Things of no consequence

And there they are, random and untitled, unlisted and unknown and without context, apart from being here.

Letter to Members

Parked Pictures

Some people park cars, some people walk their dogs in parks, some people take part in park runs. I'm just parking pictures here in this picture park. A parking area where pictures can be parked whilst their fate and future is decided. It may take some time, you can never tell. The parking here is free (at the moment).

Ear Head

"I'm an ear head baby, can't buy a thrill."

Jungle Connections

My jungle connections

Time spent under an unkind sun

Lost and pathless

Eyes through the trees.

It fights back

Somewhere in our DNA

A Neanderthal stands tall

And mocks

Our thirsty journey and our progress.

He's on a couch, watching 2001

Beer in hand

Having a laugh.

Better than expected

It's a howling gale outside, wind, rain the works. It is January and this is Scotland. Anyway this wee piece of shadowy distortion turned out better than I expected. God is the great programmer and we are the great programmes and I truly have no idea what I'm talking about.

Colours of January

For no particular reason the colours of January this year will be represented by colouring book colours of cats and dogs displayed in a slightly distorted fashion.

Going about their business

Some people might think

If you see some celebrity or public figure

By chance (?)

Three times or more

In odd places

Out in the real world

Outside of a screen

Just going about their business

That it means something

That it's a message

A call to action

A call to act

What would you do?

What would you do with that thought?

The View

The View.

Still life landscape

Traffic cone, vacuum cleaner and piano.

Economics

In the school of economics

Things are seldom comic

Things seldom make sense

There's cause and consequence

But no clear explanation

Theories and equations

Factors, actors and detractors.

Oh yes.

Substance is lacking

You need fiscal backing

Relentlessly attacking

Other schools of thought

You see ...

Economics can be bought.

Triptych

The Holy Spirit moved across the earth, across the waters and through the ether. That was about all he could manage. It had been a tough assignment.

In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the Virgin Mary sleeps tonight. She had no memory of the previous day nor had any flashbacks (yet).

Having done his "job" he moves on and does other things. He does not have a robust span of attention it seems. Eyes all seeing, ears all hearing and a dark brown voice with a contemporary  Middle Eastern tone to it.

Without thinking

Walking down the sides of tall buildings

In a single bound

Faster than speed

Darker than a bullet

The dawning of the age

As a spider moves across a wall

Yonder snow capped peaks can't speak

Before yesterday was another day

There always was tomorrow

It brought comic strips and impossibility

Very straight lines and talk

Noiseless words describing noise

Where the buffalo roamed

We imported that other culture

Misappropriated it and all their deeds

Killed the hostages and bought fresh slaves

Piled gold into limousines

And planned a better future

All without thinking about what we were actually doing.

Moody

Moody Cafe

From a table

interior 

looking out

 light comes in 

traffic and blur 

wedding guests

 shoppers

 pavement hoppers

 hawkers

 apple juice

 gallery 

Saturday

lunch.

Pizza V Timewarp

Intergalactic pizza with fruit

Here are a series of words: Some roads are bright coloured roads. Some roads are black and white. Monochrome. Painfully coloured. Darkened by plain tones. Mixed in places. The plain meets the tones. Here and there. On the borders. Where they mingle. Intergalactic. Inner.

Eastern sunset

Eastern sunset.
There is no Western sunset.
Ever.
Unless you view it in a mirror.

Number two

...in an occasional series.

Wild sea

Here's a picture I created
Called "the wild sea"
Far away from me
but still it surrounds
space - water - time
from a safe distance.

Breakfast

Here's a breakfast I made, earlier.

Now it's a flash in the pan,
a mark in the dishwasher,
debris in the bin.

Some say waste is a sin,
but not the kind of sin or thing,
the excludes you, or eludes you,
separates you, makes you,
look a fool.

Then I reflected.

The eggs have eyes,
well that's where the thinking began,
that turned me into a vegan.

I didn't even think about the bacon.

About time

"Why should I of all people believe in the words of the Buddha? Why should I follow his teachings? There is no peace, no occasional rest, no respite.  I have seen things but they are in the past so what is the point in searching for justice? We are all in constant crisis." 

These are some things I said, they are things I may have meant at the time. Now I'm not so sure. I'm not even sure if I ever said them. It may be that you said them all along, throwing your voice, closing out my thoughts with some bombastic forces that I couldn't counter. I may have been weak. You cannot hang a man for that.

I wasn't sure what was really going on. I was unsighted for a moment. It was all a bit chaotic. I could however sense the disapproval. We had crossed some kind of line, broken away, travelled through. There was a new space and place before. Perhaps there was a breach in the space/time continuum anyway. I'll probably never know. All I can recall was that her nose seemed to grow, her features became sharper and the grasp of her hand stronger. I read later in a lengthy footnote that this kind of thing was to be expected. I did feel judged however.

So those great blocks of concrete closed in around us. The daylight became a precious thing. The size and the bulk was overwhelming. It took courage just to look up, to lift our eyes from the flickering screens, to watch as the heavy air descended upon us. There were cracks in their lungs. Those others in the gloomy dark. The air was like some heavenly poison, too much, too late, too soon for any redemption. After a struggle with myself I found the door and walked out alone. I didn't look back. That would have been the right thing to do but the time was wrong. In the end it's all about time.

