{ 03.05 } .. . lazuli

the girl in the thought balloon

The last time I held her, my arms felt heavier than this blank, draping sky. From lust to indifference within a handful of saturday nights, I squandered my opportunities like I would be a perpetual adolescent. I felt the clichés cling tight onto the ass hairs of my aspirations. I felt the boredom in her blueberry eyes.

‘What makes you think I still care?’ I don’t remember who asked first. ‘What made you think I had cared at all?’ came the retort. It was kind of sad how true those angry lies quickly became.

So we never did get past a certain stage, always tethered to the mundane rhythms of our ordinary days. Maybe we could never fully believe in each other. Perhaps I never believed in myself.



spiral scratch
no substitute love .. . { estelle, shine }
take this hammer .. . { leadbelly, tell me where did you sleep last night }
transmission .. . { joy division }

{ 03.04 } .. . verdant

together we will corner languor

I’ve been told that I am making it up all the time. Whilst this is mostly true, it still seems a little peevish of her to point it out. At least, she isn’t calling me an out-and-out liar.

So, here is something that seems to be mostly true. When I look at her now, I see the woman she used to be. I see a face that had given men pause. I see a figure that shimmied and swayed like sultry, seductive jazz. And there is still something in her eyes that sometimes reveals the vixen in her heart, something that erases twenty years with a sidelong wink.

As we linger on a wide expanse of cotton and down, relishing this momentary eternity, I check to see that I’m not in dream after the tide of make-believe recedes.

spiral scratch

how sweet it is (to be loved by you) .. . { marvin gaye, hitsville, usa }

rodeo of fallen stars .. . { swank, pappy’s corn squeezin’s }

girlfriend .. . { matthew sweet, girlfriend }

{ 03.03 } .. . jaundice

effective dopplering

Sometimes I hear a false echo, like an insincere agreement. Maybe, I’m just being morally lazy. It seems easier at the time. And the compromise appears negligible. Maybe, I’m fooling myself. But then, it wouldn’t be the first time. And it always seems to have worked before.

She’s smoking and I say, I don’t mind. And not that I really do. But I find that my intolerance for second-hand smoke is in inverse proportion to the attractiveness of the woman on fire. You may feel that I’m calculating. I think I’m merely weighing the possibilities between an emotional spark and emphysema.

And, really, isn’t the best kind of love just like cancer? Growing without limits, overtaking the body, an all-consuming passion that leaves you gasping?



spiral scratch
divinities du styx .. . { maria callas, the voice of the century }
such a twat .. . { the streets, a grand don’t come for free }
funny little frog .. . { belle and sebastian, the life pursuit }

{ 03.02 } .. . mandarin

which escape to mount

She blinks. And looks away.

The winter sets with the madness of abandonment. How could I have left you, that question spreads across my mind like hoarfrost over glass. Prettily prismatic, she still moves me in her movement though she’s not in sight. The echo and sway of her transom hips pendulum my attention to and fro. Despite every fair from fair sometime declines, she still shines brightly in her ways. Each time I kissed her, I tasted the sweetness of her summer radiance, yet I had not known her in her youthful days.

Now, in the doldrums of this deadened season, the tartness of my recollections sharpens my sense of loss. And all I can look forward to is another change, from vernal to venal, whilst waiting for my darling buds of May.



spiral scratch
my wife and my dead wife .. . { robyn hithchcock and the egyptians, gotta let this hen out! }
hey! get out of my way .. . { the cardigans, life }
screaming hand .. . { jay reatard, matador singles ’08 }

{ 03.01 } .. . carmine

hello, this must be haven

Red is the sound of my underworld, a gut-vibrating rumble that pins my arms and holds me tight. It’s the pressure of liquid rock that completely envelops me until I am dreadfully swaddled. This will be the last time, I swear. I will rip this cord, the vein of stagnation, my igneous placenta.

Yet, whilst I remain entangled in its sway, trapped within its magma-liminty, I feel fabulously fossil free. Is it a transition to transgression? A resistance to subsistence? A happy dance in smarty pants?

In this troggy cavern, inside this crimson haze, I’m searching for my private Persephone; I’m digging for a Eurydice to save.



spiral scratch
crooked head .. . { fucked up, the chemistry of common life }
last day of the year .. . { reid jamieson, the unavoidable truth }
hardly wait .. . { pj harvey, 4-track demo }

{ 02.05 } .. . anemoi

ask not for whom the wind blows

The ghosts that whisper behind my eyes are echoes from some collective dream. Their constant urgings for contrary pursuits buffet my will to a stand still. I saw a Tenniel girl with a disembodied bunny. I saw a corseted puppet dangling from a cardboard cross. In the quiet haven of sentimentality that has replaced the tempest of clashing emotions, I sought refuge by refusing to age with trashy determination. Though I don’t believe in an inevitable fate, I give in to easy virtues, as if I were controlled by some invisible hand. Even though I stop myself from pursuing just any soft, fuzzy prey, I end up having the taste of game on my laboured breath.

