We argued over that Marc Bolan record
That I knew wasn’t mine anyway
We argued over that Marc Bolan record
It’s my demented way of passing the day

I love to see the lines on your forehead appear
They run so incredibly deep
I love to see the lines on your forehead, my dear
When you’ve got the bit between your teeth

So when I hear ride a white swan
I can’t help but think of your face
Fighting your corner for T.Rex
That cosmic dancer in outer space

so there on the window sill
i sat perpetrating my crime,
one had outside the window denoting the mentally ill
and the other inside the compartment of
a room denoting terrorists,
then i switched hands and opinions...
and then two bright objects of fire appeared
on the skyline... then another two... a perfect rhombus that
traversed the night sky.

i mingled *r.d. laing with the saint benaiah ben yehoiada today...
what a miracle of the slow approach,
i was so desperate for paper i even wrote on a sunday times news review page,
god help me, i feel the need to speak over people in writing.
testament to modern *******: the modern trans-gender phenomenon
is primarily found in st. thomas’ gospel
as entrée of r.d. laing’s **** of paradise artistic spontaneity
away from rigid theory so numerous in the exampled situation
of the lisp acquired on the psychoanalytic couch...
it speaks of turning left to right... up to down... man to woman...
a bit like a sat nav giving directions... you end up in a kingdom
that’s a ditch and the king is adorned not in crimson cardinal
or purple bishop... but pain... this is 1967... no wonder the hippies
died off after people started to dot dot dot post-1967
with the excavatio in translatio to remould western, christian, societies.
that text, says it all! david bowie and alice cooper and marc bolan
with the lipstick and 8 o’clock eye-socket shadows...
but things are picking up / getting serious...
the young ones are on it... post-colonial details i might have you add...
it was bound to happen... vietnam and the daddy longlegs starving man of africa...
built in processor 5.6GB of memory and an iphone...
what?! i’m translating my slavic soul... we fed the mongrels and mongolians
with crusader ***** in the baltic... we disappeared for a few centuries
and came back... blackmailing the airlines for an unsafe crash landing
somewhere in belarus, with the state banquet officiated, of course.
you see.. i’m the silent eager satyr from such paintings by matejko
like hołd pruski and stańczyk... expression beaming with: yes... go on...
spur me on... i’ll gallop to status of stallion with laughter!
all the catholic canonical saints are for people who prefer images
to words.
so there’s laing in 1967 allowed the ancient deciphering of
quasi-egyptian text... and then all hell breaks loose in the now, present...
i’ve got two left hands and two right feet... i think i’ll transverse
in walking like a crab... sidewise... out of here...
you go along with your daily “historical” bullying...
i like my place... outside the post-colonial continuum...
so much so that i even have a theory for the experience:
HE WASN’T THINKING IN HIS MOTHER TONGUE,
THE NATIVITY OF THE SOUL TOOK FORM FROM THE POLLEN
OF THE BODY, MANY IRANIANS AND EGYPTIANS...
HE THOUGHT COLONIAL, HE ACTED COLONIAL...
PREVIOUSLY HE MENTIONED POLAND LENDING AEROPLANES
TO EGYPT... HE ACTED LIKE AN ENGLISHMAN TO A ******...
NOW I SEE HIM LIKE A PENGUIN WITH CHEETAH FUR...
A WORD OF LISP I GATHER...
I WAS THINKING STUPID TRUST... WHILE
A SINGLE WORD OF THE MOTHERTONGUE RESONATED
TO PURSUE CREATIVITY THUS EXPRESSED
UNABLE TO FIND THE 0,0 COORDINATE IN THE
NORTHERN TRANS-EUROPEAN MILITARY COMPLEX.
this is how integration happens in europe: acquire the native tongue
acquire native psychology... don’t acquire the latter
define the former with exactness of body...
conclusion? i did stupid via trust... he did stupid via a blood-thirst
and a michael jackson trick of bleaching the soul
but leaving the body oddly mongrel-like... not so complete
like africans from the caribbean losing the tongue
due to jamaica’s great weather, then moving to england
and starting reggae rap... god knows how those two fitted for a size 12
perfect matching: quick-slow, quick-slow...
slow-quick rat ah rat ah regina duck in dumplings... bewildering
that i didn’t turn grey but turned ginger over the years.
you see this theory? it makes the mongol horse pale in comparison;
dad said: a jew did it! a jew did it! a ******* mid-******* just said: you
(double emphasis, the colon and italics... well i was there,
and this poem is proof that i was there, with her).
then this poem in the background with added photogenic approach...
titled: on ******* who create art.
ahem... napkin for the torero and rare steak to suite:
there they are the geniuses and the mediocre,
sitting in abodes of aspirational peace of the living -
half-dead many of them almost to the core of rotten apples,
with arsenic in apple seeds the last remaining life -
a poisonous mechanisation of activity on the breeding continuum
curtailed (is that implying cut-short?),
horrible ******* to live with,
they sitting knitting words together that make no cardigan fit,
or they’re making 2d rooms with the odd splash of colour
that will never obey the cube but the rectangular canvas,
no use of a poet’s pen in the solace of a quiet pension spaced,
the usurpers of peace among the living among the twins of sabbath,
these ronin of the fountain of solace found in t.v. and slippers...
who let them in?! can you hear poetry with a hammer?
can you hear it on a construction site, or an art gallery or a library?
so there they are, the *******, choosing the most importune of places
to do their craft... in the living spaces of plumbers and electricians...
hardly the place to craft their art when there’s no pulpit to
exercise their crafty practice with the end remark.
why then the plumber the safeguard and incubator nest of home,
and why the cold chill of aqueduct syringe at home for poet?
does no friendliness reside in stressing or not stressing certain words anymore?
perhaps the coalminers will tell me?
they say i am in a coal-mine by the sheer whiteness of disposable white
of canvas... and only among them in solidarity of a brotherhood
by excavating with them the coal that’s their amber burnt at home
and my solitary ink expressed in the library of their darkness of having
bulged forearm forceps of the bicep and no patience for reading... but digging,
i’ll know my orientation in those mines once more...
where the safe and understood route has has not yet been written...
and all that is seen... is the whitened darkness of the blank canvas of
what i peer into stumbling with the inverse... the flashlight of words
against the darkness of the canvas... me and my blind horse.
god i hate live editing... but then again... it keeps me
drunk and soberly paranoid to scrabble in revisions before i doze till morn.

