pools

When I say we wrote a piece of music and called it pools what I mean is we didn't really write it at all as no pens, paper or other writing instruments were involved in the process. The music just came about, was put together and then for a time forgotten, then remembered and remixed and there was a funny noise at 2.10 but I just left it in though I tried to cover it on one version. Then I thought "what the hell" and so I saw it as just something getting bothered about about nothing. It wasn't really about pools either but the image came up along with the overall sound. It was made using guitars, effects, a drum loop and a keyboard and I'm quite pleased with it. (Am I writing this from an "I" or "we" perspective and does that matter at all?). Sometimes things just happen for no reason and in the end you get something new (or new to the listener). I think it will be Christmas soon but that's nothing to do with the tune either.

Leek (and in this case turkey)

Leeks are green and white and long,
Is there anything they've done that's wrong?
Have they started wars or slaughtered whales?
(They've some mild association with Wales,)
They can turn their talents to soup or stew,
They're versatile and under used,
They fit the bill and feed the weak,
So let's give some recognition to the humble leek.

Kitchen animals

Most animals that make it into a kitchen are either dead or functional. The squirrel here is functional as he also has a separate career as a real nut cracker and provider of cracked nuts - useful. The monkey however lacks any real functionality and has since expired as a result of an illness brought on by excessive cigar smoking (as per the warning on the pack). Some dead animals may also be lurking in small packs in the fridge or encased in a case of tin in some cupboard or other.

Children and dogs

Goodbye, farewell the pub's not open yet,
Goodbye, farewell the pub's not open yet,
We only serve our lunches from 1pm till 2.
Children and dogs are welcome,
and a happy day to you.

Red but not quite dead

From the days when Victoria reigned over an empire and not a secret,
The red of the post man's charge and duty fades to flowery white,
The mice and squirrels run past and ignore the damage and change,
They care nothing for the cast iron hands of time passing old faces.

The ghosts from the village houses send out messages and notes.
At midnight some may read the few lines they wrote,
Scratchy pens and blots and gummed paper to seal,
Folded and posted to far away places like Dundee, Edinburgh or Australia.

Now the spiders webs are thick and grey, today's rain drips in,
The grass is as green and collected in a dirty wheelie bin,
Range Rovers, black dogs, tractors and funerals pass by,
From Victoria to Elizabeth in the blink of an eye.

Things we like

I've no clear idea why this is here other than to take up some valuable space that could otherwise have been better used in a more worthwhile cause.

Trick

A trick of the lazy light, see the tall trees that lead to the end of the path and more trees. Ornamental and serene, organised and bright, plantings and planning and the schemes of old men dug out by their young workers.

People come and sip cool drinks and chat and talk and laugh about this and that and what ever seems important enough or trivial enough and that is relaxation.

Once the weather breaks the slopes are empty and the paths run with rain not feet. Watch the sky through glass, let the evening fall and let the storm clouds pass.

This was part of summer and has registered.

Never mind the font

Warm wine like you might drink on holiday.

Radio Two or is it two or is to or might it be too also.

Neon Neon on My(Feking) Space

Fleet Foxes are the new CSNY who were the new COOP.

A cut and bruise obtained on your left hand index finger does little for guitar playing techniques.

For some reason I was putting together all these tracks.

The science of science fiction now governs all of our lives and this could be the biggest thing you've been involved in to date.

Struggling with backing vocals.

I don't quite know what to make of the Clone Wars.

Toast and cheese and wine and rice pudding, you are welcome to it.

I didn't buy

The first record I didn't buy, I didn't listen to any tracks, I opened the cover but didn't read the sleeve notes. It may have been playing in another room or in the house next door but I couldn't hear. I didn't borrow it from a friend or buy it second hand for fifty pence. It was never in my house or bedroom or carried to school under my arm or in a back pack on the bus. There may have been reviews in the music press but I didn't read them and I can't remember the track listings. Was "Ride a white swan" on there some where or was that just a single? None of that matters now as the two guys playing in the band are dead and gone any how and I'm still here but not hearing them.

Tom Horn

Tom Horn, you woke up this morning and wished, you'd never been born.
Tom Horn, a simple life, undone and lost, forlorn.

