67 Vintage

Not my image, just a random search for a certain number, and the clues are obvious. Can't claim credit for it though nevertheless, as I've been telling people I was a certain age for months already, it was a weird feeling to think that I wasn't, when it came down to it......

But, hey, I am now......

Another month, another post.

You are more than welcome.

 

 

The School Play.

Listen with curiosity roused by the questioning

words of the unenlightened drug children

who need no answer and could not believe

the turning of the hands on the dial of a pocket watch

and sit patiently while walking thousands of miles

back through time to a changing room of a dead school play

and games and the sweet voice of the South African blonde

who's the daughter of a minister of religion

and worships something not altogether unlike the words

that you could hear behind the conversation

that led to you burning your heart out of the body

of timeless memory that joined the spirit of the entire world

but only for the briefest of seconds on a cold stone

step to a school beneath stars that did nothing

out of the ordinary to detract from the teenage revelation

that took place a thousand years after the girls

had drunk all the sins of the year watered mildly

with applause and grease paint and costume that fits

in perfectly with the journey you feel you need to make

as the clock speaks of the still night and clean street

lit spaces for great evil and tremendous favour

for the tears that never come in the land of dry eyes

you sit and reminisce of old curious yearnings

to see beyond her blue blonde eyes that meant nothing

and carry your tired spirit to the place you smoke

your brain sleepy refuses to fight

and slipping from open-handed games of poker and love

the door catches the chair and the light her eyes

before the clock one more time you sink contented in

the old memory that you nearly saw the entire thing

and safe in your sane arm-chair you hear nothing but noise

and noise and voices with wordless spaces

in front of the flickering colour box

that simply refuses to shut up

the door is locked and the night remains

on the outside of the ill-defended present.

 

To The Journey.

Heading south from Crewe,

Following ancient leys from the north,

Retracing our forefathers steps,

To the place where the lesser kings lived.

The historical mist hangs about, intangible,

Fudging the industrial skyline.

Patches of hundred year oaks,

Disperse the fifty year old concrete.

A magpie, for sorrow, starts, alarmed,

Rough ground, and away to our right,

Nantwich, and houses, playing fields too,

A captive mare, and rust coloured canal.

Leaving the towns, and hard on the track,

Never once forgetting the damage of man,

herons and JCBs, corn fields and cows,

Abroad wanders the prodigal, in wonder.

Now we've hit Wrenbury, faster and more,

A cloud of black smoke, more cows,

Its harvest time, making hay, startled sheep,

Uther Rex never came this way.

The Pendragon on horseback, his men at his side,

Not rattling and hurrying like this,

Albion fair, aged, battered and used,

Rushing onwards, southwards and on.

Power-lines, old tyres, at least the green is, still,

The trackside refuse, near Whitchurch,

The tangled and unkempt wastelands,

A newborn calf and mother.

Swede fields and hayricks, hedges and trash,

Lady England here sleeps off her mortal wound,

The tractor tracks across her back,

And, poisoned by her children.

Oh to be in England in the Autumn time,

Where the hearts of men are nothing to fear.

One mighty pissed off spider spent how many hours building this masterpiece.....only to get it wrecked by airbourne seeds....... wonder what spider swear words sound like?



You know, those frequent times when you just wish you had that £2k lens......

The Dark Hour.

A mindless swirl of heady saxophone,

Drifts insidiously through, from next door's world,

Late at night the rumbled voices drone,

Through the naff wallpaper, like a serpent curled.

The mystery transcends, to a forgotten plane,

Deep smoke filled breathing, lets you mellow,

And mull over the events of late again,

In time to the dripping candid tallow.

The sax slows now from jazz to blues,

And settles in for this traffic night,

Somehow your control has become abused,

But wound up, won't give up the fight.

Da da da, de de da, the old sound croaks,

Feel like "mais je ne comprends pas"

Entangle your thoughts with sax and smokes,

How did it go ? Da, da, da ?

Sink happily, mellowly, deeper down,

To the very brink of mystic paths,

Where you discuss dreams with Anarchy clown,

Maybe join in darkly with his laid back laugh.

Swim now dreamer, to the mindless tune,

And breath hideous surf in the red gulls' game,

Wallow in safe gardens, behind the moon,

Try not to remember just why you came.

Then at last sleep docks in your wharf-mental,

Your conscious drifts off idly into lost hills,

On another night's journey on paths ungentle,

Through forgotten, lonely, silent mills.

 

The Northern Light.

Black light shadows the size of this night,

A blue light races across distant horizons,

Sitting on damp grass on a hill from seven,

Like a roman of times dissolved in smoke.

Smoke, we smoke silently and without thought,

Or no thoughts recordable given the night.

Give me the night.

Black light silhouettes your profile.

We watch the scene unfold,

Of orange lights and tales untold,

Untellable, unspeakable horrors and

"True life" crime.

The seat of my jeans transmits discomfort,

And the air is only just cold,

But smoky.

We are Northern, we are the watchers,

We see everything, and nowt.

The blackness is something else,

Swallowing roses and cherry blossomed paving,

Swallowing doubts but choking on desire.

Choke and cough.

Shades of ancient love come at us,

Mainly through the seats of our jeans,

And haunt this Northern starless night,

This fox's dream of seven hills,

And streets bathed in spewy orange,

Calming like the asylum painted walls.

The dream that neither of us ever had,

The place we sit.

The place we sit is in a park,

Forgotten in the urban death,

Urbane.

We are the Northern watchers,

Our judgement comes, as ever, to nothing.

 I saw this cat afterwards.....walking back towards home, when one of the usual pigeons got ambushed, but somehow got away...... I waited for another ten minutes to see if I could catch a shot of the crafty bugger actually getting his tea........but only one close call, as the other birds seemed to realise that one window wasn't open to them any more..... Looks like he's got patience in spades though, and will eventually try another window.........

 As usual, I could write an essay, and maybe one day I'll cut loose and vent, but when I do that on FB I so often have to delete it next day, or way more often, just as I'm about to click "post".....so wanting to keep the blog relatively "neutral" and "safe" I will hold off, but it's been a really funny couple of months for all sorts of reasons. Hope I/we are through the worst of it, but this patchwork life, with 3D dreams, and continual connections, and disconnections, and scare stories, and health issues, and way too much to compute, is a stream of experience(s). For which I am thankful, as the alternative is too hideous to contemplate, and I know people who think that that is "normal", so maybe it's best just to crack on.........

 1967........Hmm, can remember a lot from the couple of years after, believe it or not, pram-life, mashed up Weetabix, moving house at two years, and more than one carry-cot nights in Walton-on-the-Naze, at my grand-parents.....

69, the B&W TV showing the moon landing........I kid you not.

Why can't I remember what I'm supposed to be doing now?

Lost my way a bit.

Stay strong friends.