I hadn't been there in ages, hadn't visited, I had no reason to
But then the Covid virus struck and Dublin where I was working was put into quarantine
I wasn't allowed to go up there anymore to work,
And I had no computer at home and no broadband/ WiFi at the time
So they sent me down to the Old Town
It was nice driving down the motorway, it was Autumn and the leaves they were all changing colour
The different shades of red, brown green and yellow
With the sun shining on the mountains and on the bay
It felt almost like I was going on my holidays,
The Old Town it had changed so much, there were all these new buildings,
Retail parks on the outskirts, hotels, new schools, civic buildings... coffee shops
It was lovely and clean and tidy
Like those living there were really proud of it,
The old town I'd known it was there also, in the background, a bit dusty now
There was the big old gothic church my Dad used take us to, to Mass some Sundays
There was the Port and the big ships along the Quay
There was the secondary school I was meant to go to... had we stayed...it looked old, a bit dilapidated now
I wondered was it still being used as a school,
In the Main Street there were still old names of shops that I recognized
The shoe shop where my Mom used buy us shoes
The chemist where my brother got his glasses... the Bakery
The cinema where we seen our first movie "The Magnificent Seven", it was all done up now... all different...
In the office things were... well...weird! ghostly!
A big modern office and some days I was the only one there, just me all on my own
Was like something out of a Sci-fi movie
Other days maybe two or three might come in to join me
All the others of course, they were all working from home,
Often I'd find my mind just filling with old memories and nostalgia...
I could hear the old ghosts calling, calling me to go back
I knew... I knew I had to go back there
Back to where it had all begun for me
The little seaside village where I was born.

So going home I took the coastal road not the motorway
Just the sight of the headland and the blue mountains sloping down to the sea
With the lighthouse there at the end
Just seeing them again gave me an old feeling of my father, my Dad
And then the village itself, the seafront... all the colourfully painted shops,
Sweet shops & novelty shops, the amusement arcade, pubs and hotels and B&B's  (Bed and Breakfasts)
After being away for nearly fifty years, it still looked...it still looked pretty much the same, was hard to believe
I stopped my car and went into a little supermarket shop to get a sandwich for the next day
As I looked around, I seen these two mature ladies there, they were around my own age
I thought to myself 'I might have gone to school with you once many years ago, one of you might even have been my wife had we stayed here and not moved away
I might have lived a more normal, a different life'
But then I thought 'Life is never that simple, is it'.
Outside I decided to go for a walk, to look around and reminisce.

There was the path, the pavement I used go to school on with my brothers
It was like returning to the scene of a crime
How I used to dread going to school sometimes
There was a teacher, a lady teacher that used scare me a lot, she terrified me so
I remember I got sick in class on several occasions
She put me outside once sitting on an upturned bin
I can still remember sitting there on that bin in the sun, feeling so lost and that I was a really bad boy, wishing I was home
I remember I used to get hives, itches on my skin
My Mom used keep me at home
She was afraid, she thought I'd give them to the other kids
I missed the addition and subtraction tables at school because of this
To this day I still don't know what 7 + 5 is, instead I bring it to 10, I know 5 is 3 + 2, so I say 7 + 3 is 10 and 2 is 12
And I know all the doubles, 7 + 6 is 6 + 6 is 12 and 1 is 13, funny that
How I used to dread going to school
Until that was... until one day I did well at something and I received some praise
Then things seemed to change after that, I wasn't as bothered anymore, I think then I realized I was doing better than some of the others in my class and that seemed to make a difference
I remembered sitting beside pretty little girls who used have lovely pink pencil cases with lots of fancy colourful things
Whereas me I barely had a pencil, a rubber (eraser) and a ruler
They were strange lovely creatures, the Girls with their lovely long hair and their cute little faces...
I remembered walking home on my own, with my little schoolbag on my back with all my books in it
It was such a beautiful place, the view with the beach and the sea and the faraway blue mountains
And yet, I used to worry about so many things
It's like even then it was all about...all about survival...
There was the big Chapel on the hill
Once before the Summer holidays they were looking for altar boys and someone put my name forward
Then on the first morning back to school after the Summer holidays
The teacher said you better get down to the church right away, like fast!! you're on the altar this morning !!!
I was terrified, I didn't know what I had to do, no one told me anything
So there I was on my own kneeling on this cold hard marble altar and it was hurting my knees something terrible
And the priest he's talking about God and the Devil and Evil or Hell or whatever
And all these people, the whole congregation their all staring up at us
And I'm petrified, and I started to get faint and nauseas
The priest had to stop the Mass
I can't remember if I got sick or passed out
I was so embarrassed and thought afterwards I was such a terrible bad person, I knew it'd be all around the school the story.

I walked on...our house was gone, knocked down, where there used to be three houses together attached, now there was only the end house
Our house used to be the middle house
It didn't look right now, the symmetry looked all wrong
It was like there was two missing teeth
Why did they have to knock it down ? I wondered. It saddened me a bit...