We all need to grow, we all need to change, we all need to understand the virtue and the range of our time. Time is sublime, you need to change, Tom Horn.

Useless Money

When the day is done. You have piles of useless money.
When the sun falls down. You can't spend your useless money.

Useless money grows on trees.
Brings relations to their knees.
Useless money won't pay bills.
It counts you out and steals your will.

In every shopping mall. People spending useless money.
You can't catch an eye. They're all blind to useless money.

Useless money's tied up more.
In property or just off-shore.
In the chip in your little card.
Try to claim but there's no reward.

Try to claim but there's no reward.
All you've got is useless money.

ubuntu utnubu

Life in a parallel universe. Life in a universe where sexism, racism, fascism and all other glorified isms are less than isms, they are non-isms. Our strange god is the god ubuntu, a sterile, un-worshiped, non profit making god who works for us, not against us. Our relationship with him remains taut and untested, fragile and pure, dangerous and unsafe. We stay tense. His angels speak slowly and clearly when they pass on their short, important messages. In the office of our daily tortures we admire them from a safe distance as their edicts are downloaded and consumed, we treasure their memory. Their holy host, confused and drifting with no obvious purpose remain, as ever unspeakable.

Vashta Nerada Deconstructed

Do you remember when you were a kid and you got a new note book or sketch book? Didn't you want to keep in neat and clean, have nice drawings on every page and good, clear writing throughout. That book, you thought would live on as some piece of finished work that you have and look back on, your ideas and views would be recorded and your artwork, possibly primitive and not fully formed would still have a meaning.

The book would possibly be a day or maybe two old when the Vashta Nerada would strike. A shadow crossed the mind, a cloud edged out the light and a strange and unwelcome consumption took place. Your will and resolution are gnawed at and slowly eaten away by the princes in the shadows, the voices in the half light, the doubt and mind cancer that set in when you start to fray at the edges. The dumbed down darkness does it's work and by the third page your careful constructions are slowly coming apart, the patience has gone from your work and you are left with scribbles, ill formed and conceived ideas and second rate attempts at sketch or prose. The bubble has burst and the idol has been toppled from the temple, you cannot make this thing work.

By the fifth or sixth pages it has degenerated into comic book scribbles, bomb explosions and cliched sound effects, swear words start to appear and word balloons are too big and mis-shapen. To lose care and the desire to maintain a standard is a terrible thing. The mess only gets worse, the smooth paper surface becomes broken up, the pages and covers are dog eared, some of the spine is beginning to come away. Slowly the pace at which you work decreases, there is little if any detail on the page, light pencil work or cheap pen adorn the blank pages with unfinished notes and hardly discernible images. Then by pages fifteen or sixteen only white, blank sterile paper. The Vashta Nerada have consumed you, your bleak notes are testimony to their heartless triumph and your motor has wound down to zero. Until your mother buys another or you pick up the next pad from some store dump bin.

Money

Let's all think about money, let's all get beat up over money, let's do crazy things to get money, it makes the world go round.

Money isn't abstract, conceptual or vague, money is real paper and pays it to your face.

Let's all fantasise about money, let's sit and daydream on money, let's idly waste time on money, it makes the world go round.

Wars are fought for money, folks are killed for money, some will kill for money, it makes the world go round, and round and down and a whole lot of things possible if you choose to use it wisely.

Go find yourself

Go find yourself.

Go find yourself.

For it is here today and gone the next,

a trick of the light before the great showpiece of dawn,

you leave with nothing but the breath you blow,

and it remains a mystery how, so silently we come and then just go,

so when you find the precious freedom, when you get to wear the tainted crown,

when you try to hold the water in between your open palms

and the drops fall between your feet,

what will you do with it?

Hot but not

Why oh why is it not hot?
When warming and warnings and giant footprints litter the skies from Jumbo Jets and methane pets and power stations that have a smoke fixation. Why is it not yet hot?
Not hot here, just bearable spring with birds that still sing and weeds that grow in surprise rain showers. We are a simple folk, a simple few, out here, far away from townies and hardly touched by mountain or magic dew and still a bit cold. Three dog, two cat and extra duvet nights and minimal light pollution to bother us. Yes we sleep well but still await the planting of our vineyard and the shimmer of evening sunlight running across the swimming pool. Perhaps when I make the big 60 the day will quietly dawn and I will relax in some hammock and sip beer in the artificial shade.

