Monday, August 25, 2008
Friday, August 22, 2008
So apparently Niloo looks like Julianne Moore; Shoosh like Heather Locklear, my brother Pete like Primo Levi (strange coincidence that's he's reading 'The Truce' by Levi at the mo?), Niloo in her 2nd appearance looks like Gloria Estefan, and Mark (my nearly husband!) like Kenneth Branagh... and my older bro Chris like Joshua Jackson, and moi resembles Kate Winslet...
Odd... ; )
Thursday, August 21, 2008
The local loon
The local toothless loon stares at your chest,
The raffle lady wants to stuff tickets in your mouth
As you decline; penniless.
The raffle lady wants to stuff tickets in your mouth
As you decline; penniless.
Nurses' prayer
Give us this day our endless shifts,
a stand ‘condemned’ outside
the lifts
And a smell that never leaves our nostrils.
a stand ‘condemned’ outside
the lifts
And a smell that never leaves our nostrils.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
'These pictures mean something'
Josie tears her four up
outside her local post office
with a faded sign up:
‘SAVE OUR P.O.’
‘Too yellow. Too fat.’
Tyler thinks he’s James Dean
in his.
He wants to make
Warholesque rite
of passage posters
out of them.
Fred stares straight
ahead smiling a little
too much.
He’s 70. This is his
first passport; it will
take him to Australia.
Sam and Fran are
nervous.
Her favourite film is Buffalo ’66;
his, Amelie.
They want a look which will
blend both.
The photobooths
respond silently or loudly,
beep, dry, beep, dry; red light
flashing.
‘These pictures (4 down/4 across)
mean something’
writes Tanya
bemoaning the death
of photobooths on
her blog;
normally dealing with
period sex.
outside her local post office
with a faded sign up:
‘SAVE OUR P.O.’
‘Too yellow. Too fat.’
Tyler thinks he’s James Dean
in his.
He wants to make
Warholesque rite
of passage posters
out of them.
Fred stares straight
ahead smiling a little
too much.
He’s 70. This is his
first passport; it will
take him to Australia.
Sam and Fran are
nervous.
Her favourite film is Buffalo ’66;
his, Amelie.
They want a look which will
blend both.
The photobooths
respond silently or loudly,
beep, dry, beep, dry; red light
flashing.
‘These pictures (4 down/4 across)
mean something’
writes Tanya
bemoaning the death
of photobooths on
her blog;
normally dealing with
period sex.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
numbered swan park again...
I took an evening walk to the numbered swan park again. Took a few snapshots, nothing too serious. Suddenly I heard a 'psssst'.... quickly started to walk on, was worried it was some wino fisher or something, but it was my mate Jamie... even though they're not the most special photographs... they somewhat remind me of Roger McGough's poem 'what you are', my favourite line being 'you are a derelict canal where the tincans whistle no tunes'... in fact maybe I should include the first 1/2 here:
'What you are' --- Roger McGough
you are the cat's paw
among the silence of midnight goldfish
you are the waveswhich cover my feet l
ike cold eiderdownsyou are the teddybear (as good as new)
found beside a road accident
you are the lost day
in the life of a child murderer
you are the green
whose depths I cannot fathom
you are the clean sword
that slaughtered the first innocent
you are the drop of dew on a petal
before the clouds weep blood
you are the wind caught on barbedwire
and crying out against war
you are the apple for teacher
left in a damp cloakroom
you are the litmus leaves
quivering on the suntan trees
you are the ivy
which muffles my walls
you are the first footprints in the sand
on bankholiday morning
you are the suitcase full of limbs
waiting in a leftluggage office
to be collected like an orphan
you are a derelict canal
where the tincans whistle no tunes
you are the bleakness of winter before the cuckoo
catching its feathers on a thornbush
heralding spring
you are the stillness of Van Gogh
before he painted the yellow vortex of his last sun
........................... (can't seem to edit this blank space out!!! aaargh, why am i shite at html?
Place cards
Made these place cards today for our wedding... Was looking on the internet last night and they were so expensive.... 60p each... Anyway, I cropped a photo that I took in a 2nd hand bookshop, now closed... I'm pretty happy with the results.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
bottles & wrappers
That evening; our clothed bodies
drenched in sun
(although your eyes still sung for me)
I held on to you like the empty bottles
& wrappers you wish to discard
on a long train journey
with many changes.
drenched in sun
(although your eyes still sung for me)
I held on to you like the empty bottles
& wrappers you wish to discard
on a long train journey
with many changes.
