Light spilling as if through a robust multi-faceted diamond up up from the racetrack reach of Hackney Marshes; the colour of dusky persimmons - & then some in London in a window display -

Umbria: end of season colours raking olives; a place retreating into itself; the cry of a green woodpecker and the smell of pine smoke; persimmon fruit (again!) heavy fallen on theit low bushes, carcasses burst open now to spread seed and feed the sparrows; everywhere you look there are the sombre browns and mute greys of Autumn broken here and there by the eclipsing golden shimmer of some variety of tree that I don't know but writes itself large in the conciousness of the day, everywhere, like beacons brooding in the shade -

In the cemetary - All Souls Day, Day Of The Dead - people have come from far and wide to the solid state of the lined tombs and the dark cypress walls - a Bernard Hermann chord 'Clare de Lune' gently reverberates back and forth between them from the prophetic pathway to the far inclement wall and to where, on the right hand side, a large aviary stands, netted to stop the birds within from ever getting away. A raucous cacophany of diverse song matches the Hermann score: high-pitched squeaks and trills; fleeting, throaty utterances. Yet all the birds remain unseen. They are as ghostly as the lives celebrated within the sacred boundary -

Here we can see Carnevale and Pablo gauging the grief of others against their own; experientially at least. A scarf each to keep their throats warm. Mentally operating on the clues to either one of the deaths they shall both consider over and over again. Aware of the inordinate sanctuary of grief and the literal insanity they are feeling. Sharing that. In similar latitudes though far apart, the biting statement of coming winter and the ironically loquacious colours of it are both a mirror to the living and an essence of those gone: limbo indicators, extraordinary in sunlight, fervidly grim when overcast -

I'm thinking only of that diamond -

Castiglione del Lago, Italy

0.06 am

the night shrugs off what silence it had procured minutes ago;

the street edge shifts; it's noises are relevant ice to sleep:

hollow woody sighs beneath tyres thrown back by tenements;
globules of wax and oil no longer resist their fall and

make their way from flat roof to ear,

roads fizzing, cool, wet;
a delivery boy creaks homeward on a moped the size of a matchbox;

there is nothing awkward about his age;

only sleep can deter his winning streak, placate his tough losses.
meantime, all is as was -

sharp sounds and brief liquid suggestions - faintly macabre;

hanging in the air; as jet: impenetrable, dark

Battersea 20/10/07

The alabster face of Maggie T in Guildhall - heavyweight marble statue of Thatcher presiding over all royalty, in there among the gowned historical portraits, more substance to her memory than all the other, still the ego moves - look at you; the rift made corporeal in stone, the stare of disastrous self-belief - wrap her up in clinging PVC, stick her with safety pins and a million hard questions - someone mentions 'gonzo' and you run in your glass coffin Maggie, don't you? -

and Queen Victoria Beckham is equally deluded by self-illusion - yet she doesn't really exist anymore and in that realisation has also begun to fall apart, a process of discovery -

street urchins at the window watch as it happens -

I wonder if two illusions make a harsh reality?

but (lesson to be learned) the city and the times are brutal - brutal light, brutal alleyways defined by yet more broken glass and idiot subterfuge; haste, ignorance, the grotesque: literally faceless men advertising suits, bizarre (is it meant to be post-mod irony?)

A notion in a book cover, a notion of peace, rises up through the audacity of it all, an exemplar of honesty -

Tailgaters try to make jokes of their actions, but in the end are always and only the worst kind of fools -

Ricochet debutantes and etiquette graduates turn the heads of the accountants amid the frayed activity of Devonshire Square, the streams of stepping, the readily abused time and motion of it all.

The wherewithal of liars.

You walk home in the middle of the night from it all without your shoes, you left them in a bar somewhere near Liverpool Street, drunk to fuck, with the noise of bully boys and serenaders mixed up in you and you keep repeating that the London Dungeon has a hilarious answerphone message, try it and see -

Guildhall, 17th October 2007

EC2

Hanging cats of the city, prevaricators of the weekend, groundhogs, sleazy suited groundhogs whose pink and blue pastel shirts and Gieves & Hawkes manicured presences are everywhere tonight, wavering before the threat of the weekend – Friday is their desolation day and it will be drowned in ale – welcome to the measure dome – the streets are full of talking in riddles and the bottom of the glass will ne’er come too soon, Felix, ready for another – upon which they shall ridicule the radical, standing on the week’s last hilt and seeing how deep the blade of it will go, stockbroker’s metaphorical suicide – the throng heaves a sigh of collective relief, devouring the high standard of Leadenhall and Axe, the banners, the caustic joust of architecture just there – and they are sweating blood money and relishing deep down deviant behaviour that they’ll never be a part of – that’s the way the City echo falls, fat echo, rounded echo, echo of the drunk – there’s one: pig-eyed nausea at Monument, unsure if he’s on the market floor and waving for stock or hailing a cab, swaying in the mystic wind of Axe, listening for a pin to drop, attempting to divine salary and hoping upon hope for his dusty frisson of lust with Rebecca perhaps (if she ever returns the call), she’s a peach (I jest but only just) – the infinity ward, the ever rolling static of the City of L on a Friday evening, the clocks still rolling for time-bombs and the ancient city’s behemoth waking slowly beneath the cobble stones and chrome crossroads – all second-hand rumour and bleeding heart agony is spilling from suit sleeves, the fear/ache of loneliness at the back of the mind whispers, knowledge of irredeemable time passing in routine upon routine, out into the street, following the drainage path of the old Fleet, along gutters and into drains, between cobble stones, rippling at Leadenhall and through Bevis Mount – by the end of the night one figure has staggered all the way to Southwark Bridge and is spasmodically thrusting arms and legs out into the air, his suit amazingly unruffled, head already sore and he’s hoping upon hope that tomorrow is Monday for fear that he may have to wake up to himself if it’s not -

crawling back to guitar licks, some bastard flood soaks me with gutter water, fine time - onlooking details break into laughter - chrome gargoyles and the like

bullishit is always bullshit, even when it's dressed up as a compliment

smell of citrus on a bus like calm before blue shade

West London Fix

Colonel Ivanov is placing his reflection carefully in the river at Albert Bridge. Someone has brought him back and he has no idea who or why. One minute he was sleeping, perhaps dead, in a quiet place near Kiev, the next he was smoking a cigar and bracing himself against London's October rain. Sweet, forlorn Mandy still sings in his memory. Mr. Stephen is painting canvasses, fending off and ignoring the inevitable conclusion of his pecadilloes - arrest, charge, imprisonment. The mews are quieter now than they were twenty years ago.
Funny thing - Ivanov realises he hasn't aged.
Blessed, lucky. Is Uncle Joe watching over him? Everything, they say, is to be continued.
This is Ivanov's chance then to be seduced by the city once again.
The common glow of gold on the Thames. The careening - what's that? - green parakeets in the treetops. They weren't here before, not then, not in the view from the Rolls or the hired Bentley.
And the short, rumbling regeneration of the rails.
To be continued then . . .

