Falling in love with John Coltrane

Mmmm. That’s kind of the exact noise I’m making right now. It’s been a an odd kind of weekend…

Odd gig on Friday night, a full bright moon, tracking my movements across each evening, and a few other things – too strange to explain like this (some, but not all, in the poem below).

Still, right now, feels good. I’m sitting in a toasty living room listening to John Coltrane – playing music like he’s stroking my spine. I’ve got tea and fairy lights and warm feet – and what else could a girl ask for?

Earlier this evening was good too. What with all the bugs I’ve been having lately my whole exercise routine (not to sound like a cheerleader about it;) had entirely collapsed-and I hadn’t been feeling great for it. Well this evening, I took myself out for an hours run – up round Jarrom Street and Alyestone Road. It was wicked. Well, Ok, the fortnights break had taken the edge off my fitness, and the chest thing was still lurking at the corners – so there was the smaller lung capacity… which wasn’t pleasant…but the run in general still felt cool. Just gotta get back into my groove with it now.

What else? Bought a new coat, gloves and hat. Made a deal with a cool local cafe for them to donate a prize for the Word! raffle. Started on the funding application. Wrote a few new pieces. Fell in love with John Coltrane.

Enough for any bright girl about town to be getting on with….now, what’s that moon looking like…

Moon, draft

On the coldest of nights
the moon
will be a huge searchlight,
shining like a bright button,
a bone orange,
before the day
is even done.

On nights like these,
that are just on the edge
of happening, you will be
sitting with your friend -
in the Orange Tree,
when he’ll ask you to see
a haiku, high above the trees.

On nights like these
he’ll take your hand,
and tell you just
to shut your eyes
and walk carefully,
cross the road,
till you feel the curb

and when you open them up
the pale blue lie
will be hanging there -
you’ll watch it together
gawping with pleasure,
like children,
in a private game.

On night’s like these
it’ll follow you home,
with the glinting hole
of a dinner plate
and they’ll be a boy
playing a harmonica
and the light will be spilling

everywhere.
You’ll drive to Derby
on a pointless mission
and tell the guy
you happen to sit with
the darkest thing about yourself.
On night’s like these,

you’ll remember the moment
that it left your lips,
in the fog filled light
of the second day -
moon on the dashboard,
hands interlaced.
On night’s like these,

you’ll lie awake,
in a room without curtains
and bathe in the glow
as it lanterns the windows
and makes you see
how skin and sight
are not the same -

on nights like these.
You’ll wonder how a
dead rock
can float space,
millions of miles, far away
and still be able
to speak to you.

Moon

On the coldest of nights
the moon
will be a huge searchlight,
shining like a bright button,
a bone orange,
before the day
is even done.

On nights like these,
that are just on the edge
of happening, you will be
sitting with your friend -
in the Orange
Tree, when he’ll ask if you want
to see a haiku – above the trees.

On nights like these
he’ll take your hand,
and tell you just
to shut your eyes
and walk carefully,
crossing the road,
till you get to the curb

and when you open your eyes
it’ll be a pale blue lie
and you’ll watch it together
wowing with pleasure,
like children,
in a private game.
On night’s like these

it’ll follow you home,
with the glinting white
of a dinner plate
and they’ll be a boy
playing a harmonica
and the light will be spilling
everywhere.

On night’s like these,
you’ll drive to Derby
on a pointless mission
and tell the man
you happen to sit with
the darkest thing about yourself
On night’s like these,

you’ll remember the moment
that it left your lips,
in the fog filled light
of the next day,
moon on the dashboard,
hands interlaced.
On night’s like these,

you’ll lie awake, in a bedroom
that still lacks curtains
and bathe in the moonlight
as it lanterns the window
and makes you see
how skin and sight
are not the same -

on nights like these.
You’ll wonder how a
vast dead rock
can float through space,
millions of miles, far away
and still be able
to speak to you.

Strawberry, draft

The man with the large forehead
is standing outside of the Vaults
Pub – on Kings Street, having a fag,
wearing a line of smoke
in his long grey coat, dark clothes
underneath.

The man -
with the large forehead
is standing with his
straight hair down, pushing in a
smooth curve out,
poker past his cheeks.

The man with the large forehead -
is casually bent
against the brick wall,
one leg crossed against the other,
as I do my recycling
at the skip beside the door

The man with the large
forehead, looks like the Warlock
dealing mojo out in Buffy,
addicting the girl to his dark
corruption, whispering -
‘Strawberry’ – inside her ear.

The man with the large forehead
is the same that I saw
last Friday night,
propping up a bar
at close to midnight,
fingers hooked inside his hair.

The man
with the large
forehead – may or may not
be watching me lazy
as I crumple my bag -
empty of paper, wine bottles
smashed.

Strawberry

The man with the large forehead
is standing outside of the Vaults
Pub – on Kings Street, having a fag,
wearing a long grey coat
like a line of smoke, undone -
dark clothes underneath.

The man with the large forehead
is standing with his
straight hair brown, pushing in a
smooth curve out,
high above his eyes,
poker past his jaw.

The man with the large forehead
is casually bent against the brick wall,
one leg crossed against the other, as I do
my recycling, separating
green glass out – from the grey
cardboard.

The man with the large forehead
looks like the Warlock
dealing mojo out in Buffy,
addicting the girl to his dark
corruption, whispering -
‘Strawberry’ – inside her ear.

The man with the large forehead
is the same one I saw
last Friday night, somewhere close
to nearly midnight, propping up a bar,
grey coat cold, fingers hooked
inside his hair.

