Somewhere

So what's on TV? Nothing in particular. 

Look forward to nothing save Game of Thrones, Fargo or the slowly diminishing Modern Family clones. 

I must find some meaning, some significance beyond the archway of flashing coloured lights and slowly growing, groaning sounds.

 More wine, more Mediterranean, more oil and fish and looking out of the window or talking pish. 

More whittling and turning, more sitting in the chair and squirming. Less politics and votes and grabbing others by their rasping throats. 

I don't change opinions, not with my bad leg and the war and the things that might be affected a little more like the economy and houses and prices and choices.

 Who ever knew? Things were so connected when the government go itself selected. If you can call it that. 

Those who believe what they want to believe, who avoid any facts or attitudes to relax or review or chew things over in an informed way, well maybe some day. 

More lyrics and pies, more repairs and sincerely meant attempts and tries and filling the space behind my eyes with dodges, bodges and curmudgeonly fudging the things I'm been loving or inadvertently hurting. 

So here comes the dust and the groans and the rust, the smoke alarm reminders and the email dividers and the updates and the tweets but at least I know of a comfy seat, somewhere.

Somewhere.

Turning blue

In the spring, head in the sand

crossed the bridge, came upon a dying man

coffee cup, all washed up

here's my life, harmonica playing in Fife

In the winter, spent my days

walking coastal paths and crooked ways

choked in fog, soaked in rain

looking out for you, but turning blue

Turning blue, seeing it through

Everyone else seemed to know what to do

I spoke my mind but I was drunk and blind

so I'm still waiting for you, turning blue.

IF

If I were a girl, I'd make a point

of marrying a tall guy

and at the wedding I'd wear

stripper heels under my dress

so I could tower graciously

dangerously

above all the guests.

If I were the recipient

of a banker's big bonus

I'd take over a restaurant for the night

maybe Tony Macaroni's

there would be pasta and wine

and much excited chatter

and I'd make it clear to all my guests

that money doesn't really matter

If I had a racehorse

It would be a bit of a dark horse

I'd expect it to win races

but as it crossed the finish line

I'd be looking at the bookies faces

If I was a television presenter

there on the exclusive couch

I'd wear a T shirt under my shirt

on it would be printed

“fuck the lot of you.”

If I was the kind of person

who's in literature

who speculates

I wouldn't consider this type of writing to be

great

If I was a music teacher I'd say to my pupils

“stick to the pentatonic”

because all those natural scales

sound bloody chronic.

“If” is a film

by Lindsay Anderson

I saw it when I was fifteen

or some age between

black and white

it may have had an certificate X

I forget

“If” is a song on Atom Heart Mother

Track 3, side 2 on vinyl

I had a copy but it was destroyed

in a fire.

Telly Savalas got to number one

with another “If”

not the Pink Floyd one.

Vanilla Man

Vanilla Man. 

That's what I am.

 Not one thing or the other just as regular as a slice of Spam. 

All the issues that don't bother, minorities and majorities, 

there's only me, as ordinary as eggs and ham. 

I'm the vanilla man. 

Never had an issue, never felt that strong, 

or argued my position, tried to right the wrong. 

I'm so unaffected, so steady on my feet,

 never guilty, never lifted, I'm the man upon the street. 

Yes I have opinions, but I keep them to myself. 

Got dreams and ambitions but they won't affect my health.

 I consume the usual products, I earn a living wage,

 I read the normal papers, but not quite every page.

 I have romance and glamour, a little in my life, 

I drive within the limit, I know my way round Fife. 

I'm the vanilla man, 

no strong flavours and no strawberry jam, 

no custom options, I don't give a damn, 

If you're lookin' for average then that's what I am. 

Three score and ten not counting. 

A plain vanilla man.

Vanilla Man.

Song nobody listens to

San Franciscan Sour Dough Bread

                                          

In my heart and in my head

                                                    

Want a long life livin' don't want to end up dead

San Franciscan Sour Dough Bread

                                                      

Red wine red lights red unpronounceable delight 

                                               

No necessary evil to take me to the heights 

                

Of San Franciscan Sour Dough Bread.

Not You

That's not you

I can see why you don’t want to

Go to Marrakesh or Kathmandu

Drinking sheep milk, eating billy goat stew

That just isn’t you

That's not you

Can't quite see you at a festival

Toilet lines and all those chemicals

Surfing crowds and smoking doobie doo

That just isn't you

That's not you

With an aqualung upon your back

Over the side before a shark attack

Immersed in water, the great deep blue

That just isn't you

That's not you

It's 'cos you're one of a kind,  but you stretch your own mind

My Sci-Fi Channel, Chanel No5, a good wine

Chocolate philosophy, pearls before swine

A comfy blanket, taxi home by nine

There's lots of risky things I guess you could do

But that just isn't you

That's not you.

Prepared

Underwhelmed

I'm prepared to be underwhelmed

                                          

I'm prepared to be underwhelmed

                

When the media gets going 

When the forecast says it's snowing

I'm prepared to be underwhelmed

There's a jet plane missing in the clear blue sky

I wish I could help, I can't even try,

They voted for this, so they said at the trial

Here comes the blizzard

Then there is a fire...but

I'm prepared to be underwhelmed

I'm prepared to be underwhelmed.

WWL

Wild West Lothian (WWL)

You can get to the moon just staying on the M9

WWL

They've got a flying saucer buried in an old shale mine

WWL

Drank in a Sevco pub and escaped with my life

WWL

So for penance and patience I observe them from Fife

WWL

Livin' in sin, making a wish, getting out, talking pish,

Searching for the meaning of life and things, climb to the stars on a pink pit bing,

Walking the canals and fallin' in or playing Mussorgsky on a mandolin,

WWL

Everyone else, we get off on your chops

WWL

If you can get through the door we'll go out to the shops

WWL

I love her deeply and  dirty as the mud in the Forth

WWL

Once my sentence is served I will tell her of course

WWL

I got my psychometric tests from a guy on Gumtree

WWL

So I can stay in the jungle but never be free

WWL

Scratching cards, livin' on tick, talking pish, getting sick,

Caught on camera an American  drone  strafes a designer in store in Livingstone,

Loathing the limits on my sin, they let me out so I could find the way in it,

WWL

They let me out so I could let you all in.

A better job

you can trample down

you can burn every page

release all your anger

let loose your rage

but love will do a better job

          

love will always do a better job

you might choose to twist

the knife in your rage

let the anger spit

rattle the bars in the cage

but love will do a better job

love will always do a better job

here am I there are you

see it all what do we do?  x 2

love will always do a better job

Not enough difference

There's a problem in my consciousness

It leads me to these words

Some serious and meaningful

But most remain absurd

I reach into reality 

To salve the mood I feel

But reality steps to the side

And so becomes unreal

flawed, studious and odd

flawed, narrow mind but shoulders broad

flawed, believing everything but god

Here I go, here I go, here we go.

A cat sleeping sideways on my optical prescription

I'm chopping vegetables fighting this addiction

Short sighted writing  reading factual fiction

And the angry men on TV say

Everything has had it's day, revolution, devolution, everyone must pay

I wish I could believe but the arguments just melt away

There's not enough difference today.