We Are All Janis Joplin

C is drinking rum - intravenously
S is crossing the sea of lust - one way ticket
K knows the days are getting shorter but (go figure) the sun is getting brighter
J is over the guitar player but not his plimsoll's - they rock
N has an envelope that contains just a splinter of moondust
D is living noir
P says diamonds and mirrors are the best illusions a freak can buy
G knows hunger is not a state of mind
R is marching - history is the best defence

GISELLE’S HARVEST (for Pol & Tracey B)

The town was mid siesta; all the shutters on the houses were closed to keep the inhabitants cool whilst the sun was strongest, bearing down on rock and roof alike, blistering paint and bleaching bone. Giselle, her radio mumbling in the background, sat on her bed in front of the mirror scrutinizing her hair. As required by her veneration it had grown untouched for two years and was now so long and thick it covered her head and shoulders like a black mane, reaching beyond the base of her spine and hiding her pretty almond features. On a hot day such as this her scalp itched and needled constantly whilst perspiration gathered on her back making her clothes damp and uncomfortable. Worst of all she felt her youth slipping away beneath it and this made her ache inside.

If only the Citrus Blight had never come.

Three years ago it attacked the lemon and orange trees surrounding the town. The fruits shrivelled and blackened, and the groves would drone infernally day after day as swarms of frenzied wasps and flies gorged on the nectar dripping from the ragged pulp. The crop was ruined, and with it the local economy and the small town’s sublime spirit. However, the following spring, as everyone gloomily awaited the return of the Blight, Giselle won the Venus Beauty Pageant in Sabina, the judges awed by her flawless hair. As her townspeople celebrated they told her not to touch a single tress:

‘Let it grow, Giselle,’ they said, almost singing to her, ‘let it grow.’

Soon after, the first fruits appeared in the groves with no return of the Blight and the town enjoyed the best harvest on record. Some said it was a miracle and talked of Giselle’s increasingly abundant locks as their own divine symbol of fertility, even making the sign of the cross before her in the street. As time passed this faith deepened until the town believed the Blight would return if anything were ever to spoil Giselle’s particular beauty – they had to protect it, no matter what. So, to make certain, the townspeople called upon Father Villiers to anoint Giselle ‘Patron Saint of the Groves’ which he did with earnest ceremony, and Giselle had dutifully accepted, not realising the sacrifices she would have to make.

Now, however, nothing would change her mind: it was coming off, all of it.

She closed the shutters in her room and positioned her mirror to catch the sunrays slipping through the slats. Her hands shook with anticipation as she loosened her hair and it unravelled like a rolling shroud. She picked up the steel scissors, heavier than she remembered, and made the first tentative snip; nothing more than the merest strand, but it sat there like a gash in the palm of her hand.

Was that a noise in the hall? She caught her breath and froze, listening intently, terrified that she might be discovered. But nothing moved, only the airless sound of the mid-afternoon heat warping the door jamb. She grasped a tress above her left temple, took a deep breath, and cut it sharply. Her hand came away clutching the severance, like a horse’s tail protruding from her fist. The dramatic change in length shocked her but determination urged her on and she set about the rest, leaving just a little length all over. When she was finished there were cuttings everywhere: on the bed, in her lap, spilling across the floor. Her head felt so light she thought it might slip the bond with her neck and float away. It was a wonderful feeling. She tipped it and turned it this way and that, barely recognising herself in the mirror.

Next she gathered the cuttings into bunches and tied each at one end with cotton; she took her colander, turned it upside down and pushed the bound ends through the holes until she’d made a perfect hairy crown that remained, as she’d hoped, oddly alive.

Evening had turned to dusk and she could hear the cicadas singing.

She put on the straw-coloured frock she rarely wore, took her emergency money from beneath the bed and put it with the crown into her canvas satchel. Then, having switched off her radio and said goodbye to her room, stepped nervously out into the street and headed straight for the groves. She made her way through the scented avenues until she came to the very centre. There, in the shadow of a voluptuous lemon tree, stood an unusual scarecrow. It was the image of her in every way yet bald as an egg. Giselle was scared, but as she approached it the scarecrow appeared to wink at her knowingly, urging her to finish what she’d begun. She took the crown from the bag; the mass of locks trailing to the earth appeared to sit up in response as she put it delicately on the smooth pate of her avatar, and as she did Giselle felt her heart change shape and mass; no longer a leaden thing full of responsibility and duty, but a lithe organ beating now at its own youthful pace.

On her way out of town she passed the café where Fausto the fruit-picker always sat after a day’s work, ready to bless his Patron Saint openly whenever he caught sight of her. He was smoking his Royale cigarettes and sipping rum. Fausto looked up as Giselle approached and her restored heart beat so loudly she thought it would give her away; but he simply doffed his cap as he would to any stranger and politely said:

‘Evenin’, miss.’

‘Evening, sir,’ she replied.

‘Are you a little lost, miss?’ Fausto asked, gesturing at the quiet street.

‘Oh, no,’ Giselle smiled cheekily, ‘bless you, but I know exactly where I’m going.’

12/9/07

PARKLIFE - The view from St Jude’s –

You have, of course, your dog walkers making their way through the lower reaches of the Park – they vary in approach. Some are very brisk and perfunctory with their animales; this is not a leisure activity for them but a chore. If the dog strays from the footpath seeking out smells and interesting places, the owner will conspire against it to immediately rein them back in. No fun, my babe, no fun. Others are embarrassed of their pet (or themselves, unclear which really); slouching in the shadows of the tree line, they’d rather not let anyone know which dog is theirs, and when it is time to retrieve it they slink up close to it at the park gates and quickly, covertly attach the lead and drag the thing away along the street, head down.

By evening there are more joggers than trees.
Parakeets whine and chatter as they sail across the gaps.

The nether corners, close to the vicarage, however, are gateways to another world. Something much darker, lonely, and desperate. These are the junkie hideaways, where the bushes and trees just about give cover from the nearby footpath and the playing areas, tucked in behind the ivy and the tree trunks. Early morning you’ll find them there sucking on pipes, or standing around with a white syringe hanging out of a forearm, a livid and focussed attack. Two groups, different times, but not so long apart. The first group is three jubilant men in baseball caps, open shirts, carrying plastic bags stuffed full of clothes perhaps, other items. Street/squat men, all in their late twenties/thirties, lightly bearded Hispanics. They are borderline. They plump for a space behind the wide bole of a plane tree. Begin their routine, individual and unsightly. Yet they do not seem abashed. Needy, aye. Not abashed or embarrassed; but then I assume they have no choice. One of them half drops his trousers and kecks, semi squats, his arse exposed to the shadows, the green shadows, and he finds a vein near his dick (or maybe in it?) and shoots up there. He cannot move, even though his friends have become insecure and walked away aware that they have only so many minutes grace before someone spots them. The have no idea I can see them from the house. Later, I spot the half-nudist on the main road having just bought himself a can of beer and poking through a litter to pull out a discarded newspaper. For a junkie he is surprisingly portly, though his flesh beneath the wiry beard is yellow/grey, thinning on his cheekbones.

Later, on the opposite side of the house but still down in the cloaked nooks, a couple arrive with a white Staffordshire bull terrier. The woman is in a forlorn white tracksuit top, wears pigtails in her hair, close on 40. The man is tall, wears a pale denim shirt and a kind of knitted waistcoat, intellectual glasses, shaved head and very tanned. He is nervous, she doesn’t give a toss. Even though they can see me in my study, she squats straight down and begins to bake the brown, her arse crack (what is it with these folks, are they actually secret exhibitionists?) given back to me when she turns her back and bends down, is she telling me to ‘kiss my arse’ without needing to voice it? Clouds of blue smoke. The dog sniffing around the works. The man on point, watching, furtive. The Staff has bright pink testicles that hang low and heavy, and swing as it moves and sniffs around head down. Eventually, the woman rises, leaving scarred tin-foil on the ground and she calls to dog ‘Jasper, Jasper’ then wanders off with it while two-bit Charlie is left behind to see to himself with a spike. He taps up a vein and shoots the stuff home.


