakers, the incidental decisions made by people we will never meet or know that they exist that directly affect us. The myriad of things going on around us that we're just not aware of is legion. And of course, we add to that mess with our own unspoken desires, feelings, the things we keep to ourselves. We're all lakes, big or small, with things on the bottom of them. But there's also a real envy I have for things like stones. They just are. 'Life' for them isn't complex. There's no catastrophes, broken hearts or hurt feelings. Sure, I guess there's not much else either - but there is eternity. If stones have some kind of consciousness, as certain traditions might think, it might not be a bad existence. And sometimes I envy it, even if I feel a certain communion based solely on a similar isolation as that muck-stuck stone. So this poem is about feeling, about the unknown, about how the hidden things are all around us. I'd love to sit on the bottom of a lake for a few days or weeks if I could. Wouldn't you?
While Drafting a Map to Nowhereyet
So hopefully I maintain some posting-regularity here. In an attempt, I'm going to add a few more over the next couple of days. This one is a recent re-write. The bones and guts were there for a while, but it needed some healthy pink flesh, and this is the outcome. It was basically inspired by a nap; I had gone to lay down with a specific question in mind, one I had been bouncing around for a while - set my alarm, and took 40 winks. Woke up to the very beginning of a song that is really about truth and accurate vision, in a sense. Go look for it if you like, maybe some of you even know it. But what it did for me was answer that question without really answering it; almost like using a parable to explain a complex issue, it made me think in a way that helped me realize a truth that I might not have seen before or without - and that's exactly how God, the universe, our 'collective unconscious' works, little co-incidental nudges that say, "hey, pay attention," work - whichever of those you believe in. And that's what this poem is really about, paying attention. Oh, and by the by... I'm working on cleaning up the crackly endings. Working with a new recorder, so bear with me.
Pacific Coast
Wow - welcome back to the author! After - can it be? - a full year of not posting a damned thing, here I am, back and ready to read some more of my favourite pieces of work to you, Dear Listener, should you still check the place out once in a while. I guess blogging is like anything; it's not the source. You might be one of those folks who spend days reading and watching news, keeping up-to-date on politics and social problems, writing MPs, or Congressmen, or whatever other rat-bastard-like is running your local neck of the woods, and maybe even going out and tacking up posters or marching, megaphone aloft and solidarity echoing above the heads of those around you; but all that work and effort makes you forget about your blog about activism, because let's face it, blogging isn't the source - it's the secondary. So don't think I'm not out there everyday, keeping a watchful eye, lying naked in the rain, or under a full moon, sticking my hands in the muck of a marsh just to feel the ooze, helping a worm to the far side of the sidewalk, watching strangers in my local coffee shop, whispering on the corner about the end of the world or sitting downtown with a coffee contemplating the Meaning of Life - I'm still a poet, even if I don't spew evidence of such online. So here's my re-introduction to the secondary that is this site - the showcase, perhaps, is a better term. Fresh from the mud-slogging, naked-in-the-rain-lying, worm-assisting, moon-worshipping that is the source of all of this, I bring to you Pacific Coast. It is currently one of my most favourite works. It's got layers, is the thing. Often, I select an image or an idea to address, or a couple - in this piece there are so many questions left the reader. What is the thing I'm talking with? Is it the car, or me? Why is the fuel tank full but the thing's in neutral? When will this whole thing end and just what the hell is the whole metaphor about, anyway? Well, answer them however you like - that's the best part of this kind of thing - I ain't going to tell you, and yours is as valid as mine anyway. Hope you enjoy.
Nagasaki
This is one of those poems that popped onto the page during a troubling time in my life. I had been out of sorts for a while; long-shelved feelings for a girl were beginning to bloom again in their tiny emotional mason jars. It's that way whenever you really love someone and they seem unavailable. You can do your best to put those feelings away, and ignoring them isn't always difficult, but sometimes there's nothing you can do and you hear the lids creaking as the pressure inside builds. But it's a calm place. You know you're going to start feeling those pangs of love-sick soon enough, but for now the soon-to-be blown jars haven't messed the closet and there's nothing to clean up; you're just waiting to hear that shatter of glass, mop and bucket ready. This is Nagasaki. Listen!
The Grog
I wrote this a while ago, but it's still cherry. A fun little poem about a harmless monster who takes what isn't his - but leaves behind a gift much more wonderful than what he takes away. I have to admit to having been given the first line as a writing assignment - create something, prose or poetry, out of this, "the grungy grog groveled before his gouty king". Well, here's what I spun out of that opener. Hope you enjoy. Listen!