Shuffles Nervously
1.
And on the train I see landscapes I know well transformed from their banality by the screaming sunlight… particularly a concrete sports field populated by puddles reflecting trees, pylons- an array of scorched melting metallic.
Stalling. Stalling.
Two Goldfrapp posters disappear quickly and are therefore indelible in your mind. A runner of your ilk, the kind that does this out of necessity, rather than a love of running. Then at the station you spy a guy that wouldn’t look too out of place in the Lake District with backpack and thinsulate hat, eating a pastie. There are ghosts that turn into people at Oxford Road Station by coming out of the frosted glass stairs.
Stalling. Stalling.
A lad with a hairdo like a girl’s is being kissed by his older girlfriend. People at the station are always gazing upwards with that look of slight consternation on their faces, to view the train times.
‘Has my train left yet? Am I on the right platform?’
Out of nowhere some pigeons attack the boy with the girl’s hairdo, a half ponytail…
‘ Is this an indiscriminate attack?’
Then movement again… The aircon systems at the top of buildings become giant hamburgers.
Stalling. Stalling.
A middle-aged man with neon green laces in his trainers and black dye in his hair shuffles nervously, wondering whether to get on my train. A giant billboard in the distance shouts: ‘INSTRUCTIONS: CHILL AT HOME’.
2.
An old gentleman in his 80’s seems to frequent the laundrette almost as much as the black-maned woman. He has an aristocratic face even though his clothes are gray, old, ill-fitting, much as all of us in the laundrette are in our commie type rags. That’s why we appear there, to absolve ourselves from the dirt, the clothes that sometimes should have been washed a while ago. One day I start talking to him, properly. I learn a few things from him, he comes to get away from home. His wife has Alzheimer’s.
‘She’s been a good mother. A good wife’…
I remark that some men go fishing, much as he comes here. He laughs quietly. His cheeks are a dangerous rosy. I start talking to him rather quickly, almost nervously…
Fifteen minutes ago a skinheaded young male with the necessary neck tattoos, is f-ing and blinding, remarking that this
‘laundrette’s gash!’…
Hmmmm, never heard such strong sentiments levied towards such a simple establishment as a laundrette. He has no washing powder and is getting increasingly irate. Thankfully, no-one reacts and they just calmly inform him that in the shop 3 doors down, they do sell washing powder. ‘Right’ he concedes, which coming from him, sounds like a
‘Thank-you kind sir’.
The tense, violent attitude impresses no-one and by the time he comes back and strips down to his boxers, he is more of a comic figure, an abrasive version of the Diet Coke guy, without the patented prettiness. I shuffle less nervously. Just a cocky young lad wanting attention.
I return to my bittersweet conversation. The black-maned woman sings. She repeatedly sighs always recounting that these washing rituals are for
‘the grand-kids’… ‘You wouldn’t believe how many clothes they go through’.
I can. I know she lives there. Camps out there like a Blyton Faraway Tree character- the washerwoman. The bull with the swagger holds the door open for the rosy-cheeked old man.
‘Thanks, son’.
He goes to his battered white car, smiling, back to his old love who can’t remember him.
3.
We look at her with the indifference of tired commuters. Her stories are more entertaining than her poems. Her voice comes alive, sings, is louder when retelling the instances in which her poems were just semblances.
We, the audience sit scruffily attired in faded fleeces and unclassifiable pieces of clothing while a slight air of pretentiousness pervades the room.
The students cannot stop scribbling the names of every poem and huff desolately if they miss the title of one. They do not hang on her every word, but shuffle nervously, asking their companions for the titles. It’s getting late; I can’t afford to miss my train.
On the narrowly caught train the sole sound I can hear are the remains of a crisp packet’s crumbs being devoured. I look out and see a girl and boy contriving pictures.
The boy holds a camera and signals to the girl to throw the bread NOW. The birds scatter, and click goes the shutter I can’t hear.
And on the train I see landscapes I know well transformed from their banality by the screaming sunlight… particularly a concrete sports field populated by puddles reflecting trees, pylons- an array of scorched melting metallic.
Stalling. Stalling.