Brockwell Park, London

BAD CARPETS AND LOLLYPOP STICKS

Loughborough, like a bedraggled and mangy fox, looms up along its arterial roads and then almost disappears out where the university campus starts; end of the world. Alarms are ringing on the high street but there’s nobody around; perhaps they are ringing because they crave attention? Somebody. Anybody?

On the other side of town our destination rises. The smoke sickened Quality Hotel nestles in its own swamp of cohorts: truckers and their beer-bellied assistants, terrorist suspects, artificially inseminated housewives longing for the pool to open up so they can drown their sorrows (except the pool automatically locks at 8pm and no-one can get in – perhaps for that very reason: to keep the suicide numbers down). In fact, they should consider renaming it The Suicide Hotel – tag line: Everything comes with a price –

Then out to brave the long walk to the bedroom: the desolate corridors, the paper thin carpet held together with black gaffer tape and hope, littered with lollipop sticks and Bernard Manning humour behind an arched hand (nudge nudge). You know it’s going to be bad when the room numbers start at 101 and it’s the first room to greet you in the opening passageway. Silence behind the peeling door.

My room is the kind of place you’ve seen in photos where the ‘suicidee’ is spread out on crumpled sheets, the walls cramping in, the bottle of pills to hand, the TV still on and the steady drip of the drains outside the window adding some symbolic detail, whilst unbeknownst to you the viewer the lamp shades are thick with dirt and the bathroom has unidentifiable matter growing on the walls and in the grouting spelling out the name of the recently departed – the tonal beige of the décor (apart from the bauxite carpet and faux parisienne curtains) is enough to drive even the sanest person wild with depression – you can’t even get a signal for a mobile phone adding ever more credence to the impression that this is all a proto-communist nightmare – the heaving breath of relief of the newly departed in the morning must be like a scirocco coming in off the forecourt to the puzzlement of those just entering, staring back over their shoulders like blinded rabbits unaware of the sentence to come, yet wondering what if this is it? The pool table greets them just inside the foyer, as it did me, surrounded by shaven-headed men in t-shirts two sizes too tight, beer bellies peeking out iridescent, crepuscular from beneath them, and lank-haired young gofers intent on the older men’s every words and snatch at the pool balls. The air around them reeks of guff, kebab and lager and some reverse pretension at total ignorance, total stupidity. They remain as noisy as they possibly can; a caterwaul to greet newcomers, buffoons to the bitter end surrounded by mock mahogany and recently upholstered 1970’s furniture – if it wasn’t for the Quiz Night machine and the Link cash dispenser stood like droids in the middle of the room, then the scene would be almost timeless, the 3 day week and the Common Market on the lips of everyone here – though I suspect there’s a few with rellies in Iraq which would give time a jolt to untrained ears.

Jackie the receptionist seems at a loss – taken by surprised (suspicious?) when new guests arrive (maybe its one huge ‘happy’ family in here? A cult of 21^st century lounge lizards and barflies?) – I am booked in under Ms. Belerine which is mildly entertaining, but what is more amusing is the look of shock in the young woman’s eyes when she tries desperately to use her booking computer, she goes to pieces and flaps and faffs with sheaves of registration paper and plastic key cards – it’s a mesmerising ballet of inefficiency - the stumbling dumb checkout girl brought up into the world of the ‘glamorous’ hotelier by her fuck and chuck boss thanks to her flashy tits, stuck here for eternity, wanting and waiting for Mr Right to walk in and claim his reservation on her heart –

The soap is petrified in the bathroom, crumbles to the touch – a long hair (not mine) trails across a tile on the wall of the bathroom like a clue or signpost to some disposable tryst, a fracture in the equilibrium of a taxi driver or corporate middle-manager’s twelve year marriage – the ennui of the rain, don’t forget – the prison quadrangle, the aphid-addled rose-bed, the footie frown and the silent chant of the forgotten locked in their hotel rooms having never tasted quality – welcome to Loughborough, welcome to beyond the back of beyond . . . listen and you’ll hear the screams . . . .

Loughborough 10/7/07

Steel dog sidings, limpet true, alone
The gutters weep second-hand oil as the sun goes quiet
(All noises accommodated beforehand),
This must be Coventry; or anywhere north of Milton Keynes
To a radius of 100 miles – the fetters are off;
The beast emerges now, its head heavy,
Sworn by calumny and rust-radiating features
Of industry’s shit-end, the residue, the unused and the un-useful,
The dry whisper of the firm’s ghost
- what power you had once, laddie, what power once had before –
The shadow is cast well, in the bauxite and clinker
As well cast as the stern body, the knotted rivet ribcage,
The sweet blood of hydraulic presumption

Awaiting orders from the master, one day

One day after laughter, whisky, divorce, boredom
The anticipation is the dog’s fuel, the pining energy in
Sockets and fissures; the greased groove, cog and
(Maybe this is its tin-can name) sprocket; as in:
Fetch Sprocket, Cum-ere Sprocket, Stay Sprocket.
Trains come in to the platform, kids whistle for biscuits or glue
Depending on their appetite; none are willing to give over
A moment for the steel pet, to the risk out by the slag.

- - - - - -

Poppy nearby is sweet red singular
A miracle cornered by patio slabs
Proud over and over, it has the name
Of a remarkable woman upon it
A great grandmother, a grandmother,
A mother, and a wife

- - - - - -

The TB sanatorium, Isle of Wight 1938; small bathing huts and beach chalets given over to the patients, a kind of wilderness ward, with a couple of inches of rain water on the floor and rats running around at night beneath the bed – many died there, women and children among them – she saw many go, watching their spirits fade gazing out to sea, where the air was meant to put them right

What of the sullied indifference to piers -
Rabid young gamblers two pennies at a time on the roulette, thumbs itching -
Bandana bandit carries his two-guns into the future, firing from the hip at the vid-screen all the way whilst talking to himself a running commentary on the death-dealing beauty of it all -
Outside it rains on: silver sheen wooden slats of Queen Victoria's penchant for never getting her feet wet, the fishing rods limp in the Bank Holiday downpour at the end of the pier -
It's always the bright cocoon of the arcade that wins after all, anecdotes and nostalgia resounding in the rust of variety entertainment and the flaky paint -
Spaniards lost in the rain (looking for stolen doubloons?) -
The damp fury of Beachy Head where cars stall and graduates tramp up the hill to the lighthouse with sorry umbrellas and canvas shoes that will rot in the wet -

Eastbourne 27/5/07

Hammersmith, London
Avebury, Wiltshire

He prepares the ticket, tearing it down the middle then folding each half into two inverted ‘V’s, slightly stretched out of shape. With soft precision he places them edge to edge on the small ‘Stop’ button ridge so that they form a sharp ‘M’ there. The vibrations of the bus cause them to separate and so, with the tip of his forefinger, he pushes them back together trying to maintain their shape; a quiet smile to himself when he succeeds. If they fall then he catches them in his open palm waiting there below, almost cursing the driver out loud for unwittingly despoiling his creation. He derives satisfaction from the company of paper. Gradually he is turning into parchment. His skin, his hair fibres; the ink of his life sketched out again and again, over and over, there until the self is almost indecipherable.