At another house I stopped, this used to have a shop, a small shop,  the shop was no longer there
This was my Best Friend's house, all the days we used to play football together in the back garden
Kicking the ball to each other
With our jumpers/ sweaters as goalposts
The first to score ten would win the game
I...I usually won
I always found you easy to read, it's like you only ran in straight lines,
I think you were a bit in awe of me for some reason
Maybe you wouldn't have been my friend if you'd beaten me
How did we become friends anyway, I wondered
I suppose coming home from school
We lived on the same road and were in the same class, we'd have met each other
I had two older brothers whereas you were the oldest
So our families would have had a different dynamic
I remember you had a delightfully silly younger brother
I remember your Mom, she was very pretty, she was a lot younger than my Mom
You used bring me in and give me a meal sometimes, we'd all sit and watch TV
There was a different feeling when I was in your house...a different atmosphere
But when your Dad would come home, he was a bit scary
And I knew it was then time for me to go home
You'd wonder afterwards what the lovely Mom saw in the scary Dad, adults they were a bit peculiar.

We were inseparable in those days, many mornings you'd hear the knock on the door
And the familiar greeting
"Hello Mrs B---, Is G---- in, is he coming out to play?"
We were always playing soccer up the garden
Or down on the beach, going out for miles to meet the tide, catching *****, looking under  stones to see what we might find
I remember we were very entrepreneurial
In the Summer we used collect returnable glass mineral bottles, Orange and Lemonade and Coca Cola
And we'd bring them back to the shop and get money back for them
And then we'd have a royal feast, we'd buy bottles of Orange and bags of crisps and ice cream pops and chocolate bars,
Remember all the different Ice pops there used to be, Choc Ices and Brunches and Orange splits, 99's... Ice cream cones
Chocolate bars, Smarties and Malteasers, Milky Bars and Milky Ways, Dairy Milk chocolate bars, fruit gums and Love hearts with little love messages written on them
We used hang around the amusement arcade, play the slot machines, maybe help some old lady collect her winnings, she might give us a tip
There was the bumper cars and the swingboats and music playing all the time on the jukeboxes
It was the seventies (the 70's) and glam rock was all the rage
Marc Bolan and T-Rex, and Slade and The Sweet and a million others
So many great songs, we couldn't wait to grow up and become one of those amazing creatures we saw on the telly
I'd never lived since as intensely as I did back then,
We'd stay out till late
We were like young hustlers going around,
It seemed the days they were never long enough, all the things we got up to,
We'd Caddy in the local golf course
And retrieve lost ***** from the ditches...
Heh! Remember... remember that time... the Brennan sisters, we were up one day near the school
There was building work going on
And there was this big high mound of clay
So we climbed to the top to take in the view
And then the two Brennan sisters came over
They lived nearby
They were in our class at school, we knew them only to see
They were smiling and laughing and giggling
They beckoned for us to come and follow them
We went wondering what was going on here
They led us back to their house, I think their parents must have been out
One of them came up to us and smiled
And then she pulled down her pants and showed it to us in all its wonderful glorious splendour
It was amazing... incredible... such a sight
Her beautiful...her splendid... her lovely... bare Bottom!
I remember thinking it was like a lovely ripe pear
One of Life's great mysteries had just been unveiled
And her there with this huge impish grin,
When we were going home we promised each other we'd not tell anyone, our parents, not even the priest in confession
About that great vision we'd just witnessed
It was the height of naughtiness
Yea! Those were the days...

I wondered, 'Whatever became of you Old Friend ?
I looked you up online but couldn't find your name anywhere, couldn't find anything about you
Were you even still alive ?
50 years was a long time, I'd barely made it this far myself, and I had a lot of scars to show for it
I thought rather amusingly that I should knock on your door
Maybe you were still living there,
But what was I hoping to find ? I wondered...
"Whose at the door ?", a woman's Voice inside might say,
"Just... just some crazy guy talking about 50 years ago" her dutiful husband would reply
That's probably how it would go
I felt like I was Rip Van Winkle awakening after being asleep for 100 years or in my case 50 years
What did I hope to find
What did I hope to see, an old man now just like myself
And I bet you'd tell me your opinions on the government and the economy
And how the village had changed over the years and how other old schoolmates of ours had got on in life
But No! that's not what I wanted to hear or see
I wanted to see you there again just like you were as a little kid
Your lovely youthful face smiling back at me
And you'd say, "I'll get the ball and we'll have a game, the first to ten wins"
This was what I was looking for, this was what I wanted to hear.

We were very close, were going to grow up together, go to the same schools...college
We'd always be friends
We'd meet all the trials of life together....
I hope Life worked out well for you, my friend
In a way...in a way I almost didn't want to know
If I learned you did well in Life I'd probably only get jealous
I'd start to think I was better than you and that I should have had those things you had
Life, this world it makes enemies of us all... eventually
It divides, is all about competing and comparing... and beating (I suppose).

I still remember that last night before I left forever
We were down on the beach, it was twilight, the tide was coming in... the waves slowly advancing
Just like in life I had no power to stop it, to change things,
I had no say, I didn't want to go and leave you Old Friend
No! I didn't want to go....

Thank you...thank you for being my friend, for being there
For all the time you gave me, I hope I didn't hurt you in any way.

I have a photograph, one solitary old black and white photo of the two of us
We're sitting on a barrel in our back garden on either side of my Dad whose in the middle
You look a bit uncertain, unsure of yourself, probably lost in the dynamic of my family,
I look at you and I think
"Whatever happened to you.... Beautiful Friend, whatever became of you"
And then I look at myself as well, and I think, I whisper
"Whatever became of me as well".

