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Sunday, 10 May 2015

Friday, 8 May, 2015: The rain fell

This morning the rain fell and I
Shivered my right
Eye
Open.
Then the left one; I awoke
As the rain fell.

In each droplet was a poem
Of debris from the night
Fight
Done.
And I Googled the result
And the rain fell.

Puddles formed, reflecting the slate
Roof soul sucked sky
Aye,
Then
I sent Chrome off to Facebook
Whilst the rain fell.

Rage, rock-gnarled, piss-twist thistle rage
Everywhere: social media fire
Ire
Sprung.
How did this happen? Who made it happen?
Who made the rain fall?

Not I: the mournful cry on page after page
Update, helpless teary fight
Tight
Run.
Where hide these selfish evil fools
In this rainfall?

But Facebook is not life, it is a cage,
A strait-jacket willingly worn
For
Form.
A padded cell - with friends - in which to hide
Whilst the rain -
The rain -
Falls.

Friday, 8 May 2015

Confession.

Reasons and excuses and reasons to drink at home

  • ·         I am celebrating Bangor City winning

  • ·         I am drowning my sorrows after Bangor City lost again

  • ·         Suzy has come back from Liverpool

  • ·         Suzy has gone to Liverpool

  • ·         I am bored

  • ·         There is really good TV on tonight

  • ·         There is nothing good on TV tonight

  • ·         I really, really want a cold beer

  • ·         It would be a shame not to pair this meal with a nice robust red / delicate fruity white

  • ·         I feel ill and am morose

  • ·         I feel great and light

  • ·         I have a cold and want to kill it

  • ·         I am nostalgic for Cayman and a rum and coke will help me get back there

  • ·         I have come back from a long journey and I drank on the way home

  • ·         I can’t afford to go out drinking properly

  • ·         I am feeling very empty of everything

  • ·         My brain won’t switch off and I want to shut it the fuck up

  • ·         I need to send myself to sleep

  • ·         It is my birthday or Christmas or some other occasion

  • ·         Asda has an end of line deal on ___________

  • ·         I had some left from last night so might as well finish it off and buy more to make sure it works properly

  • ·         I feel angry and want to hide away and blank it all out

  • ·         I hate the government

  • ·         I can’t reconcile my disgust at the world with my laziness in doing nothing about it

  • ·         I am not where I want to be

  • ·         I am not who I want to be

  • ·         I feel tearful and I want to make myself cry at nature programmes / sappy soppy family show / romance / cartoons

  • ·         I have had a really busy week

  • ·         I have a busy week coming up and I am nervous

  • ·         I am invulnerable to disease

  • ·         I am worried about my health

  • ·         I am scared that my family will one day die

  • ·         I do not want to think about mortality

  • ·         I do not want to think about the future

  • ·         Suzy is stressed

  • ·         I am stressed

  • ·         Hell’s Kitchen is on tonight

  • ·         I don’t want to grow up

  • ·         I always wanted to be a drunken flawed genius and it is easy to achieve the drunken part

  • ·         I love the feeling of being woozy and comforted by the booze blanket

  • ·         It will give me strange dreams

  • ·         It will give me a hangover which knocks out all my filters so I can produce leftfield insightful writing in the morning cause I don’t give a fuck

  • ·         I am lonely

  • ·         I did not ask to be born and I am still struggling with my consciousness

  • ·         I feel guilty that I do not appreciate life in the way I think I sometimes should

  • ·         Everyone else on this TV show is drinking and I feel left out

  • ·         I’ve had a shitty day

  • ·         Elections

  • ·         Wales fail to qualify

  • ·         I don’t know how it got there but there is a glass of wine in my hand

  • ·         Middle class guilt

  • ·         Everything else

Hasta la victoria, siempre


Today I woke up to find - somehow - that the UK has signed up to five more years of neo-fascists waging war on the poor, the weak and the different.

Life has been bleak time after time in these situations.

It made me think there was no hope.

That humanity was dead. And humans were doomed. You deserve the government you vote for.

No more NHS. Sanctions for being ill or daring to be poor.

Money rushing to the top.

Suspicion, fear, the destruction of society and the elevation of selfishness to a godlike level called 'ambition.'

And all this was true.

But then I put Elbow's ace first album on and recalled one of the several times I've seen them live. This one was possibly the best of the lot.

It was in the Masque Theatre, Liverpool as part of some kind of Back to the Bars type event. Packed out - the band was huge by then - and Guy Garvey kept trying to start singing Newborn.

Listen to it.

It's a really confessional love song,  Tender. Self-searching.

But he couldn't because the scouse crowd was making him laugh so much. It gives me shivers thinking about the sheer love in that room.

That love, that shared vibe of possibility, of sound and music and emotion and fellowship. Of nothing but the present moment, the next cadence, the shared energy of pure human connection.

It is deeply poignant at the same time; to acknowledge that shared moment is to stand outside it and, by doing so, to destroy it.

It transcends all language; these rhythms amplify and caress the heartbeats of all in attendance. At times like that, I think I understood religion more than ever before; it is implausible that people, with their failings, their farts and their falls, could ever create such beauty.

But it is true.

So there must be hope. There truly must be.

Venceremos.

Thursday, 30 April 2015

Too limp to fuck

Went to a party
It was rather nice
I took it easy on the wine
Cause I was driving in the morning

But now I’m tired
You’re out of luck
I’ve run out of Viagra
Too limp to fuck

Too limp to fuck
Too limp to fuck
Too limp to fuck
Too limp, too limp, too limp, too limp to fuck

I like your stories
Don’t approve of guns
Although there’s an argument that
The police ought to have recourse to them

But in my room
Please don’t take it personally
But you and I are old enough
To remember Eraserhead
Too limp to fuck
Too limp to fuck
Too limp to fuck
I could do with a good night’s sleep
Too limp to fuck

I’m dropping off
I’m very sleepy
If you like, we can try and
Have a date night next week

Let’s just cuddle
And enjoy that.
Take out your false teeth
And put them in cleaner overnight

Too limp to fuck
Too limp to fuck
Too limp to fuck
I could do with a good night’s sleep, baby
I’ll try hard not to snore, baby
Oh, sorry, I need another pee
Too limp to fuck
Yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah
ahhhhhh

Wednesday, 15 April 2015

Cosmic conversations with cats: 1

Ikey cat just walked in the door.
As he walked in the door he said:

"Miaow."
"Miaow-miaow."


I heard it as this:
"I am Ikey."
"I am a cat."

I asked him:
"But how do you know you are Ikey?"
"How do you know you are a cat?"


But Ikey cat just turned away.
As he walked back out the door he said:

"Miaow."
"Miaow-miaow."