Sheffield

The more dangerous the pathways round here, broken glass, shattered metals of infinite variety, the more one must learn that old sufi trick of walking on hot coals just to traverse this goddamned city. For it seems a cult of broken glass, of dangerous litter strewn on the pavements and walkways is becoming prevalent. You’re lucky if you dodge the shitty boys in their small loud groups and cars, beating-wagons they call them, with their peculiar screams and chants trying to scare wolves; their diesel fume breath and arses leaking oil, heavy on the brakes Eugene –

Monday mothballs and Bensons at the bus-stop –

‘You’re kidding me. You’re not really Italians are you?’
‘We’re not kidding. No.’
‘Just look at their surnames Frank.’
‘Sorry, I only bore holes in the ground. Didn’t mean to comment on your backgrounds. Just that you were so convincing that’s all.’

The Dancing Horses

There it is again: that dog barking late at night the only sound you hear – hollow; its cold agony resident at the back door of its possibly deaf or simply ignorant master. With it comes the pauce ring of Sunday night.

A city of broken glass, shattered windows and broken bus stops leaving mounds of the glittering stuff in the path of pedestrians and traffic; great gobs of it now opaque where it rests, like untouchable ice; the result of some sledgehammer team wending their way from the north of the city through to the south and on the way taking out random objects to leave a trail of this. Their last hope at recognition as the wind starts to pick up.

Like i said, the Dancing Horses, bring 'em on:
There is this woman in her late twenties, striving for some sense of normality now – for example, she knows she wants a child – her husband, the epitome of the new urban rock-star (half geek, a dose of rat-arsed punk, and the overdose of a 60s West Coast guitarist), he is having none of it and in public will remind all of this, baulking there to her chagrin. Her trained classical leading edge is drawn to form and the simplicity of a certain pace in things, the correct unfolding, a tempo to life that has purpose, realisation. On the other hand, he is drawn to pubescent narcissism still, the finality of rock and all it’s self-centred excesses; the closer he gets to success, the more he digs in his Cuban heels. Where is their marriage going?

Forgive me the discrepancies, forgive me my ignorance and vanity, but what else am i meant to do with this stuff - gimme an ancient and well-worn T-shirt and let me roll, anyday -

Sheffield

Sheffield - March 07

FOR MY ZIA RITA

When I look at one of the last photos I have of her, the deep lines around the mouth, the mild, sallow complexion, I am always aware that this is, was, an ailing soul. And her hoarse breath rattling in her throat, in attempts to catch it, I hear as, for example, she walked me up the hill toward Ampere’s Tower or clambered inside the statue of Borromeo’s monument. Her long, slow stride so recently supporting her semi-paralysed body. All of which should portray a woman ten or fifteen years older than she was.

Some might say it was the war that took her eventually, and they might be correct. Born into a country of immense poverty and depredation, her child’s lungs succumbing so early to disease that in later life would take one of them away. The war’s effects and residue running a singular course up to now, today, sixty three years hence.

But, returning to that photo, it is her eyes that give away the truth of my wonderful Italian aunt. The temperament of faith, knowledge, wisdom. And her forbearance of suffering with humour and dignity. They are dark, almost black eyes, perhaps a certain jewel, but most fervently alive and aware. Watching, absorbing the circumstance of the family gathering around her in the lakeside restaurant. And I’m certain hiding any pain or discomfort for the benefit of those she loved. Her tales filled with characters that may well have been archetypes of her own soul: the thinker, the priest – good people rewarded with dignity.

The sound of bombs; the alacrity of boiling water on a stove, seething ready for pasta.

I hear her deep voice, and her hand upon my face cherishing my existence, believing in me without saying a word. Laughing, even in our lacking tongue – my faltering Italian, her stubbornly pigeon English. Or perhaps we are up at the ‘orrido’, watching the cascades of water coming down from the mount above as she tells me tales, small legends – born of truth - that even she has never got to the bottom of.

Laughter commonly around a table with a healthy serving of food and her patient, lidded eyes watching with contentment. The methodical measure of a stovetop coffee percolator beginning to bubble through.

Then, here, the snow falls. Uncorrupted when I wake before sunrise, there is a gift in the day. The slip-back light gathering. Something about it that maintains her dignity despite the details of the forthcoming tests and examination of her final corporeality. By the time the snow has gone, melted in a few days, I hope she too will have been put to rest.

7/2/07

Marcel Proust got ill and stayed in bed all day writing – if he lived on the Kelvin Estate in Sheffield would he have done the same? If he did he would have missed the sun going down, spitting fury light on it’s idiot façade – the concrete crannies and featureless glazing almost cowering in the glare – the placement so close to town is a miracle of modern fool’s planning: row upon row of sorry details. And yet something about it is glorious, some sorry beauty in the twilight. A Kelvin? Isn’t that a method of measuring temperature? Hell, high waste.

Cumbria - 2

Cumbria - 1

Last full day in Keswick – memories/nostalgias:
Sand martins nesting in Portinscale – whole family cycle: arrival, mating, hatching, growth and furious feeding, fledging, new flight, the air filled then with over twice the amount of birds that came, then their departure one day just gone, empty nest holes, the air calm and quiet –
Pol on stage in After Miss Julie, letting a different aspect shine through – the quiet, calm performance filled with far more mystery and tantalising charm than she is normally required to muster – her high point, bravura performances in Private Lives and Loot, shining, full of feverish comic energy, unstoppable –
Ospreys fishing and first seen among the onlookers at Dodd over Bassenthwaite Lake, the rapid commentary of shared sighting there and then, tears in my eyes at the beauty of the birds and the shared experience of strangers captivated by nature –
Sitting in the incessant heat this summer gone, under the dense maples at Green Gables, watching the Robins move for worms, listening to the tree-tops, aware of the chameleon face of Cat Bells across the lake altering moment to moment with the rush of light or moving clouds, my body and fingers aching from the shearing of a Yew Tree, paring it back to it’s cleared trunk and then up into the foliage, bringing it back to life –
Goosanders and a dipper so near at hand –
Being woken in the middle of the night by the flood warning and having to rise and move the car and discovering that half of Keswick was awake, battening up doorways, laying sandbags, saying hello to each other in the full knowledge of the potential shared difficulty ahead, and listening out for the tell tale rush of water, through the constant wind, expecting to wake up in a puddle –
Discovering Loweswater, walking it’s banks –
Red Squirrels at Whinfell in the cold, clear winter mornings –
Driving up over Uldale heading straight west into the brightest, descending winter sun, almost blind on a straight road through the wilderness, the entire sweep of the Solway Firth over to my right –
Workington – it’s glory almost anathema to itself –
The constant, beating sigh of rain on the roof –
The tree in Penrith, in the town centre, full of Pied Wagtails flitting here and there, chattering away, hundreds of them coming and going, congregating, like nothing I’ve ever seen them do before -

The desire to win – is it so bad? To have the thrill of potential there, the knowledge that you have achieved something great for a while. And why is it that some are dubious of that? Seem shocked if you profess to that desire?