< So how far back can you go then ?
How far down the Rope of Songs can you go ?
You were a Rocker weren't you, you liked Rock n' Roll
In the 80's you had a Walkman, you'd be listening to tapes and songs on the radio
You also wanted to be a drummer once, you loved the power and energy there
But what about the early days though, I'm interested particularly in the early days
How far back can you go I wonder
Yea! How far back and what memories do they bring up ? >

Back in the 70's watching Top of the Pops every Thursday evening on the BBC, essential viewing
With its exciting Whole Lotta Love intro
It was something exciting, thrilling
Waiting to see your favourite Band
And to see the Charts, how they were doing
In the Seventies there was Glam Rock, my eldest brother and me we were always arguing and fighting with one another, sibling rivalry I suppose
If he supported United then I'd have to support City...silly stuff
He liked the band Slade whereas I liked...I supported Marc Bolan and T-Rex
Solid Gold East Action I really liked that song
It was very fast, he rarely did fast songs Marc
Telegram Sam..."you're my main man"
Metal Guru..."is it true"
Twentieth Century Boy..."I wanna be your toy"
The hair on your neck would stand up when he'd come on...
Slade were good though, secretly I liked Slade too, they had great songs
*** on feel the Noise/ Girls grab the boys..
Coz I luv you...Mama we'er all crazy now...
Skweeze me Pleeze me "You know how to squeeze me..."
But there were lots of other good bands and so many great songs
We used to play cards for small money...pennies, a series of different card games, and we'd put on records while we played
We even learned to play Chess and we started a Chess League between us,
We'd always listen to the music as we played.

The Sweet's "Blockbuster" with its intro of police sirens, it spent about 5 weeks at No.1 in the UK Charts...
It reminds me of...of Fish that song...Fish on Fridays, we used to have fish every Friday, I didn't like fish there was bones in it
I wouldn't eat it then Mam would get angry
One time she took a mouthful of my fish trying to prove there were no bones in it
Then suddenly she started to cough and splutter and choke
A Bone had actually got caught in her throat
I thought it was my fault, I thought I'd killed her
She had to go to hospital to get it out
I was going to tell her "I told you the fish was dangerous"
That memory just came back to me when I thought of that song and that time

Yea! I liked Marc Bolan and T-Rex, songs like Metal Guru, Twentieth Century Boy
I remember I didn't like the lyric "Twentieth Century Boy/ I wanna be your toy"
It sounded silly to me that lyric, I suppose I wanted things to make sense
And when he did that song "New York City" with the lyric
"Did you ever see a woman coming out of New York City with a frog in her hand"
I thought then he was maybe losing it a bit
< You...you were a very serious child then weren't you ? >
I suppose I was...like a lot of children are...maybe I just wanted things to make sense.

< I'm interested in the early days, even the very early days and the memories you have
How far back can you go ? What about the funny novelty songs ? >
Chuck Berry had a No. 1 with "My Ding a Ling" playing with his Ding a Ling, we all thought it was very funny
Stayed at No. 1 for several weeks
"Gimme that thing, gimme gimme that thing (or Ding)" was another funny song
"Mouldy Old Dough" by Lieutenant Pigeon a keyboard song with the constant refrain of just "Mouldy Old Dough"
Cat Stevens had a song "I can't keep it in/ I gotta let it out/ gotta show the world..."
Novelty songs were important, they'd interest even your parents
They'd pass a comment "Ha! Ha! That's a funny song"
< And there were sad songs too, weren't there, really sad songs ? >
"Billy don't be a hero don't be a fool with your life" by Paper Lace about a young bride trying to talk her young fiancee out of going off to war, he doesn't listen and never comes back, he gets killed
The Government sends her a letter, she throws it away...
"Seasons in the Sun" by Terry Jacks, 'Goodbye Michelle my little one/
We've known each other since we were nine or ten/ We climbed hills and trees skinned our knees...ABC's / O! Michelle it's hard to die when all the birds are singing in the sky..."
You'd nearly be in tears listening to it.
We used to buy Top of the Pops compilation records with lots of hits on them
Sometimes Mom would like a song, 'Stay with me' by the band Blue Mink
"Stay with me, lay with me/ Love me for longer..."
Always reminds me of my Mom that song
'Killing me softly with your song' Roberta Flack was another
'Tie a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree..."
At school every Friday the teacher would have a spelling test, I used win it a lot, I was good at spelling
The teacher used to give some sweets as a prize, I used bring them home to my Mum.

The Eurovision Song contest (all the European countries would put forward a song), I remember being let stay up to watch Abba win in 1974 with 'Waterloo'
In their fabulous outfits...they looked like Stars, Giants to us, Norse legends from Sweden.  They were amazing!
And what about our own Dana, the young Irish girl from Derry who won the Eurovision for Ireland for the first time with 'All kinds of everything...remind me of you"
I was too young to be allowed to stay up to watch that one
But you could probably hear the adults shouting for Joy from the room below
Happy Nay amazed to see one of our own having done so well, being recognised, flying the flag for Ireland
And then there was seeing Thin Lizzy playing 'Whiskey in the Jar' on Top of the Pops, the first Irish Rock band ever to appear on the show
It was so exciting watching them on our old Black and white TV...an Irish Band one of your very own up there on the World stage
And what about Gilbert O'Sullivan from Waterford I think reaching No. 1 in the Charts with his lovely song 'Clair'
We thought it was a love song but at the end it was revealed it was in fact about a little girl he used babysit for...so sweet.
We used to get comics and magazines secondhand, bought at jumble sales (remember jumble sales)
There was a music magazine for young kids, mainly for girls I think
It was called 'Jackie', there'd be a few in our bundle
They'd have big pictures of all the current hearthrobs
Donny Osmond, David Cassidy, the Bay City Rollers
The young fans would go crazy for their idols
I remember Donny Osmond singing Puppy Love and his version of The Twelfth of Never...
"I'll love you till the bluebells forget to bloom
I'll love you till the clover has lost its perfume
I'll love you till the poets run out of rhyme
Until the Twelfth of Never/ And that's a long long time"...
They were beautiful words about loving, a forever love
And Baby I love you by The Ronettes "Baby I love you/ I love everything about you...
All singing about this wonderful mysterious thing called...called Love.