Two Goldfrapp posters disappear quickly and are therefore indelible in your mind. A runner of your ilk, the kind that does this out of necessity, rather than a love of running. Then at the station you spy a guy that wouldn’t look too out of place in the Lake District with backpack and thinsulate hat, eating a pastie. There are ghosts that turn into people at Oxford Road Station by coming out of the frosted glass stairs.
Stalling. Stalling.
A lad with a hairdo like a girl’s is being kissed by his older girlfriend. People at the station are always gazing upwards with that look of slight consternation on their faces, to view the train times.
‘Has my train left yet? Am I on the right platform?’
Out of nowhere some pigeons attack the boy with the girl’s hairdo, a half ponytail…
‘ Is this an indiscriminate attack?’
Then movement again… The aircon systems at the top of buildings become giant hamburgers.
Stalling. Stalling.
A middle-aged man with neon green laces in his trainers and black dye in his hair shuffles nervously, wondering whether to get on my train. A giant billboard in the distance shouts: ‘INSTRUCTIONS: CHILL AT HOME’.
2.
An old gentleman in his 80’s seems to frequent the laundrette almost as much as the black-maned woman. He has an aristocratic face even though his clothes are gray, old, ill-fitting, much as all of us in the laundrette are in our commie type rags. That’s why we appear there, to absolve ourselves from the dirt, the clothes that sometimes should have been washed a while ago. One day I start talking to him, properly. I learn a few things from him, he comes to get away from home. His wife has Alzheimer’s.
‘She’s been a good mother. A good wife’…
I remark that some men go fishing, much as he comes here. He laughs quietly. His cheeks are a dangerous rosy. I start talking to him rather quickly, almost nervously…
Fifteen minutes ago a skinheaded young male with the necessary neck tattoos, is f-ing and blinding, remarking that this
‘laundrette’s gash!’…
Hmmmm, never heard such strong sentiments levied towards such a simple establishment as a laundrette. He has no washing powder and is getting increasingly irate. Thankfully, no-one reacts and they just calmly inform him that in the shop 3 doors down, they do sell washing powder. ‘Right’ he concedes, which coming from him, sounds like a
‘Thank-you kind sir’.
The tense, violent attitude impresses no-one and by the time he comes back and strips down to his boxers, he is more of a comic figure, an abrasive version of the Diet Coke guy, without the patented prettiness. I shuffle less nervously. Just a cocky young lad wanting attention.
I return to my bittersweet conversation. The black-maned woman sings. She repeatedly sighs always recounting that these washing rituals are for
‘the grand-kids’… ‘You wouldn’t believe how many clothes they go through’.
I can. I know she lives there. Camps out there like a Blyton Faraway Tree character- the washerwoman. The bull with the swagger holds the door open for the rosy-cheeked old man.
‘Thanks, son’.
He goes to his battered white car, smiling, back to his old love who can’t remember him.
3.
We look at her with the indifference of tired commuters. Her stories are more entertaining than her poems. Her voice comes alive, sings, is louder when retelling the instances in which her poems were just semblances.
We, the audience sit scruffily attired in faded fleeces and unclassifiable pieces of clothing while a slight air of pretentiousness pervades the room.
The students cannot stop scribbling the names of every poem and huff desolately if they miss the title of one. They do not hang on her every word, but shuffle nervously, asking their companions for the titles. It’s getting late; I can’t afford to miss my train.
On the narrowly caught train the sole sound I can hear are the remains of a crisp packet’s crumbs being devoured. I look out and see a girl and boy contriving pictures.
The boy holds a camera and signals to the girl to throw the bread NOW. The birds scatter, and click goes the shutter I can’t hear.
wrong words
you become an idiot,
a malnourished mind
with blindingly stupid answers
always uttering the
wrong words
never the right ones.
your tone is mere drone
with absolutely
nothing to recommend it.
you could surpass einstein
and their ears
would still not hear.
in their eyes no recognition
would appear
because
they’ve decided
that you’re wrong
beyond redemption
and your drone can’t
drown their doubt
towards you- neither now
nor tomorrow.
a malnourished mind
with blindingly stupid answers
always uttering the
wrong words
never the right ones.
your tone is mere drone
with absolutely
nothing to recommend it.
you could surpass einstein
and their ears
would still not hear.
in their eyes no recognition
would appear
because
they’ve decided
that you’re wrong
beyond redemption
and your drone can’t
drown their doubt
towards you- neither now
nor tomorrow.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)