The howling wind and the rain swirling in night-time vortices along the hard road home, beating wings, thrumming from the major key – all sent to test tired eyes and wary hearts. A more quintessential Cumbrian night you couldn’t have asked for. Leaving the warm hearth behind, well the last dying embers at least, a dark marble fire. Crashing through the aquaplanes, stumbling on headlong, the brief flash of a haunted owl above the road.

One flame. One question. The deliberations of a mind. Nothing resolved. But then perhaps that is how it should be?

- - - - - -

Another nightmare – horrific tale of paranoia and violence in similar circumstances to the one described earlier. Some post- or pre- apocalyptic world, peopled with a pseudo-police force/militia called Nex run by a man looking like Gene Hackman (!?). Nex is closer to the Flying Squad of the ‘70s, more gangster than legal charger and they deal in repression of ‘subversives, immigrants’ etc – the usual rote of motive. Nex are chasing me and two friends – a young tourettes inspired lad with bleached hair and a baseball cap (not Pete from Big Brother surely?) and a woman of similar age with a striking pale face and long, dark hair - through some factory/warehouse location. It is night. We have managed to find a refuge in a familiar part of the factory. The Nex henchmen are trying all the doors to get in but finding they are locked from the inside they rattle and beat them with sticks and boot kicks. A young Asian kid comes up to us, he knows the factory, maybe it was him who let us in, and offers to take the woman’s baby to safety – so she has a baby hidden under her clothes, a silent creature tied into a makeshift papoose, warm and safe. The woman agrees, knowing that it would be for the best if Nex actually find us. She hands her treasure over and the Asian kid – let’s call him Rav - promises to look after her. Nex boss (let’s call him Hackman for now) arrives on the scene, stands outside looking at the facia of the factory, sucking in the details, playing his eyes for clues until he spots movement: a tiny shaft of shadow moving over rhythmically, a hand or, even smaller, a finger playing nervously against a knee. It is Pete’s energy unable to halt, something has to move otherwise he’ll bark out a word. The stress, the agony.

Nex swing into action from a nod by Hackman, pincering the door off it’s hinges quietly – no smash and grab, no giveaway. Nex find Rav first, crawling silently over crates with the baby strapped to his back. Rav frozen in torchlight. Rav getting up to run but his legs taken out by a rugby tackle. Rav lifted up from the ground, legs flailing like a lost insect. He’s only a kid. Thrown outside with the garbage. Hackman stands him up then aims a swift flying kick and the baby crashes out of the papoose onto the cold, hard concrete. It doesn’t take much to know death is instant.

The Nex henchmen find the three of us cowering. We are lined up sobbing.

They have a go at Pete first.

Uldale - Cumbria, Jan 07

Pol in Uldale - Cumbria Jan 07

The sun is barely making it’s way over the fells, still dark below and hard to make out the details of the river curve, the marginal sand-bags left over from the flood warning, the hidden crown of Skiddaw – there are some folk about gently making their way into church, passing time on the wet pavement glistening in the streetlamps like the skin of a mollusc when the lonely figure shuffles across the road, clutching a copy of the Sunday Sport, some eggs and a pint of milk. His complete bald head so pale it shines in a similar manner to the wet ground upon which he walks, temper clean, some washed deity springing forth atop his shoulders. His oversized pyjama trousers flap studious in the wind, sticking to his shins, calcified there by age – armour, shell, you name it, they’re never known to come off; and above, his short sheepskin jacket bulbous from chubby waist up. As he walks he ferrets his eyes all over: the church front, me standing waiting for my early lift to work, the gathering congregation. When he spots them he stops, holds back from getting too close, mouthing and mothering under his breath but still audible, like the odd mewling of a young otter. When he knows he is alone again he moves, hugging the blue shadows, walking beneath trees like a latter day Quasimodo or Uncle Fester. Homeward, to close the door before the world has truly woken.

Eyes in Carlisle that may follow you; eyes of the lads keeping check on difference, sussing you out, sniffing your soul for what? Who knows?
Who is more paranoid – them or me?

The brightness of Caldbeck, sweet Caldbeck and Uldale - high up where the sunlight is raw and the entirety of Solway can be mapped out below; the straight road over, still Roman marked, blisters in its exposed seat here. The joke is with the Crows, high-butting the wind full on. No escape. Whistling.

BOX IT UP - ANOTHER U.K. XMAS

Artificial intelligence – I expect she needs me – Roy and his tears in the rain, though these might all have dried up – 5000 queue up to fight outside Next on sale day one – a pair of suede brothel creepers – windows rattle in their jambs for the night of hail and rain – Magnificent 7 t-shirts and tequila slammers – The Quizmaster in his element – tea at The Ritz and the rock and roll dexterity of a black cab through London to see the lights before home – puke on a railway station platform -

23/12/06 - BBC Radio shortlist my script ‘In The Company Of Giants’ for the Alfred Bradley Bursary Award (more on the 15^th January) –

Stopping early evening, the motor warmed, at Warrington Services off M6 south Manchester – frightening: armoury of race hate and forgotten souls designed like a mini-housing estate not motorway services by the name of Poplar 2000 (where did the ‘u’ go?) – a five cowboy sculpture designed in semi-circle looms out of halogen darkness, ten-gallon silhouettes without amenable features, just attempts at eyes and mouths – why they there? – is this frontier territory, recently pioneered land? Do they move? – the bright bright shop is full of yuletide fakery: snow, tinsel, a plastic snowman on the till counter and two heavily overweight assistants in Santa hats watching over the sweets and coloured drinks and the rows and rows of porn mags some in black plastic wraps other plain to see for e.g: Euro Filth, it’s rounded font in cheap vivid green bordered neon yellow (glow in the dark?) – perfect placement for truckers and long-haul businessmen staying in the nearby Travel Lodge night alone, because the pay-for-view porn in there ain’t up to squat – And the public toilets, ones to avoid even with Virgil holding your hand – clean enough in a disinfected way as you enter, but the racist graffiti is almost demonic in it’s hatred and stupidity; the cubicles are covered in it, black marker on doors, paper dispensers, toilets seats, even on a urine-stained tile on the floor and all aimed at Muslims – insults of the worst kind, showing the perpetrator’s base level of intelligence, prime ignorance , even to the point of defacing Hillsborough Disaster Justice Campaign stickers that have been stuck on one cubicle door and have been used as just another surface for hatred, altering history to suit prejudice – when I hear voices in another cubicle, I get out of there; whoever wrote this shit is likely to take offence at my mixed blood -

Black Eye Friday

Darkness before dawn permeated by the trotting feet of birds on the roof and the occasional glimpse of them dropping from the sky – still they chatter less than some and when they do they open their mouths for a reason – maybe it’s xmas, maybe it’s just me, but I am craving silence like milk or water – the opportunity to be still, necessary, to hear something beyond the gabble –

