Can't Face the Pub

Escape Velocity

Guilty feral pigeon escape velocity

Scuds through services and across the highway

Into the loving windscreen of this eighteen wheeler

Feathery fireworks and his useless brain

Evaporates across three lines of fellow traffic

Greasy pink spots washed away carelessly

A feather stuck beyond the wiper’s reach

Reminds me of my worldly presence

Just for a few guilty seconds, feathery and careless.

Found You

 

I found you

Turned over a stone

And undrowned you.

But parallel lines

Stretch, given time.

Time, a life of,

Crime, a way to

Prime the hours.

But perhaps a few hours,

Or months and the odd day,

Are all we call ours,

I pretend it's okay.

A lifetime of pretense.

Pretender.

Did I lose you ?

Surround, blind by words

And confuse you ?

Parallel lives

Stretch and

Separate.

 

Four Times.

Four time the height, length, of your love,

The ropes that bound us in green times,

Four times the drop, to be human again,

To eat from the proferred platter,

To struggle back towards the home fire.

Four times you sent me,

No time did I ever doubt my loving return.

The post-apocalypse nightmares

Continue, continued, and does today. These days.

We always wake before we connect,

We approach and dance with death, and happier times.

The rope is blue, a trucker's throw-away,

But you'll kill me for this love, no matter whether its real.

Four times I crossed the line, told you five,

Was too drunk to count properly.

Situation normal honey, your platter?

Full of doubts, as human struggle,

To my own apocalypse.

Four bloody times.

 

In The Cold Light.

It seemed for a moment that

It all could come right,

That errors we'd made

Would be naught come light.

Come light into corners

Where worries had bred.

Dissipate the nightmares,

And the dumb things we'd said.

Dumb things,

Some things,

Ideas of conflict.

Bad things,

Sad things,

Places we'd picked.

The moments that passed by

The minutes and hours,

All chance of redemption

Blown like milk sours.

Sour milk this morning, and

A time to divide.

In the cold light of breakfast

There's nowhere to hide.

God Is Dead.

Running water running rats screaming babies and

stumbling crone wardens on one last orgasmic trip

and trapped in coccooned role-gaming scenario-shifting

leg-pulling muscle busting supermen break down at the sight

of a dancing bouncing bomb

in numb surprise her eyes

and phantasise on wet moment kiss

scream death excitement escape gaming

no naming shit kicking arse splitting

head-hitting model breakers and piss takers

and dope smokers no hopers and the dark bell tolled

this night of old when such gases and vapours burned eyes

only in asylum dreams with mustard gas and ham

sandwiched between two broken doors

in the street debris

a little girl maybe 2 or 3 and a dead dog and

an intact bottle of penicillin

if she was willin' it would still not suffice

to defuse the ruse that God is dead, long live God

Amen.

It's been a while since I had a random "shed" picture....

Tonight's soundtrack has, so far, been several Red Hot Chili Peppers tracks, and most of the back-catalogue of the fabulous, but gone Red Snapper. Jazz/funk/trippy but not for the faint-hearted, well, maybe, just don't wear a roll-neck jumper, you won't need it.... Nice.....

All the poppy snaps were from work today, and my phone, as I hardly ever dare take the camera with me for fear of theft...... and when I do, I can hardly carry it around my customers' gardens while I work.....

It's Friday, and I feel so unsettled about things I can't explain. It's like there's something coming, but I have no idea which way I should look to see what it might be. You ever get that?

 
Be safe out there people.

Too Much Thinking.

 

Image-Storm.

Struggle for a bolt hole,

Through the torrent and the storm.

Gloomy, but dry

A tunnel is attained,

Turn back to glance

At holocaustic rain.

Slide back down the wall

To crouch against it all.

Light a damp packet cigarette,

Catch a moment to glance around

Sitting in the urchins' set

Where the lost are never found.

A rainbow of umbrellas

Protects the dead paving.

The gutter reek of London,

Absent from this place,

Where all the harm is undone,

Some sanctuary space.

Silent choir of dead angels,

Smile at futile charity.

