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Music

Barry Jones shares an intimate poem about his life and career

For fans of poetry, complex beauties, and unbridled honesty, Tasmania’s own Barry Jones has shared a stirring poem for the masses.

Barry Jones sees the world with a lot more clarity than most, music just happens to be one of his outlets. Spinning rich nuances into gothic soundscapes of Australiana, each of his songs will leave you somewhere along the spectrum of enlightenment.

We have always thought of the Tassie local as a bush poet of sorts, however, his latest release just cements our predictions. Jones was kind enough to share a deeply intimate poem with us, one that looks over his life and career with the same complexity that he brings to all his music. Enjoy below:

barry jones

A poem by Barry Jones

As I walk off into yet another unknown in my life, I await.

I await for all the ones
(they call themselves friends and family most often)
who say you are crazy because they
have seemingly, miraculously, or both been able to
pathologise me into, at best, a brave-hearted ‘Kerouacean figure’.
We don’t need to do the worst… involves the psych ward I imagine.

I would say to people (The Org call them ‘clients’) that we all arrive at this point in our stories.
Some would look off dreamily to a new future,
I preferred those who deep in their eyes shudder. There is no escape.
See anyone who thinks you can escape or even grow out of a condition or ‘issue’;
well, I would say that is a very limited way of looking at shit.

20 years ago, I drove for three or four days from Mackay in QLD to Broken Hill in the west of NSW.
In that place, I began a journey with the most rag-tailed band I have ever met.
Movie stars, activist stars, quiet ones, loud ones,
black, white, brown, and yellow ones all mixed together.
Most people were glued to the TV watching the Olympic Games,
I was out working getting us ready for this point now 20 years later.

This is the final part of that journey.
To close the circle. Not close. Take it back home.

 

Check out Barry Jones’ latest EP, True Present, here.