Succumbing to a nightmare – I am looking to buy a house in Australian and then emigrate – I pay a visit (along with a few other prospective buyers) to a new development out in the country: dry scrubland, unidentifiable birds, the odd lizard, red earth – to what is at first a number of dilapidated properties in the process of renovation, detached blocks dotted throughout the landscape and connected by a single dirt track – we are shown the one closest to completion: the location of the swimming pool blah blah etc etc – I am at first enamoured of the place and start to make those little plans for decoration in my head – then we are guided towards other parts of the development, larger building to be converted into flats, municipal looking outhouses and sheds, some in better condition and located in a shallow valley surrounded by dense foliage, a pretty enough place – I ask what the site had been before it was purchased for this project and the lead salesmen, a chubby man in a poor fitting shirt, says ‘oh some Castro types, fascists, had it for what they say was training; they used to do some bad stuff here.’ I wanted to tell him that Castro wasn’t a fascist but he waved me over to a hole in a breeze block wall: ‘Come look at this,’ he said. He pointed a torch in there illuminating a dark and damp square room and on the far wall some neo-political graffiti with slogans about purity and the extermination of various races and religions; there was a green Star of David daubed there and blackened with age, some weird stick-man type Aborigine being poked with a stick of some kind that had sparks coming out of the end, a cattle-prod, and another slogan that said ‘killing Arabs with thanks to Camus.’ The group of five or so potential buyers looked upon the place now with horror and when we turned back the entire development, the whole place had taken on a sad and bleak air; the peeling paint and dark windows were now replete with unseen horrors. People muttered; a woman shed tears and her husband put his arm across her shoulders shaking his head. The chubby man explained that he and his business partners were attempting to make good history, to bring a new meaning to the place. They had hoped of course that none of this would have come out, that the condo could have been completed and a new light could have shone on the location looking forward to the future. But something had a grip on him now and he mentioned that there was a grave pit over at the far edge of the site that they had plans to build either the local school on or else a supermarket and restaurant complex.

Buster Keaton on a sunday afternoon, some crushed velvet curtains and an awkward silence that swift departs to laughter –

My shopping in the supermarket today comes to the value of £6.66 – does this mean anything? Have I just purchased Mammon or a share in Hades? The guy behind the counter eyes me as if I knew this was what I was dealing with and I may have brought damnation down on him.

If you absorb the comic-book – what does that mean in future life?

5.35am - keeping waterproof clothes near, listening to nothing but the wind hollering – spirals of sound fretting and hassling the roof – trees glisten, slimy with the deluge, slick skinned – then the occasional silence and to be grateful for the minutes of respite from the rain – when it comes again it’s noise on the flat roof is like the popping of hundreds of embers; an odd comparison to make, two opposing elements but there it is crackling over and over, the burden of my anticipation outweighing any chance of sleep – the land has turned silver by day, fields awash, sheep and cattle stranded on fragile spurs – and in here it is like existing in an echo chamber, some facet (faucet?) of water torture with our lives placed up on tables or any other available space off the floor – and yet oddly the air is so sweet and cool, maybe some airborne part of the mountains has been washed down with the waters and perfumed the air below?

Sitting in - waiting for the flood to come – imminent here - across Cumbria there are severe weather warnings – heightened senses, the rain hammering on the roof, waves of it coming at times almost silent then streaming across in the gales, rippling feet above my head – the drains are already backing up and swathes of water are forming across the highways – the river level at present is half what it was three nights ago when the first flood warning woke us at 4.30am but it is still early and the water has yet to make it’s way down from the uplands – the river can rise about a foot an hour – sandbags are out in doorways and porches in some forlorn hope that they might stem additional damage – meanwhile the silvery slicks trickle on in nearby gutters, the cacophony of accompanying noises there: the constant enraged sigh of the river; the metallic echoing of rivulets finding drains and forging themselves in there; the barrage of swaying trees and the background roar of storm sound in the atmosphere – it’s all I can do to keep my mind distracted and fill the anticipatory anxiety -

Discoveries -

The pencil marks are wearing thin on the blue paper – ready to light? I cannot mourn the passing of Augusto Pinochet, nor should anyone. Those that died before him as a result of his orders are still howling in limbo at the lack of justice forthcoming in their name (including the missed opportunity Jack Straw had to extradite him to Spain – foolish appeasement – they manage to get away with it every time these Fascists: how come?) and now he has finally escaped trial – that is a sadness we should all be aware of –

the sun attempts to shed it’s light through the tunnels and dank cellars of Chile, hunting out the truth if it can -

let me dream instead: replicate some Jacobean parlour – the semi-grand furniture, the hearth-tinted red wine (seeing the flames through the liquid), the stained tablecloth with the crumbs of three courses still residual, the foppish hair and louche attitudes of writers and libertine ne’er do wells – a testy marriage of art, the past and the witty present - Jeffries and James devouring cakes and pomegranate molasses now; awaiting the impromptu cabaret provided by sons and daughters of the hostel owner – and still warm by cold morning, the London wind in the chimney, poor teeth aching and fit to fall out – and the toast is to liberty and the downfall of the tyrannical forefathers (even as the East sees a new one rise) -

London – Crouch End – the house is split between personalities/families – though indubitably the same family fills the place without question – but rifts appear, tension, examinations and, perhaps most awkwardly for the middle class, compromises – two sisters share the house with their respective husbands, two young boys and the eldest sister’s youngest daughter, now eighteen, working in the city – on a daily basis there are tiffs and accusations, occasionally these spill over into acrimonious nights – what happens though if into this an invited stranger enters: let’s say a young man in his early thirties, who has been injured whilst working with the younger sister, blinded temporarily in one eye? What might that reveal? Or more interestingly, what might the family try to hide? –

In an attempt to track reality, things may go like this –

Someone steals a car; a tiny, blue thing made of plastic that was stashed on a low shelf – nobody knows who or when or even why, after all the thing is next to useless – there are suspects of course, but they are long gone –

The latent curve of a wing tip –

A daughter brings her mother, closer to tragedy, to a resort for one last holiday – they sit and paint eternities together, both concentrating hard on their brushes throughout until they can sit back and view the combined results – one sneezes, the other cries –

The scouser from Birkenhead on the blag to get away without paying eight quid if he can help it for his kids to paint in the leisure resort – he turns away to his wily Mum (pretty, old face) and tells her that he’s not going to get ‘rumbled’ –

Italy in the late 70s intrigues me – ‘Skank Bloc Bologna’ a la Scritti Politti, the resulting radical mess of Gramsci touting revolutionaries and cultural misfits stealing goods from market shelves, others running guns between the peaceful Umbrian countryside and the city, setting up free radio station Radio Alice, only to be quashed by the left wing mayor of the city –

Some comparison –

There is sweat on the skin of the animals, as there is on the humans hundreds/thousands of miles away – perhaps there is tears in the horses eyes as there are in the humans?

Unlikely, but perhaps –

And if one could surround and protect the other, would they?

A drum beat –

Two locations/polar opposites – the first aspect, Holland, is one submerged with sudden floodwaters; one hundred horses stranded in fields hidden now beneath grey waters and beneath that other dangers e.g. lost topography, fake footholds, barbed wire fences – (not so dissimilar to the other place then) –

And the second?

Gaza. The polar opposite, as mentioned – hot sand, concrete and rock, parched beneath the daily sun and beneath the weight of world observers watching and waiting for – well, what exactly, no one knows anymore despite their profession to do so, their ‘roadmaps’ which have ironically led to a deeper loss of direction – blindness –

Guns peal – sheltered boys with automatic rifles at the checkpoint, nothing but puffs of smoke emanating from barrels, illusions with real consequence – the women are lining the streets, dressed in black and white (mirroring the horse pelts) - and their collective presence is so similar to the stranded, streaming beasts in Holland, pressed onto a narrow spit of land aware of the danger around them getting closer and closer –

The unarmed women scream in off-beat time with the pop-pop gunfire behind them – two fall on the pavement there in the glut of movement, the welter of fear -

The horses wait, silent for a day, their spirits will be offered up if necessary - what else can they do?

