On - Big Rain

I'm no Shelley, Keats or Byron,
No Hughes or Cooper-Clarke.
Just a speck on a spectrum.
The boy with the cardboard heart.
So I'll do this my way,
Be my own beacon in the dark.

Unstable as Uranium,
Gonna crack your cranium,
Put a short circuit in your brainium.
'Cos I'm firing on all cylinders.
Inspirin', it's tirin' and my busy fingers are dyin'
And I'm sick of fucking tryin'.

Collecting the uncollectable,
Forgetting the unforgettable,
Repeating the unrepeatable.
Every statement of status a state of explicit complicity
That believes in itself so seriously.

And the rain falls like suffering,
And suffering is truth
And it's a big, big rain
On a small, small town.
It's a big, big rain
On a small, small town.

You came like a crack in the ice.
Not who you said you were.
You wore a mask of integrity.
Your painted eyes, bitter lies,
Tattooed on your inner thighs.

You needed my dreams manifest,
The better to beat me with.
Pierced in the heart so your
Golden thread could drag me around,
Lead the parade, show me off.
Your broken prize from the merry-go-round.

You burned your brand on my arse.
Another tattooed barcode,
Kissing up to this paranoid farce.

And the rain falls like suffering,
And suffering is truth
And it's a big, big rain
On a small, small town.
It's a big, big rain
On a small, small town.

They say walking is the fine art
Of falling without crashing.
Well I started late 
And stumbled every step of the way.
But I threw myself wilfully,
Into the abyss of obscurity,
Laughing and screaming like a madman,
At the on-coming rush of anonimity.

And if every landscape is a condition of the soul,
Then I am a man of mountainous shadows,
Great, dark forests shrouded in the depths
Of Winter clouds.

Where the rain falls like suffering,
And suffering is truth
And it's a big, big rain
On a small, small town.
It's a big, big rain
On a small, small town.

____________________________

Another piece written entire by recital on my cycle commute to work each morning over several weeks in 2021?-2022? I like to ride along and recite out loud because it gives me a much better, clearer understanding of the "feel" of the words. I also find it easier than trying to just 'think' them in my head. Hearing the lines out loud in the open, somehow is just easier for me to remember them. Yeah, I know... I only actually wrote them down and editted them later, once they were more or less 'completed' by recital.

On - Simple Pleasures and Farlington Marshes

Simple Pleasures
Simple Pleasures like
A spliff and a can of Red Bull,
And walking the dog on Castle Field
Chasing gulls and crows for shits and giggles.

Clarence Pier keeping dry.
Abandoned buildings,
Dodging security and getting up high
With a bag of fat caps, burners and paint.
Tagging walls and comedy cocks.

Simple Pleasures
Simple Pleasures like
Dan's all-night parties,
Minesweeping shots,
K's and tequila, Jager bombs.

Off our tits, chased by cops.
Chatting up girls in Guildhall Square
- Getting nowhere....
Late for work, no surprise.
Hanging like a bastard - telling lies.
    (Ad Lib - "Some bullshit excuse")

Simple Pleasures
Simple Pleasures like
A can of Stella and a stolen bike,
Sitting in the sun having fun with the passers-by.
Try and blag a dollar for a Ginsters pie.

Back round to Dan's, he's got some weed
That helps the day go by.
Cheap Prosseco and a E for tea,
I'll tell you why - none of your business,
But I'll tell you why.

Simple Pleasures
Simple Pleasures like
Watching the sunrise over Farlington Marshes
With a spliff and a bottle of JD.

Lay back in the long grass
And listen to the birds sing,
As the dawn breaks.

Lay back in the long grass
And watch as the stars fade
And the sky turns from dark to light,
From pink to blue,

And the tide rolls in,
Bringing back memories of you.

And the tide rolls in,
Bringing back memories of you.

And the tide rolls in,
Bringing back memories of you.

_______________________________

Subject of the piece I painted for the Look Up Portsmouth paint festival in 2023. Written over a few weeks in 2021/2022 (?) on my cycle commute to work. I had the 'Can of Stella and a. stolen bike' line from seeing a bloke riding a bike the other way carrying a quite large flat-screen tv under his arm at half six one morning...

The process for writing this was reciting the line out loud to myself, repeatedly, and adding lines to it. There's something about speaking the lines out loud that embeds them more easily than trying to remember them for long enough to get to work and write them down. The metre was developed from the rhythm of the first line I came up with. The timbre of the last lines, 'Bringing back memories of you' is intended to be bitter sweet. Memories that just won't fade...