Whisper

 I'm tidying up my YouTube channel, and to start off here's a piece called Whisper:

Three poems (2011)

 I found these on one of them 'On This Day' bollocks things on Facebook. I quite like them for all that.

POEM

One day I found out that it doesn't really matter

all that much

It was the most disappointing freedom

or dream

So far

POEM 2

Another day I got an inkling that it was mostly about turning up

making the best of it

Like I did when I was born

POEM 3

I have suspected for a while that there aren't

any answers

But the truth is that this doesn't make searching

any less fun

The Last LP

I’ve just been listening to the new Alabama 3 album, which I was gonna try and blag for free from an old friend/music PR that I still talk to sometimes on social media.

I didn’t have to, though, because it turned out that you’d pre-ordered and paid for it, and it was sent to your old flat which now has been cleared and repainted and deep-cleaned and left forever.

The post redirection sent it to mum and dad’s house, and from there to me, here. It’s quite a sad album, you know, in places. It has possibly the last ever contributions from D. Wayne Love.

You’d have liked it. It made me cry a bit. A lot for a bit. These jags are pretty fucking powerful. I am actually triggered but I will probably always be, here and there, and I think that’s right and proper.

It ends on a positive song, like La Peste did, which is what this one seems to share the most soul with, and with a chuckling baby just come into the world. And this is how things turn forever.

The other day, I can’t remember what exactly it was, but I was asking on Facebook for people to remind me what it was I couldn’t remember. And, I nearly put: yes, Daniel, I have had a poo.

Cause that’s almost certainly what you would have written as advice. Completely predictable. But the thread was worse off without it and to think you will never do that again is...

...

...

The last album you ever bought was a good one. An unexpected gift, and honestly one I never asked for.

I’ve been listening to myself as much as I can, and I’ve been trying to talk about the things I am thinking, and bring the feelings into places where they are appropriate. It’s impossible, really.

But I will continue to try and progress. And carry on getting up day after day and trying to not have to try to be level. It’s OK, isn’t it. Not to be level. There are moments of calm, here and there.

You really would have liked this album, you know. It burns me deeply to know that you will never hear it. And this is how things turn, too. I think Alabama 3 have always understood that process.

Z

And so

may you ride the zephyr to your Ithaca

the wind which brought Aphrodite to your Paphos

And

may we in turn recognise that

the gentle spring can still come again

Even if

the jealous discus of Zephyrus

has stricken down a beautiful boy

Forever

let us trust that there is an Apollo

to transform thee into the purple-blue hyacinth

that you always were and will be

Y

Youth is not wasted on the young:

It should yomp and blaze and yell

And love fiercely and fear none;

Rampage in rain, and scratch out sun,

Dance dervish in night-romps, and tell

Secrets and tales in sizzling song;

Seek wisdom in moments, gold-spun

And ineffable, jangling nerves swelled,

Synapses firing and joy over-run,

Yowling on moonshine with blistered tongue.

Beware those who, ringing their idiot’s bell,

Flubber and fidget, drivelling long

That youth is wasted on the young,

So tend to tomorrow’s dreary dell.

These people are devils, woeful and wrong.

Squirm out of the yoke, never dwell thereamong;

Who knows if tomorrow brings heaven or hell?

Youth is not wasted on the young.

But youth should be wasted by the young.

Exhausted by evening, a day that's spent well

Is comfort enough when there’s naught left undone.

So revel and rage and be brilliant: Be young.

X

There are some X-rated tales that I

probably

will never tell

But what I possibly will do, maybe

is use some

of them in fiction

Aye, there’s some X-rated stuff alright;

mild, really,

by some standards,

But nonetheless I’ll not reveal them.

I mean, that'd be

incrimination.

Here’s one, though, and it’s only

X-rated

retrospectively:

Thirty years ago – a long time -

there was a

cupboard full of

porn in Maes G. We’ll not make

any jokes about

library deposits

at this time, and I shan’t be

taking any further

questions either.

But I will say that, for some reason,

I’d always walk

home at 3am

Confused and smoky-brained

and with something

borderline illegal

tucked unconvincingly

into my socks

and somehow

for some reason, I’d never get

stopped by the

rozzers. Never. So, well.

Like I say, mild enough

stuff. Unlike

some of the pictures.

W

 What?