The image-storm is set to last,

So brace yourself against the night,

Turn your collar up against the blast,

And slip away to seek the light.

 

Some of tonight's images will be a "bit fuzzy"...as the one above is... It wasn't late when I went to one of my favourite places, but the light was a bit hit and miss, and I wanted to push the camera and see what 12800 ISO could do.... instead of relying on the Auto ISO thing....

Suffice to say it managed, but there's so much noise when I didn't need it...and then, when I put it back on Auto, the results were an ISO of 200, or even 50, which was bonkers when I needed to milk the dim light for what I could possibly have go tout of it, but hey, I'm learning, trying, failing, learning, and I mean in photography really..... Not real life or anything..

Hmmm.

 

Now this one was also at the highest ISO  the camera can manage, and yet it's turned out not too bad...it was a lot gloomier there than this picture shows. 2e and I (and Gwyn, but she was away exercising rabbits....) weren't gloomy, it was just the light.

 

Cobs.

Every distant corner of this island,

When visited has been lightened by me

To the mass of a stone, or cob, or pebble,

Red striped, blue spot, green and hazy gold,

Chalk white, grey marbled, mottled pinks and then,

To return to my room, to sit on the mantle,

For a year or more, and to remove again,

To the pool, with darkened depths,

For the course of fate and land,

Entwined with axes to my universe,

And mental threads to futures and just

Another tiny archaeological puzzle, for geologists.

As a gardener I have a lot of practical use for Glyphosphate based weed-sprays, and use several pretty much most weeks, moreso in the actively growing season.

I know farmers rely on them for big jobs, and in various concentrations.....I also am well aware of the hype and hysteria there has been over their after effects, and that the EU is pretty much committed to banning them, after tightening up, again and again their sales, and licences and so on...

I am not going to get controversial here, but the first time I ever bought a 5 litre tub, the chap I bought it off was reknowned for drinking it, to prove it wasn't toxic....

I can't recall his full name, as I didn't buy any more off him, but I think his surname was "Spence".... He died a few years back at a fairly ripe old age....I can't comment on his state of mind though, which is relevant as there are allegations of a causal link with Altzheimers's Disease, and latterly cancers of various hues.....

Still, he drove a nice car......

The field above was "Glyfossed". I think you can tell which one I mean.....

 

This one.

 

I wonder if they did it before these Lapwing chicks were created, or hatched? I was chuffed to find them, but saddened to do the maths and realise that the first time I saw the few pairs of Lapwings in that field it was definitely 100% still green......

I present that without comment, or judgement rather. These chicks seemed alright to me, but I'm not a "birder", so what would I know?

As soon as mother realised I was there she sauntered off away from them, and as soon as she did so, they vanished.....as in, they dropped down to the ground and became as stones...... fascinating to see, but frustrating when I thought I'd got a better position to take more pictures.....!

Burnt Earth

The burnt earth that slips from the foot,

The drizzled hour in this grave of trees,

And innocent tyre tracks shout your name.

The discarded stone circle with hints of modernism,

Scorched black and flaky edged altar stone,

Desecrated by the Roman Catholic sandalled steps,

And abandoned by newly educated free-men.

Here the ancient is at your finger tips,

Just beyond instant response touch taste,

And the strength of the is/it flows from the ground.

The steps you felt yourself guided to take,

Or maybe the hidden scene shifting guardians,

Or something still less paranoid calls you now.

Here we stand, in this dream scarred once-grove,

With sacred moments of sheer swimming love,

And hand in hand we silently soak and our clothes

Catch the smell of recent wood fires.

The burnt stone under-hand blacks your skin,

And sadly we move through and deeper into

Our new found reborn living loving and the sun.

Soft drinks carton pirouettes a mockery play for us,

And I have you lightly on my silver thread.

A (chain-) harrowing experience all round......

So that's how to transport them, after all these years I never knew..........

Music

I'm 99% sure I've posted this before, but which version? I can't be bothered to go and look, as even though it's not an overtly political post, it is the eve of the General Election, and it just seems tiomely, so forgive me.....

Turn it up!