Church of common sense

Out in the snow, out in fog, the chill and the frost, the church of the common senses calls out to the lost.

Here are the reasons they want you to join.

Money and income and salary and heat and four walls to bind you to keep things discrete.

This is the church of no more common sense, no more revelation and aggressive defence.

Goodnight to you all from the frozen wastes or where ever they may be.

Blackest of the black arts

Politics: Darker than a black hole in a black hole at midnight down a coal mine. So called men of wisdom dabble in politics and power. Never had a real job or career, never had to feed a family or decorate the bathroom or cultivate friends. Perpetual students arguing about economics and philosophy while children starve in the room next door and dogs grip bones like they were family. Politics is the battle of wills and words, bordering on the absurd. One-upmanship and petty insults, parties and handshakes and the networks of the old boys, spit, polish and the revolution tempered by potential directorships and retirement plans. Such is the way of the no longer working man, wear a fine suit and argue with the breeze while you bring the country and the people to their knees, for your own ego and the good of your pension. Politics and integrity, two things you can't mention. Everybody is betrayed, sooner or later.

The unbearable...

The girl from Mars who turned out to be a devil woman is the lady in the picture, at a later age some say. Like the twisted plot of a hastily constructed B movie that you missed first and second and third time round, you then saw it on BBC2 as a teenager and were profoundly affected. It all came true but in a dream that was true but imagined as all the best dreams are. They never really happened at all because you made them up. So we discovered that the parallel shards of parallel worlds were not running true and the devil woman emerged and tried to contact you. What she said and what you did have not been recorded, sadly. But that was some time ago, in the days of monochrome, black and white and sepia and the early breakfast. Oh! how we laughed and oh! how you danced. Dating girls from Mars is highly risky, there is the chance of a terrible mismatch and the crossing over of ancient and sacred lines. I don't quite know the way that they run (these lines) but I am determined to follow them, at least in my own way and at a reasonable pace. That will probably be as much space exploration as I do this week but don't let me stop you.

The way of goodness

There is another way.

There is a way of reason.

There is a third way.

We do not speak of.

There is the way.

The way that warms the heart, sears the soul, dries the eyes and fills the hollow. Silences the inner voices and plugs the holes wet with doubt dripping down. This is the yet to be way, a chosen way that you have not yet chosen.

The blind see what they want to see. You have remained unsighted because of your own narrow view. Obscured. Fearful. Blank and angry. There is another way.

The best men and women marry only the truth, an expression of the ages and the void, a talent bought with time on this earth and then managed. A fairytale. You have to pay the dues and deny yourself shortcuts. No narrow way for the lazy man. No purchase of shares or peering over the shoulders of those who have learned. The golden book waits for you to be ready.

It is in the title, the way of goodness. Strange and simple.

Strange (to you now) but simple.

She was a doctor...

She was once a doctor. I was training to be a priest.

We married in July I think. Our happiness was released.

We breakfasted and fasted.

We slept in separate beds.

The Pope came with a pick me up.

"I understand" was all he said.

This marriage of the ideals was a divorce of heart and head.

She operated quickly and stitched with golden thread.

Her scalpel cut, she stemmed the flow, my head swam at high mass.

There was no respite or relief, there was no way to pass.

Religion is the death of me and medicine her life.

She was a doctor and I a priest. Her husband and my wife.

The meaning of life

The meaning of life. What's the meaning of life? The meaning of life. What's the meaning of life?

If you have been looking hard for the answer then be glad. I have it, I own it. I possess it. I am however willing to share it. The meaning of life is simple, as you might expect, yet complex, as you may have feared. It is close, as you may have hoped but far away, as you may have suspected. What shall I say then? Are you ready for the news and will you receive it well or will you back away?

The secret of life,and it's meaning is simple: learn to live it. Live now, in the moment. Do the things you want to do. Do not wait years or months, do not procrastinate, don't bother with struggle or turmoil, don't be bound up by stress or doubt. Live your life now and get happy, there is no second chance, there is no rehearsal. This is it. Make the most. You will not be sorry.