The man with the large forehead
may or may not
be watching me lazily -
as I crumple my bag,
emptied of its papers,
wine bottles, smashed.

Diora

By midwinter,
the darkness glitters
in the streets of the centre – and the shops
are divided up by bright plateaus of black slabs.
By midwinter – everything is drowned and damned.
It’s pitch by four and water pours
with steady determination down,
up from where the weather starts
and stars are hung behind pollution -
by midwinter,
the street lamps make the movement -
sluicing yellow, licking white -
the paving stones are usually blind,
but by midwinter
they can see the sky.
The paving stones
can see the sky
in liquid pools
of midnight sight.
They can see it
pouring out.
They can see it
arcing wide.
The paving stones
can see the sky.

And they can see Diora.

Rain

By midwinter
the darkness glitters
in the streets of the centre -
and the shops – are divided up
by bright plateaus of black slabs
stretching oily.

By midwinter
the streets are sluiced -
and sheened and licked by rain.
it’s pitch by four and water pours
with steady determination -
up from where the weather starts
and stars are hung behind pollution -

by midwinter
it’s light that makes the movement -
electric shards clattering out
melting yellow, washing white,
lit from roofs and streaking fine -
the paving stones are usually blind, but -

by mid winter
they run in bands of
rippling sky – they’re ruby pools
of midnight sight, sari mirrors
winking time – and they can see the sky.
The paving stones can see the sky.
They can see it arching wide -

they can see it falling down,
and they can see
everything that’s in the space
between it’s dome
and where they lying -
looking out.

Darkening

Cooker white clumps
of ant-viral tissues,
discarded individually
to find each other bright
in carrier bags, stark and strange
on top the table by the sofa,
living in the dark,
under chairs, on the carpet,
piled like swollen
documents -
confetti blown
too big.

The woman remembers being a girl
on a stair, coughing phlegm
in a basin. The women has
no basin. No mother comes
to scoop her messy language
into bins.

She sleeps a lot;
seals her darkness into hours
uses each – like a club
to beat the sickness back -
bore it till it stops
its breathing.

The tissues mass a watching army.
The box is empty, like a Trojan
cardboard horse.

Outside the sky is veined
with blue and gold,
with silver white,
and bands of neon.

Wednesday

So here I am. Day 2 of being particularly ill and I’ve actually had to phone in sick officially. Usually my work is pretty flexible. I work part-time and often from home, so, if I’m ill at the beginning of a week I can call the day a natural day off and decide I’ll work from, say – Wednesday – when I hope to be better. In practice what happens is on Monday and Tuesday I end up doing loads of work related stuff, from bed, then on Wednesday when I’m still ill, decide I have to ring in sick.

That’s what’s happened this week, and I guess, in reality that means I’ve already worked two days and only need to work another half day, before negating any need to ring in…but it feels weird doing that. Surely, however much work you get done whlst in bed, the fact remains, you’re still in bed…

So, here I am, sitting on the sofa, folded up in an enormous purple blanket, feeling rather Eskimo like, and wondering whether it’s time for the next dose of painkiller.

Damien left for the library about an hour ago. Seeing him go reminded me of how much I love him. Yes I know, you can sense it too, I’m about to become really gooey, but it’s true. He went part time at work recently, so now he can spend half his week living the life of a writer. It makes him so happy, and I love to see him happy and the complex knot of emotions, accompanying that feeling, remind me of how deep it is.

Mind you, me being stuck inside purple blanket, waving him off to a day at the library, does feel like a bit of a slant ways take on the 50s ideal. Apart from the fact that I don’t intend to do any washing up, and he’s most likely off to write a dark and twisted story of deviance-rather than doing some wholesome day at the office. That’s my honey.

There’s something of the working girl in reverse here too. You know, the end scene where Harrison Ford makes Melanie Griffith her lunch and off she goes with it, leaving him at home. Well, shortly before he left, I was stood in the kitchen (at this point merely thinking of purple blanket, and plotting ways I’d later deploy it in feeling truly sorry for myself) watching him make his own plastic boxed lunch. I was like Harrison Ford, only I didn’t make the lunch.

I’m rambling. I know. But what to do next? I’ve got the whole afternoon ahead of me. Just me, purple blanket, fairy lights and the strong feeling that I should be doing something productive, to crush.

I’ll let you know how it goes…

Nablowagon

I’ve fallen off the Nablowagon.  As I haven’t posted since before the weekend, this may seem like pointing out the obvious, but I might as well say it. Having to post everyday was starting to feel a bit wearing and rather than pushing me to create new writing, it felt like it was having the opposite effect. So,  no competition jam  for Lydia, but a little breathing space.

Ironic to be talking about breathing space  at the mo, as I’m ill. I’ve got a cold but it feels like the plague, or the flu, or something like that. Quite frustrating really as I never really got over the last one. Gr!

What’s really frustrating  is the extent to which feeling this bad is impacting on my ability to do everything I need to be doing.

For example, I’ve got a potential gig in London, but I need to send the very reasonable promoter some demo tracks…which my exploded computer has eaten…so I’d have to record them again, but I don’t feel well enough to do so. So, I should prob message the promoter and explain the delay…only, well, I guess I just think it all sounds so implausible, I’m trying to avoid having to do so. Which is probably just serving to make me look unprofessional.

Sigh. I was more or less off work sick with this today, and these were the kind of obsessive thoughts I had wondering around. In between falling asleep between 1 and 4pm. Oh dear. Why can’t I just be better? Why can’t I stop getting ill, all the time!? And yes, I know, I’m winging.