Definitely not of my creation, it's just one of my "Liked Videos" on YouTube, and I've just posted the acoustic version on FB...This is the full blown version though, and is well worth the volume.....

IAMX- "Think of England"

In the grip of a winter came love and greed
Insane with faith, I took the driving front seat
In the lowlight comfort of Berlin streets
The calm from emptiness duetted with my body heat

I was alone at the front line
The message I was told was to triumph at
The joy of a lifetime

I just can't think of England
I can't see the picture
I'm still running from the fire, the fire

I just can't think of England
I can't see the picture
I'm still running from the fire, the fire, the fire

In the twilight hours of nervous rest
I bought the peace before believing the threats
In a foreign field, I cut all regrets
But the boys in stories just repeat themselves in a fucked up mess

I was alone for the first time
The message I was told was to triumph at
The joy of a lifetime

I just can't think of England
I can't see the picture
I'm still running from the fire, the fire

I just can't think of England
I can't see the picture
I'm still running from the fire, the fire

I just can't think of England
Can't see the picture
(Ah)
Can't see the picture
(Ah)
Can't see the picture

(Lyrics by Chris Corner)

Nice Times and Not

 Well, it's the right colour for a Bullfinch....

Black Sun.


This deep and exotic trip,
Reveals, as has done before,
The orange peel behind the zip,
And the window behind your door.

To escape from form and state of mind,
Is simple and so easy to do,
The dark place within to find,
The off-switch to the life of you.

Soaring above crystalline carpets in heat,
Inward visions so quick slows time,
Face to face at last you can meet,
Paisley guides and trickle rhyme.

But all is well now darkness escape,
So tempting, fleeting, like a loaded gun,
Like some hyper-techno video tape,
Diving beyond this internal sun.

Accept this deep dark slow, and coma,
Will arrive, envelope and entrance,
Will love and then get to know you,
And join this termination dance.

 

 "Moss Edge Farm" (Above)

Candle Wax

 

Candle wax and smell of joss buddha chains

in the shadowy attic floor room

help to let him sell the idea

that all is connected in threads of fate

like kharma with dancing flame

and moments of pure anger

seem five times longer

than those beauty mornings in bed

with your favorite and loving cup wonder

and have a smoke with a new friend

before the true ideas whisper themselves

infinitely quiet in the back of your chair mind

where I like to sit and drink your perfume

from time to time I like to see out of your eyes

and listen to your mind and sit and play ideas

on your song line down

the glass empty will rattle in an unsteady hand

on the bartop with swilling ash and we smoke again

while outside the darkness echoes

to scrawny nightcrawlers in madness and cold dirt

fox scavenger treading through the alleys of your life

and the childhood that you attempt to recreate

in exaggerated form

and when you stroll in to my nightmares

with garish abandon I imagine seeds of a love

that can never be real or for me

but the attraction is physically killing my insides

while caffeine and sleepless nights sing

heart pounding chants in my neck and chest

and arms and in this candle wax light

round midnight December first and second

I think of myself

as always there's no reply and I pretend to sleep

in this smoky over heated self imposed self imagined

prison cell in a single double bed

on the floor

in the corner

with the future sitting in before me.

 The "Black Rabbit" of Watership Down is real.... Who knew??

Crashing.

Some crashes happen for no reason, madness,

Others create them, forlorn, understated belief,

That it'll all just work its way through...

The articulated dream, hybrid, mad thing, mad thinking,

Took you to caves, to dark twittering, caves that drank you in...

The ambulance couldn't get, snowed in by your early decisions,

But we lie here with its blue lights, on the bedroom ceiling,

It's sirens in our hearts.

#############

Be safe, be happy, be you. Simple.

No, it's just not is it? Not when you over-think everything, like, ever.......

Blue Tits

Google that and see what you get.....

Not terribly impressive perhaps, but I like the fact I found a BlueTit's nest.....

Quick Caveat....

When I first started this blog, it went this way...then that.....then nowhere...and was all a bit random. I dallied with Facebook at the time, so some of the early posts, which were relevant at the time, may be less so nowadays.... 