<Can you go back further than that?>
When we'd go up the village where the amusement arcade was
There'd be songs playing, there were dreamy songs
Albatross by Fleetwood Mac, A whiter shade of Pale by Procol Harum
There was an instrumental I remember called "Sylvia" by the Dutch band Focus
There was a lovely leggy blonde girl named Sylvia in my class at school
And yes! I think she was actually from Holland
(We had a few foreign girls in our class)
Y'know I think she fancied me...did Sylvia
She used to smile at me a lot.
I have a memory of being at the fairground in the Summer with its swing boats and bumper cars
It's roundabouts with the horses and swings, the shooting gallery, the stall for throwing rings over things and taking a prize home
I remember candy floss and ice cream cones
I remember playing the penny slot machines in the amusement arcade, all the different machines
I remember a song "California Man" by The Move... wonderful Summer days.

In the Sixties an Elvis or a Beatles film was a big deal
I remember A Hard Days Night in brilliant black and white
And then "Help" in wonderful colour
Trying to get a fabulous Ring off Ringo the drummer's finger... great songs
Watching The Banana Splits "One Banana Two Banana Three Banana Four/All Bananas going right through the door...
Remember The Monkees"Hey!Hey! We're The Monkees/You never know where we'll be found... We're the young generation and we got something to say"
Last Train to Clarksville, I'm a Believer... great songs too
Remember The Age of Aquarius "This is the age of Aquarius..."
The Sixties yeah!

<Did your Mom and Dad have a Singles collection, the old 45's. Do you remember?>
On our old Dansette record player Roy Orbison singing In Dreams and its B side Sharadoba a magical Egyptian sounding song
And also It's Over about a love affair breaking up
And its wonderful B side Indian Wedding, that was my favorite song among the 45's
It told the story of Yellow Hand and White Feather two Indians getting married
But then going off into the swirling snow never to return
Gone to the Land of the Rising Sun...
You'd listen to them over and over again those songs and that wonderful haunting voice.
<And what were you thinking about, what would be running through your mind when you'd be listening to those songs?>
I remember I wanted to be special that I'd have some special powers and be able to do great things
Something that would make me stand out and that people would be amazed
Maybe some of the girls too, would be very impressed.
My Dad he liked Jim Reeves, he had a lovely velvety smooth voice
He sang Billy Bayou 'Billy Billy Bayou watch where you go/ You're walking on quicksand/ Walk slow/ Billy Billy Bayou watch what you say/ A pretty girl is gonna get you one of these days...
He sang a lot of slow love songs "Put your sweet lips a little closer to the phone and let believe that we're together all alone...
Anna Marie... Anna Marie
Four Walls to know me...

<Tell me about Christmas, the Christmas songs?>
Christmas was a magical time in our house, we'd have the Christmas tree with all the decorations and coloured lights on it
We'd have long concertina like decorations going from wall to wall, so colourful
And lots of glittery things
The songs... Slade singing 'Happy Christmas Everybody', Wizard singing 'I wish it could be Christmas everyday', Mud singing 'It'll be lonely this Christmas (without you to hold)' sounded like Elvis
Johnny Mathis singing 'When a child is born',
'Little Drummer Boy'...
In those days because of school and family you had a strong sense of belonging, having friends, attending birthdays and sports and community events and church
I remember the Christmas party in Primary school (Kindergarten), you had to bring your own treats
I'd only have some biscuits and diluted orange juice
Most people were relatively poor in those days
I was a bit embarrassed having so little
There was one boy and all he had was a bottle of milk to bring
Some used make fun of him, kids could be cruel sometimes.

I remember the teacher brought in a tape recorder once and taped every boy and girl's voice and then he'd play them back
I used dread when my voice would come up
'Cos suddenly the whole class would erupt in laughter
For some reason my voice sounded funny when taped
Even the teacher used smile
I felt so humiliated nay destroyed with them all laughing at me...
I remember... I remember singing the Christmas Carol 'Angels we have heard on high' with its chorus
"Glo..ooria, Gloria in Excelsis Deo"
It was Latin I think but I didn't know this
I thought we were singing "Gloria in a Chelsea stable"
I thought to myself "Jesus must be a supporter of Chelsea football/soccer club" heh!
We had Perry Como's Christmas album with the story of 'Frosty the Snowman' and 'The Christmas Song' ...
"chestnuts roasting on an open fire/ Jack Frost nipping at your nose/ Yuletide carols being sung by a choir/ And folks dressed up like Eskimos..."
And Bing Crosby of course, singing White Christmas
I think we all dreamed of a White Christmas
At school we'd sing 'Away in a Manger' and 'The First Nowell'
Y'know if I sing those songs even now to myself, I can... I can almost remember...

<What about the other songs you learned at school, funny songs, sad songs and the memories they bring up? >
There was a song 'Those were the days (my friend we thought they'd never end)' it was in the Charts
I think the teacher taught us it
The people in the song would be having a great time laughing and drinking and dancing in the taverns
But as they'd grow older their lives would change and they'd get lonelier and sadder...
'Puff the Magic Dragon' I remember there was a very sad bit in this song
Puff and his childhood friend would have so many great adventures together
But then one day, his friend he came no more (he'd found other toys to play with)
Poor Puff was left bereft, he slowly slunk back into his cave... this used to make me sad...
We did patriotic songs 'Roddy McCorley' (goes to die on the Bridge of Toom today)
We had a songbook at school, I still have it
It had lots of old folk songs
Oh! Susanna, Skip to my Lou, The Camptown Races
"Michael Finnegan beginagin/ He had hairs on his chinagin/ Poor old Michael Finnegan"
We used laugh at that song
"What are we going to do with the drunken sailor... early in the morning "
'Marching through Georgia' "Hurra! Hurra! We bring the Jubilee/ Hurra! Hurra! The flag that sets us free...a rousing song
The teacher would play a musical instrument, a melodica I think it was called
She'd blow into it and it had keys on top that'd she'd finger to create the notes
She divided the class into those who could sing and the others, the Crows she called us who couldn't
I was among the Crows
It made me feel bad being called a Crow.
In Primary school we used to play soccer during the breaks
It was usually the Boys from the Housing Estate versus the rest of us from the Village
There was never any tactics, the whole team en masse would just run after the ball LoL
I remember I used to get angry sometimes probably because of something someone had said to me
When I was angry I'd become like The Incredible Hulk
I'd go through the whole lot of them, beat them all
I was Unstoppable
I was the first boy in my class to ever score a goal using my head
The school would also have soccer leagues and we'd get put onto teams
But we were so small compared to the bigger older boys we'd hardly ever get a touch of the ball
But I... I managed to get a goal once which was unheard of from someone in our year
I was so happy.... delighted! My teacher even announced it to the whole class
That I'd scored... I was so chuffed
When I went home and told my parents though they didn't seem to think it was anything special....
My Dad he liked accordion music, he liked The Alexander Brothers from Scotland
They had a song 'Nobody's Child'
"I'm Nobody's Child, no one to love me/ No mother's kisses no mother's smiles/ I'm like a flower just growing wild..."

