realisation

.

I think about the stalks of broccoli
Which are always there
Which we always resent for adding 37p
To the cost of groceries
And I wonder if one day you will realise
That you want them
That they taste kind of good
And that they are there,
So you might as well

I wonder if you are the type
Who will ignore them for weeks
And then one leftovers day
When the fridge is a world of soggy carrots
And spinach that has dampened round the edges
Will realise that an opportunity
Is an opportunity
And you have no reason to claim hunger
(Or loneliness).

I wonder if you are the type who will accept metaphors
Or who will call
And I realise you are not
You are the type who would scrape leftovers into the bin
And tip flat beer
Down the sink

Me, I reheat cold rice
And accept all the food poisoning the kitchen has to offer
Consume the half smoked butts
Which foul the ashtrays.


At this time of the morning
What else is there?

electrosex für r.

Tackling British extremists
Wedgwood plates and cigarettes
Half clad girls on lino floors
Your face/behind Perspex
Formica thoughts on cardboard days
Smokescreen light/we’re in a haze
Our techno-techno ballerina
Lipstick marks for those who’ve seen her
My eleatic/sweet monist
Do it baby, let’s get pissed

drunk.

.

I keep spilling the drunken insurance pint across the floor.
It’s the third time now,
And all the consolations I’d offered for morning
Are dribbled in pieces on the carpet.
There are utterances which I’d planned for coherency
In some misplaced world of port and eyelashes
That old plan to save the world
And get laid
Thrice over.

What else?
There is soup which needs blendered
And issues which need addressed
But all this is more relevant at a time that is not
Now,
Or three am.

So yes, the small hours;
They reek of cigarettes and half considered ideas
Which will come to fruition
Nearer 4pm
When my day awakens.

God is in the Detail

(and sebastian)

Sebastian was losing the vision in his left eye. When he closed the right and tried to see, the world was no longer discernible and clear, but floated among itself in a myriad of shapes that fluttered from his view as he tried to catch them. It was strange; looking at a world which had lost its clarity. He believed he had been able to see clearly from this eye before, but the more he looked the less sure he could be. Had there really been a time when this all made sense? He looked over to the past, and things seemed a little clearer there. The colours still spilled into one another, but the outline seemed to reverberate less, and he could attempt to understand some of what was going on. He could almost convince the imagery to settle, persuade the people and shapes to sit on their restless hands and refuse to let them quiver around their faces in expressions of discontent. He wished he could say the same for the future. If looking around now confused him, if he was disconcerted by those blurred visions which clouded today, then what he saw in the future was even less settling. Even the shapes themselves lost form in the fog, and the colour had long since diffused into a crazed myopic swirl. Sebastian despaired his loss of clarity; it had been the one thing which allowed him to bask in pretend understanding and enlightenment. He realised he would need to buy glasses, and the thought comforted him greatly. Not only could he regain his clarity, but perhaps he could buy thick black rimmed glasses and pretend he was an emo kid again. It seemed unlikely, but the promise of the unconsidered possibility gave him new hope and excitement.

Sebastian hadn’t considered his lack of money though. Glasses were expensive, every kid looking for their own little hope at enlightenment, or maybe it had just been deemed cool by those who know, and then somehow (stupidly) they let the secret out. Of course, once the businessmen all knew, the price spiralled and rocketed until there it was, far beyond anything he could afford. Sebastian had spent all his money on his art, that is to say he had spent all his money on tippex and biros in the misplaced belief that he could make something special with them. He had been visionary then, and believed the world would pay to see the fruits of his enlightenment. Of course, that didn’t help him now; losing his vision, and no money to save it. He would have to hope and pray for a miracle, or resign himself to the possibility of losing himself in the fog forever. He couldn’t take that chance, giving himself up to the fog. The very prospect scared him beyond belief. He decided to pray, and see where his thoughts took him. Perhaps there would be some salvation there.