Anyway, in those pre-edited versions of this blog, I occasionally used to say, "click on the picture for the full image".......and I haven't, for a very long time, so there it is.....The whole point of this post....

Comment, like, share, fine, but if you see a small picture, and think it might be interesting, then please, click on it, and see what I do. You won't get a virus from it, just the picture.....

 A cow, or maybe a bull, I didn't go and look.......

Cat Fight at the Pub

A Little Strength.

With a little strength

I lift my eyes to yours.

Superman could not hold their glance.

Divorce.

So, you and him finally blew up,

And repetitious histories draw concluded,

"Marry me, fly with me, to the west...."

Deny the individual requests,

Now seem as irrelevant, and self

Self, self,

Turn now inwards, homewards, to where,

One concentrates on more immediate

And biological schemes.

Streams of fancy,

Dreams for dotage,

Not yet old friend,

Not yet.

Exploder, jealous and at least untrusting,

Mature, so adult, so

Bloody unfair.

Here's another old one.....

Bullet Heaven

Somewhen, somehow, propped up on something,

Slugs, fourteen, fifteen, throat to groin,

Yet

I'm still standing.

Though its the pain that's in slow motion,

Seeing as how I'm in love with you,

But my life is passing before my eyes.

Your deep blonde sap catches me in the flow,

And fossilised, I'm trapped, forever in bullet heaven.

Bleeding, still standing, propped up on something,

The warm tide of love ebbs, flows,

Sweeps me deep into you,

Seeing as how you shoot me dead.

My love still stands,

As I clutch the banister, and slow,

Slowly collapse, as the pain,

Catches up.

My blood on your floor,

On your phone,

On your dress,

As the flow slides, and we, somehow,

Somewhen, sometime, survive,

To see the flowers open and trap my bee,

In this mad fossil heaven,

But so, god-dammit, I love you.

Bolts.

Just put sky hooks and restraint,

Right out of this arena.

All is bolts.

Bolts is all.

Nuts, screws, nails, hooks, hinges,

Bolts to perspex.

But perspex is best,

To shield and save,

Protect and survive.

Deflect gamma, alpha, theta, beta,

Lead lined particles particular,

To this region of your thought,

Arenas of doubt.

On the subject of which,

Who, what, how, why,

Simply bolted to this screen,

Of larger term perspex disbelief.

With worshipful lords and

Forgetful protection.

Where the shiny perspex

Thrives, and survives.

Before The End.

Me & the dogs have had a cracking walk this morning, even if only if one of the regular places. There's this wood near where we live, which makes for a steady circuit, and to my mind is a small slice of heaven. The main walks lead you into what is more or less a "natural cathedral" and when you add constant bird-song, and the sound of the river into the mix, the play of the light through the empty, or as now, full trees you can't help but feel you are really somewhere special......

Instead of doing the usual circuit, we crossed the river, and went down-hill back towards the village, and then, uphill to the top southern edge of the wood....

There are signs of old roads, old paths, from pre-reservoir days, when there were cottages, and at least two mills, producing woollen cloths to a global market.....Now under a century or so's worth of leaves, and rotted leaf-litter....

But the signs are still there... as well as a bees' nest, a hole, maybe red, maybe B&W...hard to tell.....and some Highland cattle, who, could if they want, wander down into the rest of the world, as they are not remotely fenced in, it's just that the terrain is a bit problematic, and they've got a field with plenty of greenery to keep them from even being tempted....

Baby Dragon

Freezing rain, modest windy late night,

A dark shape on the edge of the lawn of my life,

A baby dragon?

Here, at the end this dark evening,

Hunting perhaps?

Dragons always find what they seek,

Like black dogs that way...

Hiding in the shadows, my stare still caught,

No words necessary now,

Eyes, what ancient lawn memory,

My transparent animal morality, glassy,

Portal to the sunny shores of my inner reason,

Cloudy in the dragon's casual glance.

No fear, or threat, just a taste in music,

And cheap wines, smokey insight,

|And piffs of steam on this rainy night,

From unbalanced scales and this crowded lawn,

I look skywards, anxious for freezing news,

Mother love, moral glass and ancient.