Paris in the spring

We were never so diverted, so related, so understated as in the spring.

The view from here is marvelous but where are we?

You bought a catalogue that explained everything.

I felt like I had been waiting forever.

This piece of work may be a sham.

I was momentarily distracted by a by-stander.

The coffee was the best I ever had.

And so on to some other city.

Paris in the spring.

Got it

Got it got it got it got it got it got it got it got it got it got it got it got it got it got it got it got it got it got got it got it got it.

Paris in the spring.

Get it

Get it get it get it get it get it get it get it get it get it get it get it get it get it get it get it get it get it get it get it get it get it get it.

Paris in the spring.

Ex-monk

A Monk was once was me.

In a small monastery.

In Portugal a long time ago.

This career choice has granted me,

a few moments of purgatory,

a trip to heaven's gate,

some time in the repository of a grave,

and then the chance to shine,

on a dead wall, some way out of the sunshine.

I'm a public spectacle and a chance,

for the Holy Roman Catholic Church,

to make a quick buck,

from tourists and heathens alike,

pilgrims and faithful and those not careful,

with their cash.

It seems I now have the last laugh.

ZZ Top Shop

Why did ZZ Top stop?

Did they drop?

Did they get crocked?

Did their engine develop a nasty knock?

Did they run out of ZZ Steam or are the ok? Anyway.

Find

Find the cost of freedom

Buried in the ground

Mother Earth will swallow you

Lay your body down.

(Image by MotherEarthThunderbird - Words by various old hippies who are fatter and richer and still interesting even now. How can that be?)

five easy pieces and...

Apple, banana, grape, strawberry, melon. The first five.

Pear, kiwi, orange, plum, peach. The next five.

Thereafter you can try any combination - but not in a pie or in anything with sugar or pastry.

Or cream or custard or milky substances. This shall be the whole of the law.

This all sounds easy but in practice it is hard. As hard as unseasonal fruit. A particular dislike of mine. Keep it real and avoid the unexpected. Think hard about the benefits and digest your own answers.

Tricks of light

The sky is black tonight of all nights.

The path of the aircraft has changed to no path at all.

And when that happens.

Drinks are no longer available from the bar.

The best way not to sink is to avoid the water.

Swimming is the next best.

But your clothes may drag you down.

Live life as close to naked as is legal (and warm).

Ask a few questions of yourself.

But avoid using the marks.

Don't change the pitch of your speach.

And don't go looking for answers.

Soon your questions will be gone.

And you'll know everything.

Chemical wisdom and chatter in the margins.

Chemical wisdom and more types of well worn chatter in the margins.

People who tell you about themselves and all that they are doing, their family and so on for half an hour without asking you a single thing about your own life will try your patience. Who really has the problem here, you or them?

Sometimes in life you learn hard lessons, often unexpectedly and without warning, the lesson creeps up on you, you react, you hurt and you learn. Look upon this experience positively and take on what you gained from your mistake and use it.

Don’t get hung up on money and it’s perceived meaning, the cost, the price, the value, losses or gains. You will never pay all you owe and you will never spend all you have. Money is only numbers on a page, a screen or a statement, it can be power, and it can be ruin. See it for what it is in context.

Learn contentment despite yourself. If you choose to believe in Karma then practice it, if you do not it is of no matter as all acts have their consequences.

Creative restlessness is a gift that fuels the mind but uncontrolled will corrupt the soul, that is if you believe you own a soul or that a soul owns you. Some say that nothing is truly owned by anybody and it is true that all possession ends in death.

A soft landing in sleep

Falling flat on the softest of pavements
Cushions and pillows to elbow the statements
Made by the late and the great and the fragrant
Escaping the timepiece and switching the mechanism
Piling on pressure and avoiding the cataclysm
That is the perfect reality
Realized by someone else
Who hardly cares a jot
For the things we haven’t got
Or the humor we turned off
Quite in order or set with precise borders
Yet
It is so easy to dream and fantasize and forget
The essentials that other consider extraneous
The ideas that burn but at first seemed spontaneous
And now comes the gift of sleep
And my soul lays down but cannot keep
Silent
And then drifting away
The sense of drifting
Just drifting away.