TREAD LIGHTLY:

Get up, don’t hang on to it, this face, this place, this time.
The sky turns to milk, the air turns damp, everything green breaths
easy, birds sing songs I’ve never heard.

A big man shows his back to the room, greets people at random,
laughs at his own jokes, waves his arms about as he talks,
geezer speaking. He makes everybody feel good, sit up straight,
come alive.

Do you need anything else?
Are you lost for words?
Are you leaving or returning?
Do you feel the pressure?
Are you clearing wreckage or building?
Did you walk a long way to get here?
Will you be staying?

(K)

MOUTH KEEPS MOVING:

A woman stands in black & pink, hands on hips – mouth keeps moving.
A woman fold her arms – mouth keeps going.
A woman raises her arms above her head, describing a halo,
or
A space helmet.
A woman stands still in the street & her mouth keeps moving.
A woman walks away, leaves a pile of words on the ground.
A man appears with a broom to sweep the street, brushes her words
into a bookshop.
Other women stroll in throughout the day in search of words.
There are no more men.

Listening to Loneliness by TuxedoMoon from their re-released album
‘Half-Mute‘

(K)

VIEW FROM THE CORNER OF A ROOM:

The skinny boy works 11-3, has an app that calculates everything.
Looks tired, just woke up, makes the girls laugh, hood up in the
sun. As a sighing woman walks away he turns around, watches her
leave. She’s on early, he’s on late, came without taking a shower,
transmitting messages of love. The pollen count’s up. Diamond-backed
woman, Chinese whispers circle, impatient for change. The future
rolls on ahead, dangling a carrot on a stick. There’s a seat free
at the table for impatience & the cost of love.

(K)

HOT STICKY:

The Emerald City sucks when it’s hot! Locked in a black box
with the curtains drawn, shooting a video with Simon Taylor.
He makes such beautiful images the groaning stops & even the
dark heat becomes bearable. It’s the stinking train ride home
that trashes me! Squeezed up against the salty armpits of suits
& cocoanut perfumed women. I switch off, zone out, drain my best
energy, lean against a wall like a mannequin & rock with the
rhythm of an electric snake boogie. Like putting my head in a
cosmic blender every molecule is scrambled, every egg is fried
from the inside out. I am reduced to meat on a stick.

(K)

READING THE THING BEFORE IT’S SENT:

There’s this thing I’ve been writing, in part for sixteen years,
but mostly just a couple of years. Details of a journey, well,
a point of view of one at least. Today is the last day I can
change it, well, not much, that would just about burry my mate
John who’s laid it all out through software nightmares & crippling
back pain. Yeah, I can’t change it much, grateful that much wasn’t
needed. Though it’s possible that when I read the finished article,
cover to cover, I’ll find something’s missing, well, yeah, I won’t
loose any sleep. What the heck, it was probably meant to be – right?

(K)

BANANA FIST:

Red & white stick points to a threatening sky, erect. Diesel in
the eye, the morning finger, fast talking mouth, noise on the radio.
Drowning in too much information, rescued by an unexpected smile
in the coffee queue.

Saturday morning listening:

Fire! Orchestra – ‘Ritual‘
Trondheim Jazz Orchestra / Kim Myhr / Jenny Hval –
‘In The End His Voice Will Be The Sound Of Paper‘

(K)

TRAIN RAVAGED AGAIN:

Stumbled around in the early glow of a grey & fabulous morning,
still reeling from oxygen deprivation riding dirty trains.
Manchester, London, London, Essex. Tube dust, people sweat,
concourse rammed with dazed faces raised up in fading hope to
flicker of electric timetables. Cancelled trains, hanging around,
waiting to lunge to second guess which platform our escape will
be executed from. The rush to be crushed into grubby carriages,
standing pressed up against strange bodies, bags, elbow, face
down into tiny glowing screens. The smell of salty skin at the end
of the daily shift, the intimacy of unfamiliar anatomical parts
separated only by last season’s summer fashion.

Pre-porridge, tea & poetry I’m not much good at the best of times.
The morning after the attrition of so much dirty rides you really
don’t want to engage me in conversation nor look me in the eye
until the morning meditation lifts the fog of dog, when, pen in hand,
I skip gaily up the street handing flowers to everyone I meet.

(K)

DROID SANS MONO:

Manchester breakfast, BBC TV. Rick & Karl on after Bruce Foxton
whose foot I trod on at the Marquee Club, early 80’s. Rick & Karl
jamming for the cameras, a geeza sells fear thrills. The bargain
bin waits with open arms. Another plane lost, another list of lives,
real, not fictionalised. A nation runs on it’s diet of fear.
Face Everything And Recover.

(K)

BREAKFAST TV 9AM (UK) TOMORROW:

Wandering the streets of Manchester memories that stretch back
into the 90’s hands in the air & sweaty smiling faces upturned
into the light taxi drivers that nod & grin to let you know
every one of them was there back then.

(K)

PORRIDGE & MONK:

Walked along the seafront of a town I love on the wrong side of
the estuary. Woke to the sound of surf & gulls, no one on the
streets, not even road sweepers. The hotel breakfast didn’t cut
it, I could feel a grump coming on, let my feet take me up the
street in the sun, they never let me down. Found a coffee chain
that serves porridge & tea, found a table in the window & wrote
the rhythm of people. The speaker in the corner of the room
pumped pure distortion, songs were barely audible, the 70’s
crackled through a fog of fuzz. At the table underneath it sat
a monk in purple robes, shaved head, serene, surrounded by books
& cappuccino. Every now & then he’d recognise a tune, stop
& hum along.

(K)