It's my birthday...

So I'll walk into a toy store and say I want THAT 1/24th scale Hawker Hurricane to the owner of the store.
And I will pay with buttons and some two cent pieces I found on the footpath.
And they will accept my payment with good grace
because it is my birthday.
And all the way home I will hold the large box under my arm, making Browning .303 ackackacakackack noises and humming the theme song to the Battle of Britain.
And I will walk up to strangers.
Aged and respectable looking men and women.
And I will tug at their sleeve and glare up at them (kneel to do so if I must, on account of me being six feet tall)
And I will say, "My old man's a bastard cunt."
Something I wish I'd screamed more often while he was alive.
And watch like a silent, twisted dictator as the carefully constructed looks of dignity crumble like cities about me.
And for those who would disagree in my imaginary suburban rampage, I will serve a bop on the nose.
Unless, of course, they intimidate my six foot frame into silence the way that my three foot frame so easily could be, so many birthdays ago.
And I'll sit in the park eating chips and drinking coke from a small glass bottle.
NO!
I'll hang upside down from the rusted, unsafe-looking monkey bars.
Maybe fall from small heights and lay there - winded but triumphant.
For all the falls that didn't kill me.
And I will yell out my love and reverence to my sisters and brothers and heroes and heroines who are always and all so much older than me and always and all so much better looking and funnier and wiser than I could hope to be in a million lifetimes.
And I will walk around - with friends if I can, alone and strange if needs be - on patches of dirt, with two small bottles of water and a twig.
And when I find the trapdoor, I will gingerly lift it with the twig and I will pour the tepid water down the hole and wait for the angry wolf spider or trapdoor spider to come charging out and rearing up
And for that one tense moment its life will be inextricably linked to my own manifest caprice.
Because it is quite dangerous but I am far more dangerous.
Moreso on this birthday than on any other that has gone before.
But you need not worry.
I will not harm or steal, the way we used to.
I'll take nothing
other than your time.
For I have fewer presents now.
Fewer friends and fewer kind words to give or receive.
But too.
I have far less crippling and unwarranted envy of all around.
And this is the birthday present I most desired.

To life.

Dream #whogivesarats.

Had that dream again.
You know the one.
You have 'em all the time as well.
You're going about your life doing your lifely things on a perfect lifely day
And you're chatting with acquaintances and neighbours and you stop to pass a while with a good friend.  A friend of some years' standing.
And their sentences start to trail and hang. Falter.
"Are you okay?", you ask.
They shake their head slightly. Only slightly.
And without as much as an "Excuse me" they fix their eyes on a distant point and beeline shuffle towards it.
Pretty soon the surge is up as they enter this place or that and you stand there thinking you're hearing the same thing as everyone else but you know you're not.
Thinking you're seeing the same thing as everyone else but you know you're not.
And you prided yourself on the fact that everyone didn't think like everyone else and you took great delight that those nearest and dearest to you thought very much for themselves.
But there they all go, congregating here.  Shuffling over there...
And a stranger says, "Do you not hear it too?"
But you can't answer.  You can't even shake your head.
"You need to come with me."
But I don't.  I run.  Every time.
Jumping fences, climbing fire escapes (testimony to the power of US TV and film as I don't think I've ever actually seen a fire escape in this country).
At one point I climbed some multi-story balconies while someone shot a pistol at me.
I found myself in the most luxurious yet beautifully spartan apartment.
Gingerly trying each door hoping not to get caught.
I interrupted some guy on the crapper but his needs offset his ire at a stranger in his flat so he didn't pursue me.
Eventually I settled on some high place.
And imagined I saw every last one of 'em trapped by evanescent geometrically simple shapes surrounding their heads, suffocating them, nurturing them, taking care of their every last need.
And they were happy.
And I was happy.
And how much did you say these sessions were going to cost me, Doctor?

Hideaway.

Go on.

Go on.
Write shit. Sure you're crap at it. You're crap at it and I'm crap at it and he's crap at it and she's crap at it and we're crap at it and they're crap at it.
So who the fuck's to judge?
Who's to play sanctimony with whatever endeavours you have in mind?
Good writers have bad days and write crap too.  So we can't run to them for our doses of flagellation. It wouldn't be fair to the pomp of their tarnished and tenuous celebritydom, much less our pursuit of their thrones, would it?
Just write shit.
Or play shit.
Pick up a guitar, a banjo, bag-fucking-pipes, spoons, a tambourine, an ocarina, an accordion or just get together with friends and harmonise. Badly, if needs be but try it.  You'll like it.
Make sounds.
With the recent death of Bowie, I see in the news that he thought Coldplay were shit.
But that's not the truth, is it?
The initial reports were that they wanted to collaborate with Bowie but he said the song wasn't that good.
Within hours it all went from a song that wasn't so good to Coldplay are shit.
See what I'm saying here?
Sanctimony.  From cunts who really ought to know better.
And I'm no fan of Coldplay.  They seem decent enough but they're music gives me one massive Mister Softy.
And just to stab the ghost of the sacred cow with a blunt butter knife, let's be honest.  Bowie had some terrible shit down through the years.  But in all fairness, he DID have a career spanning fifty years so all's forgiven, Aladdin.  Please come home soon.
Or go on.
Get out and exercise, if that's your bag.
After all you're not hurting anyone but yourself so go for it.
Even I'VE joined a gym.
And the real heartbreak is I kind of enjoy it.
By the time I get home, I'm too tired for the usual waves of everyday neuroses and bouts of overthinking about nothing in particular to haunt me.
So even I have to tell myself to go on.
Go on.
Stop wasting your time reading this filth and gibberish.
Go and live, my friend.
It's much harder
but a whole lot more fun.

