Written from within the relative safety of an ongoing superiority complex

         

The reasons my eyes look so dark

To you

Are in no particular order, as follows:

Daylight

Darkness

Buses

Trains

Babies

Mothers

Absentee fathers

Absentee friends

Alcoholic tendencies

No dancing

No running

Banks

Bosses

Their bosses

Their bosses

And so on

Impatience

Insecurity

Damaged synapses

Rerouted thought patterns

Roadblocks thrown up by dead men

The dentist

The doctor

Typewriters

Computer keyboards

Basho

Buk

Childish

Rollins

Stipe

Wilson

And the rest

Cocaine

MDMA

Marijuana

Other people’s cigarettes

Other people’s roll-ups

Caffeine

Fear

Disillusionment

Abandonment

Overcompensation

Joy

Love

Principles

Adrenaline

Painting

Sculpture

Horror

Melted clocks and movie theatres

Intelligence

And understanding of the souls of men

And women

 

I could go on

But I have somewhere to be

And so do

You.

 

 

 

Grifting

The house is cold

We have for years
Been used to a vacuum of sorts
Double-glazed top floor
Heat from below
Great in winter terrible in summer
And now reversed
 
I refuse to buy slippers
I am not yet an old man
Though my back and eyes and bones
Disagree
In our first December here
The cheap bedroom carpet feels like luxury
To me
 
Venturing downstairs - I’m reminded of the barns
Where we’d stay in Suffolk, in springtime
The early morning mist creeping in at 7am
As I make my toast with local plum jam
 
But here
Now
I sip lukewarm coffee (another side effect of the cold air)
Pack my bag for the work journey
Eye drops / lip balm / knives and swords and armour
And find the thickest socks from my drawer
They say it will snow
I know they are liars
 
First day out for the first day back in
The beginning of the pattern again
The day and week and month/seasonal split
That I create to manage the grift
 
Bowie once said he felt he’d one day face
Terrific problems if he ever had to stop being an artist and
Enter the real world
And every single day of my life

From the periphery I can see the same thing 

On a distant horizon

The day I am caught out
Stopped and questioned
Taken to task
 
It is not generally accepted to admit
That you are not only faking it but
Perfectly happy doing so
But here we are
 
And here I go into a bright blue day
Listening to the Northstar Grassman & the Ravens

Light snow begins to fall
January has only now begun and here I am
Wrong already.