Finally, unexpected, they are shown the way across the peril and the multitude of them peal away from their isolation, rolling out into the water side by side, flank brushing flank, where it is shallow and their collective step and colour merge until they break free/apart on safe ground and their collaboration is at an end – some buck and canter at that moment, shaking off the silver – gathering sense once more – ageless for a moment -

Hair, breeze, quarter; blood, penetration, shame –

Both Sundays –

Some comparison.

Been a while – the grass has turned and the leaves further, their changes covering the fellsides and watchig over the marbled heather - it’s beautiful most mornings, damn cold but beautiful, when I rise close on dawn and climb in the car for the journey to work 20 miles away, heading east out of the Lakes toward Penrith –

Yet in recent days I've noticed there’s a sinister turn to my place of work -

Oasis Whinfell they call it – a loco-paradise resort for the estranged British holidaymaker and other sub-species; open all year round bar xmas day - a spectacular forest hideaway, populated by prefab log cabins (throwbacks to some Thoreau-esque identity? If only!), dense pine and spruce trees; Fly Agaric mushrooms in the damp shade, the smell of healthy leaf mould in the air - guests ride bicycles everywhere (the multitude of people carriers and 4x4’s left back at the giant car-park for the duration of their stay); and inside the ‘village’ zone, with it's air of profligate safety and service, there are bars and cafes and activity centres all housed in the giant glass and steel bubble

– a Westworld of the north –

Gently at first:

waterfalls piped in through the exterior walls cascade over mock rock beside the Italian restaurant; lush palms and foliage greet you there; even birds get in and flit from cable to girder in the glass heaven, twittering as they go -

But, it gets nasty -

behind the façade, excuses are made for non-deliveries; there’s puke in the staff toilets that looks like alien frog-spawn; the lifeguards all have STDs; and the staff toilet doors and walls are covered in racist graffiti, with daily updates - there's a linguistic tribal battle going on between the Poles, the Japanese and the redolent English thugs who populate the lazier side of the workforce, gauging thmesleves by thier boredom and the amount of fags they can get through in one sitting -

somebody's been pilfering or vandalising the faces of the staff photo's - it's alkmost comic the seriousness with which that is taken but the evident racism is ignored and (in some cases) encouraged - it's the theme of a thousand jokes backstage here, where anything not deemed 'British' is frowned upon and deliberately misunderstood -

1979 all over again - creepy -

and the holiday makers come and go oblivious, their plastic weekends are kept well away from all this; even nature to a certain degree is disinfected for them - the bunnies are encouraged, but the hawks are on timetable (you can pay to see them if you like) -

Weeks of deliberation, weeks of thought, weeks of experiment. Only, perhaps, in the latter days did we (?) succeed. After all the talk, the constant talk, became quite irrelevant in practice. But then I thought that would be the only way with a piece like BLISS. For all the supposition of others, at the end of the day you look after your own work and get on with it; as opposed to watching someone else’s, waiting for them to fall or make an unforced choice. Whilst all the time hiding one’s own insecurity. I come to discover that those who make the most noise in the rehearsal room are the one’s you’ve got to watch on stage. Usually they’ll be looking no further than their own reputation and how they look on the night. Forget the story –

Burnt material on a metal fence –

Trying to control the process too much mean inevitably it will run away from you, evade you as it feels hounded – you can never take the process of playmaking so seriously, otherwise it becomes meaningless. If that seems like a dichotomy, well the whole point surely is play and surprise.

- - - - - -

Crossbarrow; grey waters; tree line bending in the century old onslaught of the wind –

Gentle, rhythmic whistling never falters, the drier sound of the turbine beneath, facing west –

OLDSIDE – muscle shells, cuttlefish pouches in the kelp, a lone curlew’s call, the detritus of fireworks launched – the individual speeds of each turbine tells them apart; some slow, almost giving up; others fast, characterised by pace – and the palpable sense of bleakness, of death even – dark, jagged stones erupting form the Solway, damaged concrete breakwaters like bomb damaged parts, reddish dust and twisted metal – resonance at the core, surrounded by the turbines, an embracing noise – a small group of horses nearby watching the dim orange tethers and the odd grey light late afternoon away toward Galloway -

Alone across the undulating cliffs, a postman toking on a large, fat cigar doing his round, leaving thin, blue clouds behind him –

Workington – October 2006

Workington - October 2006

Oldside, Workington - October 06

- late night skateboard rumble round street corner (E-street choir?); in fact it goes by the name Endless Street (true) – and round they come the three long-haired cruisers come charged low to the ground in tight arc before heading off into the city centre where the squaddies are lining up for a bashing;
- the bright studded patent shoes of an ageing rocker down by the river where the swans gather watching him waiting for either bread or a song, not sure which – his hair dyed blacker than the night and maintaining a similar shine;
- in the graveyard a discarded umbrella, presumably to keep the dead dry?

Glitz by Elmore Leonard (pub. Phoenix)
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman (pub. Gollancz)
Of Mice & Men by John Steinbeck (pub. Penguin)
Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk (pub.
Running Dog by Don DeLillo (pub. Picador)
Destination Morgue by James Ellroy (pub. Arrow)

STATES AT SEA

The house is peculiar – a cross-breed of faded Edwardian wealth and sorrowful 21st century damnation – artefacts everywhere collecting dust or mildew – counting losses and sorrow in there and some quality of darkness – medicinal remedies from years gone by in glass fronted cabinets in the bathroom, white packaging turned yellow and waxy; products no longer available over the counter for fear of side-effects perhaps – the sense of living in a museum, the whole weight of that –

And in the day, accompanied by two large porcelain dolls arranged in one corner as if alive in mid-conversation, my landlady sits (otherwise alone) in her dressing gown at the dining table – her grey hair is uncombed yet she still has the dry dust of make up on; and there is a half-eaten bowl of cereal in front of her - she says she is so unhappy today, so much so she has had to take an Equanol with her coffee to make her feel steady – she is distraught that her recent application to build a conservatory cum artist studio has been turned down by the local council – but further she claims her sorrow is manic depression – repeating the phrase three or for times so I don’t forget it – though in fact I doubt it is anything near mania and closer to simple sorrow and the blues (she is a widow and I’m guessing of no more than a couple of years) –

Did one of the dolls move? Watching me? Trying to catch me out or see inside my soul, listening to my thoughts? It’s hard to tell in the daytime half-light, with the curtains semi-drawn and the radio babbling away in the kitchen –

I am no longer sure what year I’m in here –

There is something predatory in her eyes, not sexually so, something desiring of youth, another chance – it is a cloying thing, an atmosphere of suffocation and lost time – yet she talks opposing that, of hope and of being ‘a good artist; I’m a damn good artist’ - she repeats this phrase also, as if telling me is evidence enough to the world (perhaps it is) – I don’t disbelieve her (though her work is hidden away so I've not seen it), I dare not for fear those two homunculi or avatars in the corner will throttle me in my bed at night, clambering up the stairs in some slow, tortuous movement, their tiny joints creaking with age and dust, their dry lips parting in an odd attempt to talk yet nothing coming out, the squeak of the hinge there and that's all –

She continues: ‘I’m sway to the fortunes of modern life and it makes me so angry; I keep a good ship after all, don’t I? A good ship. You’re comfortable aren’t you? I scrub the decks, keep the thing afloat.’