Trees walking

One day, quite by chance, the trees came to life. Of course the trees were already alive so when I say that they came to life I mean that they developed movements, animal attributes and what seemed to be consciousness, at a low level. Funnily enough I was the only one who was aware of it. Others couldn't see it. I tried to explain but well, you know how these things are. So as for the trees, they turned out to be reasonably peaceful, perhaps not fully aware of what people had done to them and happy to be poking about in the woods (?). How they were used as a raw material etc. might bother them if they ever find out. They were a bit like cows. I often think of how that first occurred to me. "These trees are alive now, fully alive, but really they are like big. wooden cattle with leaves and bark so there's no need to be afraid unless they learn anger". Once I'd come to this point I relaxed a bit. The trees would mostly be OK but there may be some upsets if they ever get to understand human history but that hasn't happened yet even with cows so we could be all fine albeit forestry is going to be a little more complicated now that the trees are moving around. I considered reading them the chapters from Lord of the Rings referring to the Ents but then decided that might be a bad idea as it might give them good ideas. We'll have to wait and see what happens next.

This means something

Maria said...

There were some things, Maria said,

Words and jumbles, sweat inside my head,

But that's Maria, living the lonely life with you.

Cinematic beauty, nature's crimes,

You go your way, I've gone mine,

But that's Maria, a fictional life that's taboo.

The revolution's here, out on the street,

Packaged for the masses, we're so indiscreet,

But that's Maria, older and younger and untrue.

Never make a song

There will always be some bit you've missed

Within that multi-coloured list

Some history that hissed

With hungry lips you didn't kiss

And was I in that moment there

But that moment's floating in the air

Still out of reach but in despair

The things I fixed in disrepair

There will always be that glimpse you had

Sixty seconds or a second flat

The truth rode out and that was that

Drowned in my innocent intoxicant

And I an instant you were gone

I had a feeling all along

That here was there but there was wrong

Those words would never make a song

These words will never make a song.

The Ballad of Rio Tinto

Digging up Australia and moving it to China

To build your laptop chassis and a copper sheathed vagina

Buying up the Stone Age places for a couple of billion dollars

They’ll have a little money but a homeland that’s much smaller

So fire up all your furnaces your factories and fantasies

Leave the West to wallow in our pre-apocalyptic bankruptcy

I’m glad salvation’s come to manage our dependency

We’ve replaced those economics with some good old fashioned treachery

Shareholders get rich now and the guys all get a beer

Some spanking new diseases and a glittering career

Thanks to global industrials for inventions, plans and deeds

And selling us more products that no one really needs.

spider moon

there once was an enterprising spider

who built a web from the earth to the moon

I guess that she won't be back here

anytime soon

You can never tell

when he died he was dead and gone

so we explored his house around

dead memories and screwed up stuff

screwed up stuff screwed down

rooms filled with cobwebs

and all the clocks are silent

hidden dusty dramas 

exhausted appetites' disquiet 

tattered comics from the sixties

a collection of women's shoes

christmas decorations

half empty bottles of booze

note books and diaries

Bird's Custard powder packets

amplifiers and audio devices

a quilted smoking jacket

dusty Camaro in the garage

set up on stolen bricks

greasy engines and accidents

and a box of witchcraft sticks

a bin full of cigar butts

letters to the Pope

survival gear and condensed milk

a stash of dessicated dope

they didn't find his body 

just traces of his mind

it's on Ebay now or in the dump

things you have to leave behind

spontaneous combustion

a strange way to go

abducted by aliens

or buried in the snow

plastic bag upon his head

tangerine in his mouth

his girlfriend said he loved her

but I'll always have my doubts

some people go to heaven

others explore their hell

what you leave remains a mystery

no one can never can tell

Golden Meanings

Your wife's so glad you've buggered off

The husband's happy you've quit your job

Now we can freely say what we couldn't say

In the great golden meaning of the day

Religion is a crock of shit

Nothing more you can do with it

Everybody's said what they had to say

With the great golden meaning of today

So here's your life and here's your fate

You start to live just a little too late

The dawn of something gets in the way

It's the great golden meaning of today

Roll up and buy a ticket

Some paradise awaits

Don't ask me what to make of it

I'll just increase the rates

Don't ask for explanation

Don't ask for guides or books

Stare into space and breathe in

Keep eyes closed you can't look

And take that medication

To take bad thoughts away

Your half way outside nowhere's

Golden meaning of today.

Somewhere in the flow

My father kept their wedding cake in the freezer

After the funeral he gave it to the gardener

But there was never a perfect person around

Just half a devil and half and angel in you

But we flow together, like water

Until I can't tell you from me

Let your brother down, let your sister go

Take the long way round, ever in the flow

She is like a tree, she shelters me

So I lie here, in this shade

Help each other, love everyone

Every ray of light you count and forgive

I had no faith but you knew all along

Were you afraid? Really afraid?

Let your brother down, let your sister go

Take the long way round, ever in the flow

We all lose something along the way

Gloves and scarves and memories

Things turned over and down

Drawers with forgotten contents

Journeys we no longer need to make

Hats and coats and memories

We all lose something along the way

Let your brother down, let your sister go

Take the long way round, ever in the flow

Somewhere in the flow.

My Ghost

I was shivering in your shoes

Never had so much to lose

Try to catch up but you won't come close

Standing there in some stranger's clothes

Must be the one you love the most

Sayin' "do you want to be my ghost?"

Do you, do you, do you,

Want to be my ghost?

Be my ghost.

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.