But you simply slowly silently smoothly,

Turn, and unfurl impractical leatherette wings,

And, hardly wordless, yet silent, steaming subtly,

Churn the night airs around us, smoking,

Freezing, modest, fearless, yet lovingly,

Shake off the lawn, this garden, this earth,

And I know I'll see you again in the moon.

Total change of tack.....

Beer Surfing.

Just what are your afraid of

Tonight, bar-spider ?

The room is colour and sound,

Many faced, many vague memories.

As your brain glides precariously round,

Moments pass as you try to seize

That hook on reality.

The pulse is hard and slow,

Doesn't know which way to go,

As you spin to catch your brain up,

As you slightly stagger.

Warm noises as you try to hear

Lose yourself in that hit of beer,

Try to fight back the fear,

Surrender to the easy chair.

Then "The Rush".

Don't fear the rush,

Let yourself flow,

Just go and flow and ride

The mental surf created thus,

Try not to fall from off the floor,

Let blood pump as you need more.

The wave in your head crashes

On the numb beach.

And then the lights slip into irrelevancy,

And you soak up the heat.

Forget the in-built fear

Tonight, bar-spider,

Arms and legs all over,

So shy until he's drunk,

And gone.

As I said above...a slice of heaven...... Pretty much EVERYONE takes this for granted........when it's better than anything man-made.........No minsters, no abbeys, no anything, other than nature.........

Without comment! Well, I could but it might be misinterpreted by by you lot......I love Laburnums........


Oh, and the "cat-fight"....

I know both of the "ladies" involved, so won't pass judgement.....but if you've just been on a thousands and thousands of pounds kind of holiday, it's probably better not to brag about it to the mother of one of your tenants, whose daughter lives in one of the shittiest mouldiest, and dampest flats going....because, like, that wasn't going to end well really was it?? Especially when you've denied all responsibility for the whole thing.......Really?




It didn't make the evening's ambience especially nice, but hey, it's a proper "local" pub, so pretty much anything goes....is that "democracy" too? I like to think so!

June.

 

Air Fingerprints

Out of the magnificent warm dark windy

Strange sounds of infinitely industrial prayer

Non-nature ghost of process past in distant mills

And un-identity, queer aromas, airs of making

Destroying these eyes with spectral memory

Of chemical moment and gravity, and rabbits

Downwind from this odd airy fingerprint

A walking lecture of past revolution progress

Removed guilty magnificence in our own eyes

Cast useless as far into the dark as yesterday

Turning back to windier chemical conversations

Lost translations, just sounds, love and poison

Upwind, upstream with waterfall magnificence

 

I sit alone and think,

I think 'alone', and hope,

I hope that things will come to pass,

The things I hope are none too few,

I sit alone, and think of you.

I was encouraged to keep a diary in my early years, several of which I still have, in a cupboard, or wardrobe or somewhere at my parents'. The diaries were supposed to help my (still to this day...) crappy hand-writing...and foster the development of neural paths and all that sort of thing. In some ways I think they worked, as there are days written therein that will be much more easily conjured up in my dotage than today, or yesterday....

As I said, my hand-writing is challenging though. I can't get my hand/eye coordination and timing sync-ed well enough to create any of the stylish writing that some people seem to be able to produce almost effortlessly...

And I get side-tracked. Regularly, like now, as I was going to go on to explain that the above shortie was my deliberate, and very conscious effort to begin the path of prose/poetic writing. Somewhere I will have the actual date, but I do know it was 1986.....Rather happily, to this day, I still kind of like it, as it's short, succinct, and the only piece I've written, apart from some attempts at songs a few years later, that I can recall, word for word some 30 years later......