I used to sleep alone in my room
You'd be afraid there in the Dark on your own
There'd be a nightlight on the wall all lit up
A religious picture, the ****** Mary holding the child Jesus
I'd get Mom to leave the door open so I could faintly hear the voices downstairs
Sometimes I couldn't hear anything and I'd be afraid everybody had gone and left me
So I'd get up and sit on the landing listening
There was a few times when I'd actually go down the stairs
I'd be so relieved to see them all still there
I used sing songs in the dark to keep the fear away, songs we learned at school
"We're going to the Zoo Zoo Zoo/ How about You You You/ You can come too too too..."
Old MacDonald had a farm E-I-E-I O! and on that farm he had some...
"10 green bottles standing on a wall/ And if one green bottle should accidentally fall/ There'd be nine green bottles standing on the wall...
Sometimes I used recite poems we'd learned
"Two little blackbirds singing in the sun/ One flew away and then there was one... One little brick wall lonely in the sun/ Waiting for the blackbirds to come and sing again "
I also remember trying to recite to myself the multiplication tables...

<There were funny rhymes and nursery rhymes wasn't there? >
Christmas is coming/ The Goose is getting fat/ Please put a penny in the old Man's hat/ If you haven't got a penny a halfpenny will do/ If you haven't got a halfpenny God bless you...
Hickory Dickery dock/ The mouse ran up the clock...
They could be strangely violent sounding
Jack and Jill went up the hill/To fetch a pail of water/ Jack fell down and broke his crown/ And Jill came tumbling after...
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall/ Humpty Dumpty had a great fall...
Three blind mice/ See how they run/ They all run after the farmer's wife/ She cuts off their tails with a carving knife...
Girls are made of all things nice... sugar and spice/What are little boys made of/ Frogs and snails and puppy dogs tails...
Adam and Eve went up my sleeve and never came down till Christmas Eve...
I remember the early games we played, Snakes and Ladders, Ludo, Tiddlywinks trying to flick little plastic counters into a tiny plastic bucket, also playing draughts and marbles...

<Can you go back any further ? >
My Mom singing in the kitchen doing her daily chores singing some song off the radio
Dickie Rock an Irish showband singer singing
"Come back to stay/ And promise me you'll never stray/ I promise that I'll be true...
Sean Dunphy another Irish singer singing "If I could choose" (came second in the Eurovision Song contest)
Tom Jones 'The Green green grass of Home '
There was a lot of easy listening type songs on the radio Burt Bacharach type songs
Andy Williams, Englebert Huberdinck (Please release me let me go/ I don't love you anymore), Doris Day maybe
There's a lot I can't remember now
Val Doonican another Irish singer who'd made it big in the UK
(Had his own TV program for many years on the BBC)
He had a big hit with the song "Walk Tall"
"Walk tall and look the world right in the eye/That's what my mother told me when I was about knee high...
I remember one magical Christmas we got a present of a plastic projector
It came with several slides, they had wonderfully colourful cartoony pictures on them that told a story
We'd turn off all the lights and project it onto the wall
I remember it was like magic, the colours they were so vivid, they were like the colors off stained Glass windows...
The colour of things was very important when you were a kid, they'd almost create feelings inside of you
Colours came first... before words ever did
We often didn't understand the grown ups with their big words...
I remember getting collections of different kinds of toy soldiers and then staging battles
I remember collecting little toy Dinky cars they were called, that was their brand
And Matchbox cars (another brand) ... even today when I see certain colours of cars I am reminded of those old toy cars I used to play with... strange

<What are your earliest memories then? >
There was a question I always wanted to ask the adults but I never did, I thought it kind of funny and didn't want them to laugh at me
The question was "Why does Life always show me ?" An existentialist question even then.

We lived by the sea so you'd be lulled to sleep every night by the flowing up and flowing back of the sea... the tide... its gentle swaying back and forth motion
We had a black cloth picture/painting on the wall, a night scene with swans on a lake and an exotic house in the background with the Moon shining
It was so quiet and peaceful to look at...
My bedroom wallpaper had lovely red or pinkish roses
There was a colourful flower design sewn onto my pillowcase
It used to be lovely getting into bed with fresh linen...
I remember I used to get funny dreams even then, sometimes scary dreams
But I remember you were always safe 'cos in the dream you had a special ring you could put on and then the scary dream would go away (I've often wondered after was that maybe where Tolkien got his inspiration for The Lord of the Rings and Wagner the music composer for his music opera "The Ring")