Will you be my Liddell darling tonight?


spiral scratch
tempted .. . { squeeze, east side story }
fight the power .. . { public enemy, fear of a black planet }
hands of god .. . { mahalia jackson, for collectors only }

{ 02.04 } .. . eurus

a woofer to re-joyce

in the spirit of certitude I disclaim all manners of incisive carousal for all that can be achieved through the thorough explications is a brief cessation of the relentless dissipation an end that is endless but with a piquant and loquacious delirium borne of the unseemly union between certainty and the sexy flux of instability for even if I were to endeavour attempt or otherwise contrive to unearth an unvarnished shellacking of one of the undeniable truths I would still fall short of such vertiginous ambition only by resigning myself to the uncaring vicissitudes of unmediated synaptic connections can I truly be funiculared to a higher state an unceasing emblem which marks my feeble declarations as a three-legged dog would in the leashed outing we laughingly termed free will for at the end of that very long and excruciating epoch of tawdry episodes there would not be the satisfaction of truly knowing that yes her perfume was worth the almost comically quick dispensation with any semblance of a moral
code because it was so so much easier to give into those baser instinctive predilections and let those feelings ride as long as we can stand the incontinence of my words the messy expulsion of unhinged thoughts the banality of my venal urges in the event that there is a slim chance that a sense of order should somehow reveal itself then it is more than obvious that it could only be yes yes yes


spiral scratch
the great speckled bird .. . { the monroe brothers, the essential bill monroe and the monroe brothers }
my lonely sad eyes .. . { them, featuring van morrison }
payback .. . { leeroy stagger, depression river }

{ 02.03 } .. . notus

good morning judge

He walks through town with a wooden metre stick in his hand, leading a white-haired dog with a semi-shaved flank. He sings to himself in a tuneless tra-la-la. Today, he feels contained; today he is miming data, a soft pursuit of shapely patterns. There are matters to discuss, he thinks, accounts to be reconciled. Lies to entwine into a sturdier rope to dangle from.

Where should we go, how should we get there, very vexing. A tidal wave of questions that threatens to swamp his consciousness. Leaves him floundering with inaction. Verbs escape him. It is the perpetual now.


spiral scratch
oxford comma .. . { vampire weekend }
you’re pretty good looking (for a girl) .. . { the white stripes, de stijl }
i don’t know enough about you .. . { peggy lee }

{ 02.02 } .. . zephyrus

is it live?

The morning is filled with fate, as someone once said, inevitably. I’m not sure if that is exactly true. Or perhaps, I had not notice the import of those brief hours when sleep has relinquished its sway. The borderlands of consciousness offer only ghosts and mirages, ethereal gilded traps that beguile me to tarry with little reward but wasted minutes that stretch to demolished hours.

Yet, I am loathed to have it any other way. I am keen to be caught asleep at this catherine wheel. My bones are no longer my own. Their breaking feels unreal, an illusion, a bad dream whilst i wait for my inevitable wake.


spiral scratch
concerto de aranjuez .. . { miles davis, sketches of spain }
tainted love .. . { soft cell, non-stop erotic cabaret }
nadine .. . { chuck berry }

{ 02.01 } .. . boreas

more crap than sense

The leaky contact, the fool of wisdom – in the mad abandon of the silver stream, I hark a tailor soldiering forth. The dour duchess in silent running configures her duchy left side right while the awkward ampersand concatenates without duress.

Ah, such mild rebuke in mock pursuit of prayers in suspension. That knowing smile, that cloying need which gets my guitar riled. During these times of virtue, when advice devised in spontaneous atrophy has nothing to offer but its dry husk, I sit rigid upon these scattered shores and relive the imagined glory of victories petty and cruel.

Tip my hat to spinning top, slip that mickey a stinging slap – all fancy manners and worn attire – trim the tram to a topical drum, skim the scam to a shambolic strum. Your behaviour outweighs those ’rabian eyes. Yes, it may be too late. Yes, it will be forsaken.

There is a moment when she surmises that she’s tired of drama and mundane surprises. And she would give her peace to feel the calmness that holds less appeal than her lukewarm bling blang ding dong mien. How small it fits into that trap, a leg up that turns untrustworthy, and every day there seems little escape.

Blessed me the sunshine dappled oyster bugle. Yet, in its vast surrender, a past contender, into the fray he dukes one two. And ducks the duchess while pondering foul deeds, indeed.


spiral scratch
pussy galore .. . { the roots, phrenology }
i don’t care if the sun don’t shine .. . { patti page with d’artega orchestra }
garbage man .. . { the cramps, songs the lord taught us }

{ 21 } .. . mundane

the end of the line

I thought that there would be some magic, an epiphanic seizure to ignite my imagination. After vomiting away in discrete installments, was it too much to ask for a pot of golden wisdom? Instead, I’m hovering precariously over some indifferent porcelain, divining the future staring at a descending whirl.

From the fool to the world is a short gap, a stack of flimsy excuses to fixate on myself. The cards read daft because I cheat. The future remains unknown and unknowable, just like it should be. And the tarot deck hides only the secrets you care to hide.

But in the end, the life you make is equal to the one you forsake. Whatever that means.


spiral scratch
sexy singer girl .. . { the embarrassment, heyday 1979-83 }
come on eileen .. . { dexy’s midnight runners, too-rye-ay }
up above my head there is music in the air .. . { sister rosetta tharpe, up above my head }

{ 20 } .. . prejudice

a soft-headed parade of a hardy tirade

You know, there are times when I feel like a piece of jetsam in history’s wake, a discarded bauble adrift on agitated waves. That is not necessarily a bad thing, mind you, Like a friend says, let’s get jiggy with it all and see what the hell happens, so what if we get a little wet.

So I dive deep into the wine dark sea, drunk on potential drowning, while the ship sails on.


spiral scratch
round and round .. . { new order, singles }
dolly dollar .. . { lilliput }
sweet adeline .. . { elliot smith, xo }