I'll Sing When I'm Full Again.

I pull up in the Getz and

get Ian to pour me a whiskey

it's where I got a taste for it, after all.

I don't want ice,

just a quick hit of dutch courage.

He gives me too much change,

and later doesn't charge at all.

He doesn't smile much,

Ian,

not at me, anyhow

but his face suggests that he does know how

it's all lined and crinkled

in a friendly

kind of way.

It's the kind of bar

that's cozy

even when there's just

a solitary man cuddling up to a coopers pale

on the counter top

and it's always filled with music.

Tonight, I try my hardest,

even though I'm filled with something else

and the back of my throat

feels like it's been trampled

by the footsteps

of the three thousand people who have

grabbed and pushed

and begrudgingly accepted the falseness of my smile

when that's all that I can give.

My croak is amplified.

My fingers fumble.

I fuck up.

I even impersonate Susan Boyle.

For fucks sake.

I'm out before midnight

leaving ladies

fading into the night's dark crevices.

With whiskey on my breath

and six hours before sunrise

I arrive home

accompanied by the sounds

of the inner suburbs

the rattle of the last trams

the barman across the road stubbing out

his last cigarette.

Six hours til sunrise

six hours to sleep in the cool dark calm

before heat and hellish hectic masses

swarm and rush

grabbing and pushing,

pulling from these clumsy fingers

that which they believe themselves to be

entitled to.

Later I'll put them to better use,

these fingers

that fuck up.

Later there'll be music,

as soon as I'm full again

I'll fill the air

in the cool dark calm

clumsy fingers

prising notes one at a time

from six strings of steel

trying to spell out

the things I'm unable

to

not feel.

The Romantics That Pass This Way

Making mountains out of mole hills

is one of my many talents

I like to give them a few simple chords

and a chorus

and call them songs

blowing everything out of proportion

til I'm out of breath

then, I inhale

and push the notes out again

til I'm empty

of air

of thoughts

of mole hills.

What I'd really like, though,

is a mountain of my very own

piercing cloud cover,

advancing towards a silver moon.

it's dizzying up there, at that altitude

I'm sure of it

thin air a mind altering drug

I'm light headed at the very thought of it.

I've caught planes

to climb those heights

built up muscles to tackle the steep inclines

cocooned and dreaming

of leaving

the sea level horizon behind.

Tomorrow, by midday

I'm sure I'll be siting somewhere in a cafe

contemplating my fate

as spelt out by a man in 1968

by midnight I'll be slurring something about mountains

wondering how long the romantics

that pass this way

will have to wait.

The Last Time I Saw Richard

Won't You Come With Me To The Fairground?

Your head will be spinning,
I said your head,
is your feet.

December

We're drinking
sherry out of egg cups
and listening to Taylor Swift
turned up too loud

she's going back to December

we're going back to the time when
life was
simple
like these lyrics
this melody

we sing along
to recapture
youth
and all its unfulfilled promises.

Big Red Balloon

(yes, my post title is a Nick Cave song reference, in case you were wondering)

Today

Today,
my tongue is sandpaper,
thick

scratching
the dry
insides of my mouth

searching
for the right words
to offer my calloused fingertips

so that they may
play with them

mold them to the tune
that has come
so easily

the rain has washed away
coherence

it's down there in the drain,
it must be

otherwise where else
could it have gone?

I'd get down
on my hands and knees to look,
but I don't want to get my jeans dirty.

The Chorus Is Easy, It Goes Like This

When We Get To The End

Memories Of Leonard Cohen

I ask her how it was
seeing the man
whose voice narrates
the silent post coital scenes
in that old film of memories
I play
from time to time

And she unfolds
the magic of the evening
as if taking something precious
from delicate wrapping
placing it
gently
in front of me

I am as fine boned
as this fragile memory
any swift movement
or cutting phrase
could crush me
as I want her words
put pull warily away
from each exquisite detail.

I remember.

We were ugly,
but we had his music.

Time after time
he would arrive
with honest words,
whilst we would lie
naked
our heavy breathing
accompaniment
to every track.

Now,
no less ugly
but more polished
I'm here on the shelf
with my dusty memories

I still have the music
but without them,
the lovers of my past,

it doesn't sound the same
anymore.

when I shared this with her, she shared this with me, so I'm sharing it with you. we all have our Leonard Cohen memories, sung, in stanzas or unspoken. The one below is Emmy the Great's. It's pretty great.




p.s if you don't have a Leonard Cohen memory, go out and get one.

Words.

I'm trying to read short stories, but the problem is; there are too many words. I mean, not as many words as are long stories, obviously, but still, I just can't keep processing them one after the other after the other and so on and so forth. It's exhausting.

The thing about words is that each one is important. Each one has meanings, multiple meanings and when you're faced with a whole page of them, well, it can be quite overwhelming, trying to figure out what they mean, what they're supposed to mean, what alternate meanings they might have.

That's why songs are great. Not too many words, plenty of space between them, a few notes here and there that hint at the mood, a few clues.

And poems, too.

They're like, bite sized, yet satisfying. They fill you up, long after they're gone- after they've been uttered or read. They stay inside you.

Yeah.

They're the kind of words I like.

Lipgloss (And Cigarettes)

Lyrics from Lipgloss, Pulp