Ballad of the Wendigo
I've always loved the poetry of Robert Service. In my third year poetry course at university, I got teased when I said he was my favourite poet. Mind you, my tastes have expanded and I count Frost, Dickinson, Rumi, Cohen and many more as faves - but I'll always have a special place in my heart for the verse of Service. I've written a few pieces in his style; one that I've long-since lost and haven't had the courage to write again, and another that I present to you today - the Ballad of the Wendigo. The Wendigo is a native-American spirit, a cannibal, a wind spirit, a tormentor of souls lost in the Northern woods. This is the story of an ill-conceived hunt for revenge, and the sorry shame that one man will forever carry with him; two friends dead and nothing gained but a sad truth that he shares with those sitting around him in the bar, having returned from an unnecessary if successful hunt. Hope you enjoy. Listen!
Ode to Emily
There's this girl I'm absolutely bonkers about. I used to think about her all the time, I think about her a little less often now - partially because of an eclipse, of sorts. She's dead. But don't worry - she's been dead a very long time. In fact, I've never even met her - but I love her dearly. Every time I read one of her poems, I feel a connection to her thoughts that I can't easily explain. But I do indeed love this long dead woman. Her name is Emily Dickinson, and she's my biggest historical crush. I would have loved to love that woman - her writing is lonely, life-affirming, death-dealing, concerned with cosmic thoughts and the most mundane of experiences. There's a thread of loneliness running through her life that mirrors my own experiences. It seems we share what some of us all harbour - that melancholy stain, which grows or shrinks depending on the day or the circumstances of a week, and sometimes seems to leave only to pull a chair up to the dining room table during dinner, or crawl in beside you as you slip under the covers alone, long distances between those you love madly who are still upright, sniffin' the air and taking sustenance. This is an Ode to the love of my life I haven't met. This is my Ode to Emily. Listen!
End of the Age of Opulence
Wrote this a couple of years back. I read way too much non-fiction, despite the recent fict-kick I've been on. One of the results, should you read certain books, is the realization that capitalism is highly destructive; it assaults people on all sides - to the poor it brings further poverty, sickness, political and social isolation and death en masse. To the rich it brings a skewed value system, belief in illusion and faith in currency alone. No matter whom it touches, capitalism tends to a negative overall effect. But I'm not too worried - that's the best thing about the damned beast - it eventually cannibalizes itself. Hope you enjoy. Listen!
Serious Spoken Word: We Are All The Same
I wrote this to bring down borders - since there's no such thing to begin with, but it's oh-so-easy to forget that. It's true, and I'm quite serious about it; wherever you thought there was a barrier, a border, a defining line of any kind, you were mistaken. There is no such beast out there, when you get right down to the nitty-gritty, or the subby-atomicy, if you prefer. So here we are, spinning around on a ball of rock with billions of others; a mass of differing perspectives; some are innately destructive, some are naturally healthy - some inspire pain, death and suffering, others cause renewal, community and love. But the truth is that every perspective is human - we can't deny that - and although some think the balance is simply off-kilter, and others like myself think it's almost gone right over and can't be righted without a reboot, there is still hope that some day we will all realize that our cultural, linguistic, political and social differences - our different traditions, value systems, music, stories, dances, desires and goals may be varied, but we share our humanity. We come in various colours, sizes, shapes, ways of thinking and perspectives - but we're all out there trying to get by as best we can, taking breath, eating, drinking, shitting and fucking - and we truly are, once you shuck off all the 'unnecessary' baggage, all in this together. We are very much the same when you get down to what's important. And that's what this piece is about. It's my first ever spoken word, one I hope to emulate again with a different topic in the near future. I may also re-record, as I think I didn't have the cadence right in parts, should be louder here and quieter there... well, we're all our own best critic. But here it is now. I hope you enjoy. Listen!
The Very First Aural Scroll Podcast - Old Friend
For my first poetic podcast, I present to you, Dear Listener, a piece of verse called 'Old Friend'. I wrote this during one of those late-night moments when you can tell, if you are particularly sensitive to your own emotional rhythms, that a serious case of the blues is gearing up to slide into the soul for a few days. It always happens that way with me - I'm a very easy-going, 'jolly' type fellow with a tiny pinprick of melancholy down in my core. Every once in a while, it's like a little valve spits open, and some of that compression is released to the surface; like a volcano of the blahs. It never lasts long, (or does it?) but that brief moment of realization before doubts and insecurities come crashing in had to be crystallized, and here she is. Just click the link below. Hope you enjoy. Listen!
Coming soon!
I've decided it's time I shared some of these pieces of my soul, and the easiest way would be to upload audio files of me reading them. Hope you enjoy. Will be posting my first piece very soon.