 

 

Beginnings

Here, at the beginning of all things

Nothing

Another view of your infinite deep glass soul

Fracture

Pause, run, panicked doubts as it begins

Cautiously, light-speed

The dance begins, crazed and beautiful

Unsure and abandoned

Everything begins

Thought swimming, diving, flying around glass holes

Places to avoid

Waves of calm intensity

Abandoned reasons, and cautious tendrils

Wrap around loving pauses

Fearful dancers career among the beautiful swimmers

As the most ancient schism, clumsy

Shifts…

Another faith healer skates up to the edge

Of success and reasoning

As unreason preens and poses for the fight

Wrapped in loving arms, she acquiesces and

Somehow

The fliers land

Sure and secure this time, intense, clumsy,

Crazed fractures

Calm at last and deeply, cautiously loved

Beginning to heal the darkest schism

Slowly

With love and cigarettes

And wine

And candles, and a yearning.

 

 

False Memories

Why should I believe,

That all the dreams have gone ?

When I drop back slot in,

Three times in a morning.

Drug free culture,

Fruit juice kissing at bretsa.

And more love than you could shake,

A hippy at.

Slot, click, the views the film.

The wings, skyscraping and sensual,

Telephonic pleas to escape run artists,

With dead pan apologeas to you.

Awakening slowly, slyly perhaps,

Click the pictures, the surround pleas,

For clarity and understanding.

Driftwood, a fire, a beach,

A camembert love affair.

Stars, and missed moments, revisited.

Time machinery, not clocks,

She watches, shaking hppies at dreams.

Telephoning the past, to revise the script,

When dreams create belief,

That all the deadpan understanding hippies

Are awakening from these slots.

With kisses, and skyscraping Kisses.

The second official day of UK summer....

Nice.

That's it, for now, it's Friday, and I haven't been out for two weeks.......sad. So I'm going to make the effort, then realise why I don't all that often and live to regret it!

Thanks for stopping by, be safe, be strong.

1967 and all that

I thought it was just the moon. Then I was told it was the "Mayflower Moon" Looking around on t'interweb didn't shed much light on that, but I found a few references to the May's Flower moon, which, given where we are in the Northern part of the Northern hemisphere, relates to the late Spring time for fertility, new birth, planting, and re-planting.....

Oh, perhaps not if another milestone, waymarker, sort-of-significant date comes along..

 

You don't have to look it up, but boy oh boy '67 was a bloody good year for music and art, and, well all sorts of stuff...

Apparently.

I'd like to say that I just wrote that, but after the events of the last few weeks, and especially the fact that the last two birthdays have been spent alone in enormous crowds of total strangers, and my feelings about that, which are mixed to say the least, I can't.

Still, I now have a few new acquaintances, who I'll probably never see again, and have experienced some challenges to my inherent prejudices about ladies who like ladies, so that's been educational....  Oh, and I broke my left hand too, which hurts......

Today I caught up with an old friend, like not seen for 32 years. All I can say is that I wish we'd met up years ago. While we were never actually "close" way back, we were friends, and the proof of the pudding is that we talked like we were, and are still. My sometimes fading faith in human nature was recharged, and it helped my self-belief too.

Otherwise, pretty much everything in my life right now could easily be described as "chaotic".

Disorganised. Random, with a smidgeon of organised, and that is the bit that I have to try to remedy, as it's not doing me much good......

 Where along the way did I lose my self-belief? I know it's come & gone through the years, and that there is a kernel of it underlying everything that keeps me going, as I know I'm "alright" really. But like, when I think back to some bits of who I was, while I was never full-on cocky, and full of myself, I did have times when I just didn't give a flip whether people liked or understood me, and it was when I started really caring that I started to lose that confidence.

One more before I go to bed....

I haven't written much lately, well, not for weeks, though occasionally I do, and then bin....I do want to filter through a lot of my old stuff, like the above, from my "year out" from college, when I think they are worth keeping, and want to push this blog out more, though need any of my 3-4 readers to help me in that if they would care to?

My line of thinking, random though it usually is, is to keep on trucking, build this up to where I'd be happy to send it to a potential publisher, and if that doesn't work, think about starting a Go-Fund_Me type of thing to cover the costs of turning the pictures & poetry into something you can actually hold in your hands. The suggestion today was to try to do that via an on-line e-publisher, which had only breezed past my thoughts, but now I will have to have a proper look at it again....I really do invite your thoughts dear reader. Step out of the shadows please, and engage....am I barking up the wrong tree?? Is it all just bollocks?