i would have never guessed it that Flea would be a Sheffield United supporter, then again who would have thought that Ryan Reynolds would become the owner of Wrexham...

and sometimes: even if you're working an event
and not a spectator you're still like:
**** it, i need to get a t-shirt...

i can't remember the last time i owned something
that did have a tag: made in China...
i still have this shirt from Gap that reads
made in Ireland...
    now i own something that reads: made in Honduras...
the quality on this thing tells me...
if washed properly will last about 20+ years...

when was the last time i saw them?
did they just come out with By the Way?
2002...  so they must have played the London Docklands
Arena circa...
they were great then: but today they were
like the Beatles...
               Flea on par with John Frusciante...
you have to give it bass players that are on par
with guitarists if not somehow surpassing them...

back then at the Docklands... what was it?
12,500 seated and 15,000 in concert mode...
today? my guess is in the range of 70,000+
      they might be getting but that's when people
are at their best... esp. ageing rock stars...
               it's this last push at greatness...
                             i sure as **** wanted to hear
Dani California live...
                  and it wouldn't be me if i wasn't disappointed
at them not playing Warm Tape...

but other things happened...
                  i'm sometimes almost sure that my interactions
with spectators do not go unnoticed by other
spectators or the security team in general...
now... i'm used to hugs... having selfies taken...
but... i truly wasn't read for a guy to walk up
to make: steal my hand... kiss it... hug me and go
on his merry way...
    as if invited the Chillies to London...
oh sure sure... yeah... i organised this event...

but it's not that:
people have been really starved socially after the past
two years... it shows...
   i'm just wondering when all this luvvy-dubby
attitude of the public will return to the old complacent
drunk-rude attitude...
then the post-pandemic honeymoon period
will end... it's bound to happen at some point
with enough people having attended enough
public events like football matches and concerts...
when the security services will return to being
invisible traffic-cone jokes...
                   unless of course it's just me...
i don't see other stewards or security officers
get their hands kissed and get hugs and get asked
for selfies...

then again... i wonder if i've met someone who
read any of my ****** "poems"...
   i look at the viewing counts...
if i managed to pull over 15,000 examples from my
***.. split between several websites...
where on one just one has gained 48.1K traction...
and i add up some of the more popular ones...
i've reached viewership well over 100K...
so i'm thinking... maybe some of these people approach
me like they know me...
     or know of me...

am i being full of myself?
               i'm just not used to strangers kissing my hands...
or playing with my beard...
how much of this is post-pandemic socialisation-starvation
and how much of it inherently authentic
based on the ontology of individuals is:
perhaps... debatable...
nonetheless: Casanova could have boasted about
his adventures in and outside of the bedroom...
i'm hardly hurting anyone's ego by citing how...
how familiar people can become...
   even though they are strangers...
                        let's not get anyone's hopes up...
we're not talking the complications of friendships...
having drinks in a pub... talking about our highs
and lows... it's not about the shallowness of these
interactions... but the immediacy and the fleetingness
of them: the almost democratic nature of them...
"democratic": there's 8 billion examples of man /
woman on this earth... and London can hardly
compete with a small village, with the Archers'
claustrophobia (the Archers'?
   this radio soap-opera on BBC Radio 4...
               in my most low i used to tune in...
    i'm not old enough to tune into BBC Radio 4,
i don't think i'll ever be...
    i tried BBC Radio 3 for a while...
                   i still prefer being my own DJ) -

well... i tried listening to Anderson Paak coming in...
after seeing him live?
i don't think i'll be able to...
     you need to see him... he's a performer...
he's less a recording artist...
                  his recordings are stale compared to his
entertainment qualities...
    part James Brown part: obviously himself...

or anyone not liking what i write can just switch
to something from the poetryfoundation.org,
or the tabloid press...
                    even i think this is mediocre...
i'm less worried about but i was really worried
whether the train strikes would mean that
the transport-chain-lock would work in my favour...
whether i'd get the central line to Newbury Park
on time from Stratford...
whether i'd catch either the 296 or the 66 bus
to Romford and get one of the last three 103 buses
after 12:00am to Chase Cross...