The pews of the church were hard and uncomfortable, and Sebastian hoped the penance of sitting upon them for so long would bring him some luck. He knew better than to consider this though, and the minister brought condemnation before solace. “God is in the detail” he told Sebastian. “See the detail, and you will know the love of God”. Sebastian tried to explain that he was here precisely because he couldn’t see any more, and wouldn’t the minister help him at all in his plight, didn’t he realise what turmoil he was in without the staunch cotton comfort of the detail? The minister’s advice was misplaced and delivered with an air of irritatingly self-satisfied fulfilment. “Consider the bigger picture, then look inside yourself and see the detail.” Sebastian left, more frustrated and despairing than ever. He couldn’t see the detail and now would never know the love of god, and furthermore he had twisted his ankle on the over-polished floor which some kid with too much Pledge on his hands clearly thought would tempt God from his busy schedule into this church for these people. It was shiny, he could grant him that, but it struck Sebastian as phony, and he hoped that God wouldn’t be taken in by such a cheap trick. He knew he had to find glasses now, more desperately than ever. The love of God was at stake, as well as his own sanity.

Sebastian remembered at one time he had owned an old acoustic guitar, and considered if he wouldn’t try busking for a while, and see where his music would take him. He remembered finding solace in his music once before, and pictured himself packing up a wad of loose leaf sheet music in some dishevelled bundle and standing on the scuffed pavement slabs with his visionary songs outside the station. He thought back to his childhood when he had once seen a woman standing outside the station singing. Her eyes stank of poverty and hatred for the world, but her voice reverberated above the mundanity of a Wednesday afternoon and somehow penetrated the insular lives of the commuters who were normally heading somewhere too important and too desperately urgent to allow anyone to interrupt their steady chain of pace. But she was different, he remembered. Something in her voice ignited the languid dust in the air, spiralled outside the realms of suits and appointments to move those who rushed by, and they paused, terrified in wonder of what had pierced their normally impenetrable exterior, but still too self absorbed to consider it could have been anything outwith their busy lives. He couldn’t remember if she’d made much money busking, and considering the audience she was forced to contend with, he was doubtful. But he decided he had to try, if only to take his mind off his terrible loss of clarity and the troubles that it would bring him if he allowed it to take over.

~*~

It was over, and Sebastian knew it. The music he had played was the maudlin reflection of his soul, and the tune of a Thursday afternoon that the world listened for was beating frantically with grateful anticipation of the weekend ahead. They could have hated him and hated his music, and he could have secretly cursed their cultureless philistine existences. He would have returned to his own world bruised and poor, but still aware of his own specialness. If anyone had even noticed he was there. It seemed to him now the gulf between their existences were so great that it was no surprise they would never penetrate each other’s worlds. In hindsight, it would have been stranger if they had heard his songs, acknowledged his presence and welcomed him.

Sebastian was losing the sight in his right eye too. He let it fade. There was nothing much he wanted to see anymore anyway.

The Mundanity of Midday on a Tuesday

(belle)

Isabelle was in a dingy café in the East End, but her mind was somewhere else entirely. She had never been able to dwell on the orders for long, which was probably why she was still working there for a pittance instead of in one of the City’s more upmarket and illustrious places. But Isabelle had never been one who needed her surroundings to inspire her. She gleaned her joy from the stories in her mind, where she would write songs about the mundanity of her current situation. Except Isabelle didn’t know how to write songs. So she made up a story instead, where she was a musician and a lyricist, and when she showed the world her music they were impressed and aghast, looking upon her with newfound respect. They were good songs, filled with promise and possibility outwith the trappings of what and where she was. She wished they could exist.

Isabelle is going to leave here someday to become someone else and something better. She hasn’t figured out the details of this plan yet, but then, she supposes, it doesn’t really matter right now. But then as she as she thinks this, she remembers a story she once heard about a boy who couldn’t see the detail. “God is in the detail,” it said, “and Sebastian could not see the detail”. He tried busking to earn money for glasses, but his music was maudlin and the Thursdays he stood at Hillhead Station were filled with grateful anticipation of the weekend ahead. The people passed by unaware of his existence, she remembered, and he never did afford glasses. Unable to see the detail, he had never known the love of God. Isabelle had never been able to dismiss such stories the way other people could. She was melancholy, and realised she would have to consider the details.

But for now, the forefront of her mind was simply occupied with the promise of being something. Being something was what carried her through the emptiness of being a nothing waitress in some seldom frequented café. The prospect of something else was what provided her with the right tone to enquire the orders of her lewd and lascivious customers. On those days when the air was filled with promise, and she herself filled with the self-important knowledge that she was indeed special, she could swan around like a 50s starlet, rising above the mundanity of midday on a Tuesday. Sometimes she pretended to be the star of some indie rock video, revelling in her dingy surroundings and practising her tortured expressions. At such times she considered herself quite magnificent, but the owner favoured top 40 stations whose incessant chatter was never conducive to inspiration. When the air was filled with such inanities, there was little to do but retreat to her mind, where she happened to be some redhot writer kid, slaving here only to afford the rent in the small room where she smoked endless cigarettes and punched out wild pages of crazed inspiration on some battered typewriter. Isabelle often thinks that if she bought a typewriter it would have to either be old, or else she would have to bash it around a bit till it resonated with the age and experience that feeds words to the writer’s fingers. Of course, Isabelle could never afford a typewriter on her salary, not even a broken one. Her words and inspirations are lost as soon as they leave her mind into the cool autumn air, the world lacking the energy and inclination to preserve them.

