It seems faith has been renewed at the vape store this morning. All that concrete clutter and big blue smoke has had it’s way with her.
Aspect ratios and minor affections of those left behind have cut tracks on her forehead, but she is of another sprightly coil. Rear view mirrors have shown her these things tend to evaporate—settle into a sharper pale milieu kept under lock and key.
For now, she carries on making heads out of tails from customer inquiries—floats around warmly lit displays on brown carpet spaces as if nothing had ever happened.
Units of centimorgans vie for attention with daily word conundrums riding shotgun—it’s become a focus point for staying the course. Holding onto that thought is the new shapeshifter now; an eternal blip in the present.
So, how does that sound ?, she offers through the wires, not wanting to appear in any way unhelpful—like the bated breath of magnified silence inside a canyon trying not to laugh, I would imagine—how does that sound ?.
It was so like you to slip in a curveball watching a Disney flick, to ask me how I would come to you in dawn’s feeble light or deep dread of night to tell you again what you’ve always known & kiss your baby cheeks; when that was that—all she wrote was said & done.
When the veils lift & the blinkers fall, when the snow melts for the last time at the spring’s new beginning, we’ll still be sending each other animal GIFs & laughing about how I was lost for words.
There’s a daily air of I told you so that comes with every shift—spacing out on the job over potato chips and fake news.
They even got their claws into my fine tuned lyrics once, but they need perfect pitch to know the difference between bergamote and mandarin—not fine tooth combs for removing wax or dead cell plaque from static cotton wool lugs.
I had an inkling it might come down to this one day – getting to the gist of it all – grafting away at translation communiqués.
Tell us what time it is calls out somebody in the crowd, in between verses of summertime reimagined in evening’s light at Newport.
And lately isn’t everyone trying to tell us what time it is—tugging away at the night shutters—drooling over glass with index finger or smashing away at stars while piping up with both thumbs in the comments.
I’ve always known what time it is, by fickle shards of light and shadow sliding over rooftops across the street, or by the sedate tick tock of tardy hands.
But tell me again if you must—wingless bird, if you think I need to know where the sun has gone and we’ll watch the night fall apart together, as salty words weep quietly under your fuming red nails.
Extracts from the Blue Notebook (with additional notes to self)
I like the Depardieu episode; what he says about grapes that struggle in adverse soil conditions produce better wine is, in all likelihood, quite true. I mean, not that I would know. But the metaphor stuck with me. There’s an honesty about his work—it’s something in his eyes. He inhabits the characters emotions; there’s more to this guy than being the Dionysius of French cinema.
Don’t look inside the flophouse windows today—half of them are mad and the other half are pretending not to be—read that Linda Pastan collection instead. The trick, of course, is to read a lot—process the parts that speak to you and translate them into your own dialect. Intermittent staring into space in between chapters works a treat as well—it goes through the grinder and comes out the other end—it’s all brain grub.
Has writing really degenerated into a lame box ticking exercise ? Perhaps—but if I start to overthink this one, the mean old ventriloquist starts up with his shit again—so what if it has; just write what excites you.
Sound techs flapping around in situ with polystyrene cups A line I ended up ditching when a poem told me it needed to go somewhere else—you have to listen to that voice.
Saké and strange divine… Watching him dash away… Clutches of sad remains… All beautiful lines from the Bowie song Aladdin Sane. The pun in the title wasn’t lost on me either—I got it. That album is full of sublime imagery—I think I was 13 or so when I first heard it. I know I was besotted in that mawkish schoolboy kind of way with a Samoan beauty; she was like something out of a squillion dollar Gaugin Tahitian painting. It’s weird but cool—how songs make you remember the stuff that’s worth remembering.
Hardy snorts the glacial air; finds morning’s first brew prosaic. Last night’s jottings petered out, leaving his middle ear in two minds.
No good harping on with old hats or yesterday’s retro headlines. Those flash new chaps with their clever tunes make his eyes water.
He storms out to the sycamore with his latest missive & bellows at shit faced poets, once earmarked, now passed over on half rations—he watches neurotic followers change latitude.
Getting down to business, he quickly strips, kneels at his own slab and dashes his brains out while laughing maniacally.
Sleepy cows yawn— pissing lukewarm tankards in the wind. New starlings titter overhead.
Anton Corbijn Inside Out – (2012) directed by Klaartje Quirijns
The Frame Sculptor
The opening is like an out of body Bergman on his own self analysis couch. He’s a cunning light thief, this man; all calculated optics and Rembrandt line.
The way he renders distilled theatre fox like—coaxing the eyeball with steel retina and well tempered Leica. An unflinching countenance set against an expanse of stark dimension, right down to the nitty gritty of deep tones with a grainy backbeat.
Visions of Orion Poetry 