but i just bought a t-shirt from a concert
and put it over my work clothes and walked with
the rest of the fans grinning-like an idiot:
i've been paid... and i saw a band i last saw
back in 2002... and i'm going to see them again tomorrow...

sure... who wouldn't want to be a mysterious
poet who dies at the age of 30
like Kathleen Tankersley Young from Lysol poisoning...
who wouldn't?! the public would archive
two poems by me and i'd be... immortalised...
Bukowski put a nail on the head when he said:
when you write into the thousands...
you realise... that you have written very little...

right now anything to push me sitting up until
2am and getting up at 9am...
drinking whiskey and soothing my legs
from standing up for... however many hours
i stood rooted...
     but i was smarter today...
        i decided to eat something on the shift...
i highly recommend the steak pasties at the London
Stadium... they're only £6 a pop and that's
not overpriced for a London venue...
i would never ingest that free-cheap-*****
sandwiches provided by companies...
mind you... i did manage to "steal" a free bottle
of Fanta from one of the kiosk managers...
          or if you're at Wembley... befriend a Bangladeshi
security guy... or a Somali...
not stereotyping... they can smooth-talk
any member of a kiosk to give you free food...
or rather... the people working in the food kiosks
are probably also Bangladeshi or Somali...
so...                  

          win win...

and of the people you work with... word quickly spreads...
i come in bruised from a bicycle accident...
obviously i had to tell people that "some ******" cut
me off... that's not true...
i was cycling drunk... the last time i ever did that...
i lost control when the road started becoming uneven:
***-hole this swerve that...
it was a spectacular accident of my own making...
i flipped forward across the handlebars...
even if i was wearing a cycling helmet: which i never
have and never will... a beautiful looking
imitation of a Francis Bacon painting...
but today: some guy approached me...
oh... looks like you're healing nicely...

         and i am... it felt so good listening Scar Tissue
live... i'm gently pinching the scab and eating it...
like a dog...
but i was having this conversation with Harini
and about her falling off her electric scooter...
how she would never get back on it...
and i told her: my bicycle was sort of my fault too...
but it's different with bicycles...
so i started telling her about those two glorious
summers when my grandfather was alive
and he'd take me to Pętkowice (Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship,
Ostrowiec County, Poland)
for horse riding...
            oh yeah... i'll never own a car...
i love buses, bicycles and horses too much...
i will never own a flashy car...
so i told her... this mare almost threw me off at
full gallop...
   see... it's different when you have a bicycle
accident and something rather different
when a horse throws you off...
bicycles are dead things... it's up to you to not
be drunk (idiot) and not spotting a ***-hole
early enough...
            but a horse is a living creature and has
its own rules, whims...

i think i'm rekindling sleeping genes in me...
i must have come from a lineage of horse-riders...
after the first lesson
having jumped me and this guy went into
the fields and the forest for a "stroll"...
my god... riding a horse at full gallop...
it's almost a bit like riding a bicycle down a hill...
no... it's not the same...
       sleeping genes of a Mongol? a ***?
                     Winged Hussars?!
who else where the great nations that heavily relied
on horses?!
    i just remember: put right heel pressure
on the horse's torso while pulling at the reins
of the left hand for it to turn left...
and if you want to move the horse to the right...
left heel digging into the torso
and right hand pulling at the reins...
and if you want to gallop?
    both feet dig heels into the torso
  and the reins are tightened...

                    and she looked at me like:
well... i wasn't expecting you to be a type that rode horses...
so much for rock stars... down on the ground
this is probably enough to impress...

i come home i find my maine **** readied for
a nap in my bed... wake up tomorrow...
root myself in... un-root myself...
drink some whiskey... have two days off...
wait for the boiler mechanic come Monday...
then head off to Wembley for the Ed Sheeran gig...
like any modern man i'm addicted
to the urban landscape...
although... i sometimes wish i could live
on the Shetlands... or the Faroe Isles...
be a lighthouse curator...

                               live in a cave: live in a cave:
breathe like a cave when a shout shouted
into it excavates an echo...
           i'm a terrible DJ... second night running
and it's still...
  
i can move mountains
i can work a miracle, work a miracle
ooh, oh, oh, (i'll) keep you like an oath
may nothing but death do us (a)part

she wants to dance like uma thurman...