<Can you go back...any further ? >
Going back further, you're almost falling off the edge of the world there
To a time... to a time when there were no words
When a child comes into the world they have no words
There's only... only The Silence... The Great Silence,
Silence is a strange thing, you can hear Silence
The fact that you can hear it means it must be changing from moment to moment
It too is just like a music, it's probably the first music
Without it there could be no other
The Music of the Spheres someone once called it
It just stays there in the background... glistening... your constant companion
Probably the first sound you ever heard, and probably the last you'll ever hear
It can grow very loud
It wasn't threatening, there were no monsters in it
Not until you went to school and learned words and heard scary stories
Did the monsters come
Words they can cast shadows... sometimes very long shadows...
There was a cot with wooden bars, I remember having a blanket with lovely warm colors on it, soft light blues and yellows, wooly sheep, Bo Peep or Bears or something
We had a golden coloured curtain with lots of designs on it in the bedroom
I remember if you looked hard enough you'd start to see faces in the curtain
Sometimes they would frighten me, they'd look very sharp and angry looking or maybe very sad unhappy looking...
I suppose today I still see faces, in my mind, in the great curtain of all my memories, all those I ever met and knew...

I remember looking at my Mom's face and not knowing what she was
Babies their a complete clean slate, have no words, they know nothing of this world
Gradually they warm to their Mom's affections and come to trust her and bond with her.
Because you had no words when very young there'd be huge gaps in your consciousness
When your consciousness would be completely clear and still
The silence and stillness would envelop you
... and there was something else... something else there... something deep in the silence
Out of it would come something very strange and quite wonderful
It'd come upon you suddenly...it was like your consciousness was changing, opening up
It was like you were descending into some great... some great complex
Your eyes would be closed but still you could see it and feel it... you were part of it
And it was so natural and so familiar...it was where you came from...it was Home
There was a first part that would lead into another part... and then another, all different
Yea, it had several stages and you'd pass through each stage from the outside going inward right to the very last stage... the very Source of Life itself
And you'd be completely at ease with yourself, you'd be completely at Home there
It'd come every night... that Special thing.,. that Special Place
Y'know sometimes when I see a little baby asleep in its pram, I know... I know where they are
Their away now, away in that Special Place
Far faraway from this world of care, so peaceful and so quiet there
Guarded by unknowingness and the Great Silence
With no fear or confusion there to bedevil it
Knowing only a relaxation so deep and a great Stillness within...

But me! I was the youngest in my house, I was always fighting with my brothers
And I was a terrible worrier just like my Mother
I'd be worried about school and the teachers, and trying to understand my (school) lessons
And there'd always be problems, arguments, confusions... humiliations and cruel harsh words spoken
At night I remember I used shake my head vigorously as if trying to rid my mind
Of words that had been spoken, words that hurt or stung...or confused me
I used bump my head gently against the wall
But no! I couldn't escape them... my peace it was broken now...it was gone
And that Special Place just like in the song Puff the Magic Dragon
It came no more...it was lost to me.

I suppose this is all I can remember, all I can recall
I guess this is where I must have come in
I suppose I must have reached the end... the End of my Rope here.

I need to be serenaded
by a guitar overdriven
into distorted bliss,
there's something
so uplifting
in the crunch and fuzz.
Marc Bolan’s swagger
and funk infect me
and I giggle in delight

Moon unit Zappa
smile
whip *******

Zowie Bowie
alias
Duncan Jones
Zappa film Moon

Rolan Bolan
the real
pinball wizard.

Cat black the wizard’s hat,
Marc Bolan did his thing,
A Jingle-jangle morning,
Bob Dylan’s posy ring.
Sunshine walking, yep,
Eddy Grant, whoop it up,
While Marley jammy-jams,
Herbal tea, oh do let us sup.
Rolling in the long grass,
Naked limbs having fun,
Much frolicking and kissing,
Laughter soaks up the sun.
Pleasure aches inside us,
Little scraps of pale blue,
Not flowers, ah, butterflies,
Diamonds made of dew.
So subtle in the long grass,
Loving: a delicious snack,
Drink each other for dinner,
Cat black the wizard’s back.

© Paul Chafer 2014

Only one light bulb glares like
A broken down dressing room;
Flickering, like it was on a wick, and
Dancing vibrantly to
A Marc Bolan tune.
Shape-shifter paradise
When the moon come'th
And the creaks cease to sound;
Only impressions, vaguely dreamt,
When the noise is turned down.
Waves,
Like trimming,
Glide In the space around the room;
Whispers faint, and dim,
Speak of paranoia and doom.
Pensive and pondering I lye,
Taken aback,
On patios at night smoking cigarettes.
Lilacs on crescent moon walks
For a cheap change of scenery.
Lunaphilia for my imprisoned internal talks
Feeds my dreary summer softly.

i know, i should have attempted to collect black sabbath's oeuvre, instead  i missed out on master of reality's song solitude, loved that song, learned to play it apart from the solo, and a girl remarked 'i did't know you could play country music', country?! ah, you mean country as in: sleepy hollow haunted woods and wide open fields and remote routes into isolation? ah, well then yes. shame really, but i'm not going to feel ashamed having collected iron maiden and slayer oeuvres (up to a sensible point), but **** me, that song! and thank god i smashed my guitar on the stones, bye bye, you haunted guitar.*

you know, after reading a lot of books,
esp. in your ****** prime and want of party party,
you digest things a lot easier,
mind you, i used to visit my grandparents
in the summer religiously, a perfect environment
to have read major books:
kierkegaard's either / or, bertrand russell's
history of western philosophy,
dostoyevsky's the karamazov brothers,
bolesław prus' the doll,
don quixote, tatarkiewicz's on joy...
i mean mammoth-sized books (by the way,
mammoth is a word derived from estonian,
and they didn't become extinct as far back
as you might think)... but the perfect environment
to read them... and after you've done that,
and enjoyed a few other books in between
you just turn to writing, and reading book
reviews... like today, i sneezed four times
to protect me against the guilt of laughing
reading a book review, rather than the book itself:
death drive - there are no accidents,
a book about celebrities crashing their cars,
fatal car accidents; enlisted examples refer to:
jayne mansfield, albert camus, james dean,
eddie cochran, mike hailwood, mike hawthorn,
marc bolan, tara browne, isadora duncan.
i guess you just forget reading books,
having testified to yourself an adequate cultural
canon being possessed: well, i mean,
imagine going back to the town of your birth
you left aged 8 and spending time with your
grandparents for a month - you have to
make shroud economics in such scenarios.