I answer in the affirmative and she makes a brief smile; I say ‘makes’ because it is not an easy thing for her to do, more an affectation –

She begins to moan about the neighbours being in cahoots with the council because ‘he was once on the local planning team’ so ‘he’ can use his knowledge against her – she believes it to be a typical pattern, a sign of prejudice against a widow and her lodgers – I’m not quite sure how I’m involved (or the other lodger currently staying) as I only arrived two days ago, but somehow I’ve been appropriated – become part of her imaginary ‘crew’ – she goes on to arraign retired wealthy generals and their wives, how they are everywhere in this town and it makes her sick, sick, sick –

She’s probably right on that count, I don’t know -

I realise the room smells of something bitter, like almonds or a spice of some kind but I can’t tell what the source is so I have to assume it’s coming from her, some essence of rancour oozing from her pores, poor thing -

She waves her hand in the air –

‘Anyway’ she says and lets out a long sigh, turning away to look at her bowl of cereal, ‘you must get on.’ Oddly that sounds like an order – and that’s it – she says no more; presumably the drugs have kicked in and are steadying her –


Salisbury

It goes something like this (though don’t quote me):

- you can pocket glitz but you can’t keep it;
- Brighton rocks but be careful of the switchblade;
- three misty mornings in a row and luckily things have become clearer - go figure;
- a 3 legged cat is as good an omen as any (if not better);
- shame that the boys round here have to draw pudenda’s in chalk on the tarmac by the riverside, slandering mothers and daughters alike before charging off on a handbrake turn;
- I am glad the Hampshire malcontents are well behind me, all those blood pools on a Saturday morning in the High Street, shattered glass and teeth in there, too much for eyes and history;
- the bag lady was a quiet saint, carrying her books in a shopping trolley through cathedral grounds – she asked me to christen her Ruth, so I did.

Salisbury

The marooned moment -

New York dreams -

a performance piece entitled 'You Are Apathetic' went down a storm at parties but got Hugo beaten up on more than one occassion at weddings -

the sad, sorry idea of a trench round a city -

briefly he heard a chanson; some trilling French male crooner lounging beyond the wicker chairs, his head moving inside and making him feel nauseous -

Waking daily around 4.30 these are the things that have entered my thoughts whilst I lie awake listening to the milkman on his round before dawn

Hairdressers and early drinkers share space –
In a thick red raincoat with the hood up a woman talks to Norman her invisible friend –
Some kids beat up a tramp who they nicknamed ‘Train Head’; they watched him, then followed him all the way down streets as he foraged in rubbish bins. Left him for dead.

The runic administration of potatoes –
Businessman in pink-striped suit with only one hand –
‘Best not look back’ another man says to a woman; said with affection but meant as an order, in reality he can’t wait to be rid of her –
The rise and fall of a drunken hand attempting to snatch my book from me; a hawkish cackle and then the man is gone –
Star skin –
Civil war –
My father’s world is an ordered one; so much so it often clashes with reality for he loves clarity and precision, anything else approximating chaos is there to make life difficult in his eyes; there is little room for the inexact, that would be a perceived failing of the world, there are rules that exist and they are ones that life is lived by and anything else just wouldn’t be correct –
Never seen so many young hooded face red eye freaks singing to iPod, iStreet than in this town -

The Book List – recently read:
No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy (pub. Picador)
I Am Alive And You Are Dead by Emmanuel Carrere (pub. Bloomsbury)
Armed Madhouse by Greg Palast (pub. Allen Lane)
We’re In Trouble by Christopher Coake (pub. Penguin)
If Nobody Speaks Of Remarkable Things by Jon McGregor (pub.
A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit (pub. Cannongate)
The Rings of Saturn by W.G. Sebald (pub. Harvill)
Millennium People by J.G. Ballard (pub. Vintage)
Intimacy by Hanif Kureishi (pub. Faber & Faber)
Nature Cure by Richard Mabey (pub. Pimlico)
A Dead Man In Deptford by Anthony Burgess (pub. Vintage)
GB84 by David Peace (pub. Faber & Faber)
Snow by Orhan Pamuk (pub. Faber & Faber)
The Stand by Stephen King (pub. NEL)
On Literature by Umberto Eco (pub. Vintage)
Infidels by Andrew Wheatcroft (pub. Penguin)

Some visceral/visual mementos of the ex-capital of England (sunny Winchester):

Saturday morning – large splashes of dried vomit, like bomb blasts on the pavement, or some deliberate (?) mirror of the big bang scattering debris throughout;

Piles of freshly fallen apples, windfall, in the garden at Lyndon Road – small vivid green pyramids – others become forming the sweet brown rot that the birds love –

The crescent and bell-shaped red flowers blooming on the foliage outside my bedroom window, catching the early sun coming in from over the recently harvested fields –

The Polish lady with her high, perfect accent sat each morning in the coffee shop reading her paper, chatting amiably with other regulars –

My early vision of the stars, formative learning of them, happening – intrigued, awakenings – terms like planisphere, corona –

Then, perhaps through the long end of a telescope (?) I see the word ‘exile’ once again. What is that about? Am I ‘away’ from home? Yes, perhaps away from two homes even – the Lakes where the woman I love is, and Italy – artists in exile can be interesting: Carravaggio, Brecht – how did their situation reveal itself as an inspiration or influence? Allowing the critical eye to appear. The observer status, the outsider?

The world now is smaller – yet even so one can still feel akin to it rather than placed within.

The bent and buckled reflection of a blind man with his white stick walking down the High Street, along a cobbled alleyway, but shining back in refracted light via the pane of glass I spot him in.

Grounding in reality.

But with exile a certain freedom comes, an absolution from some responsibilities, fewer loyalties – an awareness of dubious patriotism, nationalism, or organization of any kind – on the flip side there is the curse of rootlessness, internal unrest, that persistent sense of motion, the call of the horizon – maybe it could be called something like ‘the pilgrimage complex’ –

Recall – the Martins gathering over Winchester Cathedral night before last; hundreds collecting before their migration, a cloud of activity. Golden backlight of sundown. The birds seem to be attempting to fly through the ancient mortar of the building itself, as if they’d be bale to pass directly through it to their destination -

Acceptance and exile – see, I have this nagging doubt the former is not meant to be my due and the latter is a primary state of being – even despite the phases of the moon being potential allies – I suspect my cross-cultural ancestry places me as an outsider, feels that way at times – an observer, seen as a stereotype –

To be an exile within one’s own life is an odd place to find yourself –

Others say you are getting too used to the comfort of failure. I ask, is there one? Theorists say there is, but that’s because they do not have the same legacy or this vicious stooge walking beside them, the shadow-man on their back always in the process of letting you know how shite he thinks you are – I’ve never been able to identify him but he governs many breaths -

6/9/06

Early morning, I saw Suze Rotolo (reincarnation?) - 4th time around walking some back street here and rolling a cigarette wearing brown smock dress, a butterfly pin in her hair – I wondered where Dylan was? And how come Suze remained as young as she was in the picture on his eponymous first album cover?

The Hong Kong Chinese lodger goes missing last evening – wanders off from the digs and no-one knows where she is – I guess she is feeling homesick and maybe bored already – thing is she did it again tonight - I think she's looking for a small piece of home - a Bodhi tree to sit under perhaps?