Isabelle is going to go to college some day, get the Highers she missed at school. She didn’t listen first time around, her mind too full of childish ideals. Her mind is still full of childish ideals, but now she also wants to make something of herself, and what better way to do so? But not yet. She couldn’t afford it, and besides, what would she study? But she knows she will someday. She knows because she belongs among the hipster students who come in the café late at night and, among the greasy floors, Formica topped tables and endless cups of coffee, talk Sartre and Proust and Kerouac. Isabelle does not know exactly what these words mean, but she can tell from the way they feel on her tongue that they are words of learning and opportunity. She always offers the hipsters free refills and shy smiles, but they are too wrapped up discussing their own crazed affairs to notice the downtrodden waitress. Isabelle does not mind. In fact, she considers, she would not really know what to say if they spoke to her anyway. They are the children of culture and academics, the bastard offspring of genius. She is the child of a bus driver and a housewife. Ideologically, she is as close to them as you could get. But she is also an inarticulate waitress, and persuading them of this would be too hard. Besides, what would she do if they did reject her? The very thought ripped to shreds her gossamer dreams, and she forcefully returned her imagination to its rightful considerations.

She knows she is not the same as the other people who complain about their jobs and talk of quitting for better things. Their better things are dreams of a better job or a better wage, whereas her better dreams consist of better things in all their entirety. She resents the fact she had to work weekends and the way this throws her working week into disarray. She longs to be able to look forward to the weekend. Sometimes, she also longs to say she is a slave to the working week. If she had to be the child of botched capitalism, it would be nice at least to be able to complain.

In reality, she is not a slave to the working week, nor indeed the working weekend. Her job holds no ties for her beyond its mere existence and the strange power that habit exerts. Isabelle is a slave to the workings of her mind, she thinks. It keeps her awake at night with its incessant chatter of the things she is going to do. As well as a hipster, her mind tells her, she will be a writer, an artist, a philosopher and a poet. She will also live forever, although the practical side of her mind sometimes says she should know better. She tries not to listen much to that voice though. It is always telling her she cannot do the things she wants, be the people she wants to be. It tells her she is a fool. Of course she knows about the inevitability of death and that eternity is a long time. But on the other hand, she feels far too alive at present to consider it could ever be any other way.

Sometimes, although she never allows herself to admit it for long, she feels her imagination beginning to slip. On occasion, she will find herself run out of rock video fodder and hip sashays and the details will spiral away from her (sometimes even taking God’s love with them). When she is deserted like this, she feels naked and vulnerable without the security of her happiness to protect her from the world. She is aware of her strangeness, and hopes that they will not pick up on it. But these feelings never last for long. The hipsters will always return, filling the air with the heat of their own feverous excitement, brightening even the most hopeless and dreamless day. And once again her imagination will grab the baton, laugh loudly, and tear magnificently through the East End of the City.

endings

.
one day i will leave you
or you will leave me
and one of us will break down and question
demand answers which will never come
and the other will move on and fuck with abandon
come enough for all the answers which didn't




why?

it was because you told me you were happy
and held me in your arms contented
that i turned my mouth away
and remembered when you beseeched the lovers
who lay in comfort
under double duvets
who held hands at parties
and deciding that their personality had done them well in finding a mate
allowed it to rest

it was because suddenly i was enough
and you stopped desiring that we fucked
in alleyways with my dress yanked to my waist
and no underwear
but were happy with me in your bed
to kiss tenderly
and softly hold
whispering things my mother could have
happily overheard

it was because you stopped talking about the ass
of the girl who worked in the record shop
and i stopped picturing her indie shirts in disarray
pushed against the rack of smiths records
doing all manner of things
that Morrissey would disapprove of

it was when i became half of us
we seemed less than the sum of our parts
and tired of waiting for you to break my heart
i broke yours