so she write this article, this amanda
foreman,
   a historian and with four girls
and one boy that's almost the fifth and
i'm wondering:
god, where has this headache come from
where is the man?
                life's too perfect to seem
to rhyme, or worth wasting your time
remembering some obscure Versailles verse
worth a shining ****'s worth of
a crown readied for a one-night stand...
**** me, a five+ female household,
i hope these muslim martyrs wishes what
they got themselves into...
   the true martyrs have three entry
points...
           mouth, vaginal, ****...
            if you can't spot the true martyrs
i'll tell you about asking the watermelon man,
or herbie hancocks, or in comparison
by ol' joe...
      treating his quasi-alzheimer stories
like your favourite jazz standards...
herr bitebonbon, dresden, auschwitz,
and some other memories:
  a drowning man will cling to a razor blade
to stay afloat, like any old man:
what bugs him now is not being sad,
but being foregetful...
he replays the rubric every day:
he says:
sure, i'm dead already:
but i want to remember myself dying!
   old people and their jazz standards of memory,
i am old, i feel old,
   oh ma'h feel'ah rob'eh m'on...
   patois or 'alf the pitied peshawar mamí son...
lumberjack my *** were 'ere bootleg
a stump of wood mamí sis...
  ya rite?
           *** we boss the 9,2,3,oh,5...
and call that a freq.,
  man that boy to a prrrrrristine:
shakin' m'ah timbers floating a-high...
man, sum tim' the talk ain't talk
it's called: scare-alley-cat-talk
feelin' a gush of **** talk-ji
  of an incubus toying with ya
little mums' crisp clear elijah of buttock
say in: **** as smooth as
a mouth slicking a rota of a hooplah...
talk cool: play the dumb infant...
next time you know:
   yo be talkin' to mama bear an
pleading for her Mississippi pancakes...
**** you not...
             she a one woman with
a five daughter brothel...
good lucky lucky luke if there's any
eager...
                last time i checked:
neither word, nor piano nor horn earned
****...
        just a nice ref. to: ooze...
  like washington's monologue in
fences didn't earned him oscar:
but a director's role none the less...
lady guesses to choose...
and her choice is always wrong
while her guess is always good...
          my, why a mighty site these days:
a man that stays at home becomes
a better cook than a woman,
who isn't all too eager to enter the outside world...
there's always the idea of a death by
a grizzly bear and i think of entering
a bear enclosure in the danzig zoo...
  and the little bear that ate my cardigan button...
and the bear mama...
      god, i love that memeory,
because it's so unreal that it's real because
it happened and my mind became
a ******* ******* trickster thinking
that my faculty of memory didn't dig
that far back...
         the child always remains with the man
that the child always was,
   but the child never became,
and the man who always imagined the child
becoming the man he is,
never said to the man un-becoming the child:
you were never this until "i" became you,
and "you" un-became me.
30+ hours wide awake and i'm still
trying to succumb to falling asleep
to fidgeting...
                        sure, nice trick, juggle three
oranges... then more into the iron league
of juggling three watermelons my
dear, common man.
         classical music acted upon the same
jerking off technique
     that excess rock did to solo guitarists...
chopin was a ****** on guitar...
he had no rhythm man...
            why do i know this?
the japanese, those wannabe white-ohs
pretend to be chopin...
they ******* ski-jump to boot!
                    chopin had no style because
he had no rhythm...
actually liszt ****** off the most,
smoked the most cigars and prematurely
******* with the most number of lovers...
    i really feel for that poet who cried himself
to sleep seeing him "perform"...
           you can solo the ******* want,
but the only rhythm on piano came with jazz...
i hate ******* for their lack of appreciation
of jazz... i hate to be a white guy telling them:
hey... jazz over class every day...
  you people, yes: YOU PEOPLE
ABANDONED JAZZ IN A MATTER OF
AN AMNESIAC TRYING TO REMEMBER
A DISTINGUISHING ASPECT BETWEEN
A T-REX AND MARC BOLAN!
how can you just give up rhythm piano,
the democratic soloing of each instrument
in a band in a matter of what,
20, 30, 40 years?
     LOSERS!
      rhapsody of the nincompoop...
hit the trends you ******, with your
nike airs and your shaaq attaq?
  canary in a colemine?
how 'bout a ****** smiling at me?
how about: pearly whites in a colemine?
talk kit-kat chunky pale white boy:
i start talking ivory...
                     hey: if the black guy ain't
the canvas of what i'm about to x-ray
i don't know why he shouldn't find his
root in the skin in the tongue in Swahili
so we can keep it neutral and not so,
******* lazy: english, keeping up with
post-colonialism Kardashians' shenanigans...
come on... they left sonny trashed nodding
at the piano: just one more note,
just one more note...
          boom... crescendo and the death's head
gravity pulled the gracious ***** down.
it's just a shame that they gave up
on jazz so quickly,
                   and turned to white *****
gloryhole ******* - which must imply:
Ethiopians in Japan...
              hey... you tell me:
last time i heard i heard the whale was
mammal, and that there was the Eskimo...
pop doesn't really bother me right now;
you left sonny clark nodding to his death
thinking he was falling asleep at the piano!
NOW... ******... BLEACH ME...
I ******* DARE YOU!
robert johnson didn't meet his fate
at the crossroads through a jealous middle
class white girl either...
given the times, being a white guy:
i guess that's also my fault...
oh look... there flies the cuckoo:
and here's the nest.