26 April 2007




Pseud's Corner















23 April 2007

If you knew my story word for word
handle on my history

I can tell there's something going on
hours seem to disappear
Leading a class of children to school on their bikes - gleaming as they cycled across the squares, its fitting I should have lost you to here, and to a dark, brooding novelist whose olive papery skin I could never inhabit. You said you needed more than one man. I can only imagine what happened by lamplight.

15 April 2007

Dream

In Hannah's house - husband a little dubious. I put my head beneath the duvet - all well lit - kiss her lips and rest my head on the sheet. 'For goodness's sake!' she says. It feels good to rest my head on the mattress.

I am pulling on my t-shirt when her husband walks in - a shrunken non-descript figure. I can't think of a reason I should be changing shirts.

I leave the room and walk to the lavatory.


Eight pm Neighbours is allowing swearing.
Toadfish: For fuck's sake, Harold.
I run to show my brother.


We are competitive. He holds a thin snake by the tail and lowers it into his mouth. I demand he open his shirt. Its head peeps out from behind his clothes.

14 April 2007

Farewell Bash

Jo, Leane, Ben, Katerina (Bath Spa student), Tom Weir, Simon, Alan, Mark Lloyd, Mark Appleton, Niall, Annie (briefly), Chelly, Chelly's friend, Steve, Hannah (while her potatoes were browning), Thommie and her three friends called Matthew, Simon, Gideon.

Note to Camilla: 'A dull day. Cheeks were offered, hands clasped, bosoms wrung, but it didn't mean anything.'

Saturday - grateful for the car with a trailer that wouldn't allow Steve's two-seater to speed.


Mimi Kalvhati and Richard Price

Richard Price. Movement poet. 'Children see us precisely.' Doesn't have to shout. Emotive. Looked on the edge of tears. 'A kiss is a rhyme.'

Mimi Kalvhati. Boarding school at Isle of White. used to write letters home each week.
Established Theater in Exile and the Poetry School.
Gazels don't have titles. 'Lilies of the valley' refrain. 'Floweret'. 'Iranian' with a long 'a'.

Paul McGann in attendance.

12 April 2007

Two Pieces of Criticism


I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, Ken Hodges

Rhys Meyers plays the kind of Londoner living it large that I would wish harm upon. Then harm is visited upon him in the form of Malcolm McDowell - playing his role as if still bitter about the scratched retina he received while filming A Clockwork Orange: 'I wanted to show him that he was nothing.'

We learn rape victims often ejaculate. Following the ordeal there are three common responses: the need to shout; entering a space of calm; and revisiting the harm upon oneself.


-

Black Star, Radiohead

As encountered via Gillian Welch and David Rawlings' spare cover. The long lines lack any spring, as if too sad to be sung. The phrase 'What are we coming to?' is repeated and most lines end in a rhyme of 'you'. This only stresses the absence of the narrator's lover in the final verse. He used to be concerned about his lover but now she is gone there is nothing to replace this care in his life. The high notes constantly veer towards becoming Maria McKee's 'Show Me Heaven'.

By comparison, the chorus is weak: what is a black star? It's difficult to use the word 'satellite' well and not recall MOR hit 'Sleeping Satellite'. Dylan manages in 'Where are you Tonight? (Journey through Dark Heat)' by combining the modern with the biblical:

There's a long distance train crawling through the rain
tears on the letter I write.
There's a woman I long to touch
and I'm missing her so much
but she's drifting like a satellite.



The verses:

I get home from work and you're still standing in your dressing gown,
Well what am I to do?
I know all the things around your head and what they do to you.
What are we coming to?
What are we gonna do?

The troubled words of a troubled mind, I try to understand what is eating you.
I try to stay awake, but its 58 hours since that I last slept with you.
What are we coming to?
I just don't know anymore.

I get on the train and I just stand about now that I don't think of you.
I keep falling over, I keep passing out, when I see a face like you.
What am I coming to?
I'm gonna melt down.
Dream

Mr Jacobson has completed the terms of his stay. 'Howard,' I say, 'It has been a pleasure as always.' I grip his hand, which isn't deep enough to allow a full grip, and we half embrace awkwardly and hold this stance for a while. 'For the duration of your stay I have been unique among my friends.' He is laughing at the book he has finished reading - his own - which he returns to me with a smile: 'What's wrong with Acor Weldis?' he quotes his narrator's words, and continues 'I prefer Oscar Wilde.' He smiles ruefully, and opens it to check for a signature. 'Why didn't you have him sign this one?' he asks. There are five or six worn paperbacks around. 'You know how it is. I wanted him particularly to sign this one, and he's a little bit - hooh hooh hooh - overbearing.' Jacobson nods and says 'I would have had him sign this, or this one is quite representative.' He seems to count 'The English' as one of his own. As we leave through the door I delay a second, and we agree I'll meet him downstairs.

They would praise me for the length and power of my jet. It would be unsatisfying to lower my aim into a bowl. I urinate the length of the bed, hitting the wall above the headboard and running the stream left to right. I correct the leftward curve. I am aware Mr J. is waiting downstairs, but will not rush this. I can hear my mother's voice. Eventually she says 'Okay, I'll get him' and then 'Goodbye'. She could be refering to another guest. I imagine catching up with him in the street - 'Howard!' - and then consider that I could show him to the station. I stem my urination. There are brown mums on the wallpaper. Using a small amount of toilet paper I dab it up, absorbing the wetness.

-

Earlier, I was stoned. Mike/my mum had gone elsewhere, and I piloted the car, as if with a joystick, without brakes, around corners almost around the block. I pulled in outside a fish and chip shop and walked back.

'I've moved your car' I tell mum.

Later when I descend the stairs, she has already retrieved the car. The keys or my jumper are now on the armchair.

My sister is sat. I tease her about her long term: 'Well, you'll have to phone me before February to September.' When I rephrase the joke she angers. 'Shut up!' My mum's face shows agreement.
It was her farewell drink. She once told me that nothing was worth your health. Yet if I hadn't met her I wouldn't have known this and wouldn't have stayed at home recuperating. I wrote a poem after she called across the bar to me that she had got a job as a butcher's girl. Later she told me that she also got a job at a haberdashers shop and had chosen that one instead. My original title stayed.

06 April 2007

Be šťastný 1!

Share a last drink with Matt before he heads to

the Czech Republic 2

Friday 13th Duben 3 at Krkavec 4


Discuss teaching methodologies!

Encourage him to lose the beard!

ALL welcome!





1 happy 2 The heart of Europe 3 April 4 The Raven

Desired Purchases before The Czech Republic

L'Histoire de Melody Nelson
Maverick t-shirt
Dream

Watching young people around a swimming pool on foot. After a while I walk around the poolside. A woman is there. We talk about when cattle were there last time, walking around it.

I leave for an outside field.

Sit in hall in a pew. Flick through OK magazine or somesuch. Come across picture of MES, a full page. I am in disbelief. I leave, realise I've left my bag behind, and go back. A glimpse inside reveals Czech books. I am with Mark now, talking. 'Tell me, Mark,' I say, preparing to head back, maybe to Salford with him. 'I have a friend who is a lyricist. He doesn't make much of what he does.' 'Oh,' he says, disappointed. We pass a service. A famous priest is talking. We enter and queue. '...those young boys.' We are gestured to sit on the other side of where we are queueing. There is a string running through gold hoops, before the whole pew. We pull it out and slip behind it. I imagine sliding gold rings along it to the priests.