Go on...

Rest ye well, David Bowie.

Something great has died.

And she plays the songs and sings beautifully to them from another room.

And the songs will go on spilling out defiling the beautiful world we all live in.

Or more likely beautifying the defiled world we all live in.

An idea, a deed, a temper.

It has died. Gone over. Returned. Whatever.

But something great has died and I can't at this moment imagine another planet or another time ever experiencing such greatness again.

Look back in anger.

As long as...

As long as you're going nowhere, I'm going nowhere
AND WHERE'S THE FUCKING PHONE CHARGER!
What's the matter, babe?
I'M LOOKING FOR THE FUCKING PHONE - Doesn't matter.  Found it.
And we need teabags.
And it's back
To Fallout 4
To Age of Empires II
To Sudoku
To Facebook
To news updates
And it's hot out and besides.  The streets are filled with hate and ignorance that I won't dignify and all the celebrities are dying this Christmas.
"I'm just gonna play Sam Fisher with Shazzmobe."
Cool, my love.
And she writes the days away.
Forgetting all else.
Lost in her arguments, her narratives, her research.
And as long as she's going nowhere, I'm going nowhere
And it's alright.
Somewhere is an ad.
Somewhere is something someone is selling you.
It doesn't fit well sliding inside your mouth and you can't bite it off in desperation or disgust or even delight once it's in.
Somewhere is beyond the feats of Pyrrhus.
Because there's always a somewhere after it
That they'll try and foist upon you.
Somewhere is for the ones who made it
And now no longer know why they're there.
So they go on making money and buying fine and expensive things to be elsewhere
And if they can't find it, they quietly scrabble and claw and yammer for the somewhere they can't have.
But nowhere's right here.
With her lips.
Her full breasts beneath the black tank top.
Her pale knees.
Her laughter that can wake the dead and make the blind see.
The small, fine hairs on her forearm.
Her flashing green eyes.
WE NEED STUFF FOR TONIGHT'S SALAD.
I'll go up.
NO, I'LL COME WITH.
As if I'm a block or more away.
But I'm not.
I'm nowhere.
Where so many of us live with impossible ease and assuredness before the new year rolls around again.

Watching the wheels...

Simon Crane - 27th July 1965 - 9th December 2015

I wrote this song for him some months back. He liked it and that's all that matters.

"We ruled the roost: the eighty nine flats.
We ruled them fair. We ruled them just
And everyone knew when the party started
We'd all be there. We'd all be there.
And who bought the wine and who bought the beer
And who brought the smiles to everyone's faces
And who brought the talk of the town to dance
When we were kings.
When everything closed at 12 o'clock
The streets were dead. The streets were ours
We sat on the grass on. The hill down the park
We watched them play. We watched them play.
And deep in the night, we'd track down the milkman
He must have been scared. He must have been scared
When
We
Were
Kings.
And after the Dalmane and pale white skin
You saw the world. You went beyond
And took to the road like a bird on the wing
You told me so. You told me so.
And I sat rapt with the globe you weaved
I wanted in. I wanted in.
We took on the world and sometimes won
When we were kings.
What's it all coming to running like we did
Just snot-nosed, smart-arsed brainiac kids
With rage in our eyes. Our hearts on our sleeves.
What's it all come to?
With you in Verona and me in the gutter
You pulled me up. You held me high.
And all of the things that we never said
Adventures we would never share
You lent me a guitar and five free chords
I won't look back. I won't look back.
And swam beneath the beautiful waves
Your beautiful fingers.
And you stopped playing, found it too easy
And I was shit so I pressed on.
Strange rhythms and their melodies
In both our lives.
Locked in a room playing pointless games
Who would be the first to speak.
Spitting off the treacherous headland
When
we
were
kings.
What's it all coming to running like we did
Just snot-nosed, smart-arsed brainiac kids
With rage in our eyes . Our hearts on our sleeves.
What's it all come to?
Stick around.
What's it all coming to running like we did
Just snot-nosed, smart-arsed brainiac kids
With rage in our eyes . Our hearts on our sleeves.
What's it all come to?
Just stick around.
What's it all coming to running like we did
Just snot-nosed, smart-arsed brainiac kids
With rage in our eyes . Our hearts on our sleeves.
What's it all come to?
Stick around.
What's it all come to?
Your long beautiful fingers.
Long beautiful fingers."

Crane

Good.

And the day was filled with confusion and things
That didn't work.
Not the way I'd planned.
Not the way I hoped.
And people, though not memorably mean,
Could only do what they could to help.
And I respect that.
I try occasionally to be just like them.
Miss as often as I hit.
And at one point I felt a throbbing up in my neck on the left hand side
And thought, "Uh oh."
But I didn't die today.
Not in body, leastwise.
And everywhere I turned, there was work to be done with barely the strength, skill or inclination to do it.
But some things got done.
Not the way I'd planned.
Not the way I hoped.
But they got done.
And it rained.
Not enough to complain about
And not enough to rejoice about.
But it rained.
And there was work
And that was that.
But tonight, babe.
Tonight was a lobster tail filled with cherry flavoured custard and there was a half consumed pecan pie from Brunetti.
And some chocolates from Hawaii and from Belgium.
And I type still licking the chocolate and custard from my fingers.
Just the way I'd planned.
Just the way I'd hoped.

Unfinished sweet.