rules

here i expurgate, i liberate - i i i
catharticise - and that's no word to be reminded of
when you've worked hard at forgetting
the beans, the hard worn seams of the clothes
that you wish no-one upon and back.

you do not wish

(ties part of sock onto some kind of D I Y'er)
floats possibilities in Cork, New York Glengarry and Dundalk
)

thinks:

"ah y bastards - come for me now? ---- the midges and the sacred cows"

before the fifth and final loss.

then, wanting for tents,

baffles inwards

gives up for lent

that song by the pogues that no one knows

- wicked.

------

Blimey, pardon me, not sure where that came from.

Although I did wake up this morning understanding every word the wood pigeons said - which could explain something.

Over The Fence

how do you explain to the neighbours 2 year old
that you dont
want
to talk?

even, when he throws
his favourite sponge packed,
mini plastic coated football
over the fence,
for you,
to fetch?

What do you say?
Nothing.
just scowl at the bastard
(if youre stupid enough to catch his near to the ground eyes)
and let him know you're serious.

Do not let on
that his fathers' double address
(the one he mimicks so well)
is a sign of depravity
and that YOU
are a PROPHET
No. look away.

Some things are better off left unsaid.
--

"It doesn't matter" - wails a police siren
You aren't to know
as long as the cats dont shit on my lawn
we'll keep the secret
--
Driving through Paris in a sports car, in the spring, with the warm wind in your hair - at the age of eleven:

"If that cat shits in my lettuces, i don't know how I'll get to the punchline"

Can you imagine what it means for a ten year old to say a thing like that?

no-one will ever know how you stole that sports car, married a prince - or died.
Except, maybe, the cats.....

Radio Series: A Diary: Continuing Notes: 1984; The garden fence; keeping mum.

A Single Father and a Frame Maker for the past 10 years, Robyn, is losing his mind and his children and his house all at the same time. In the over sensitised and theatrical world that he inhabits we hear his thoughts and comments from the inside as they mix with the varyingly co-herent sounds and stimulii of the exterior world. Robyn is un-well and showing signs of psychosis/synasthesia/bi-polarity all at once.


ONE
Radio1. (A protagonist (in plain) speaks over various background sounds and voices: (in bold)):


Its not 1984, its twenty ten. 1984 was 26 years late and its not better late than never. It's absolutely and completely, extremely indiscreetly, agonisingly and benignly silently and repeatedly

(over a tannoy) can ticket number four thousand and seventy two please go to window number nine please? (repeat and diminish but continue in 5 different voices with 5 different sets of numbers and windows))

Here

(womans droll voice) well of course, that would happen in a perfect world, but it's not a perfect world is it? Its all computer generated, there's nothing anyone can do about it...

Do you get the picture? (coughing)

That was a deep cough. That said:  "I am Here" and "This is my voice" and I have two tickets "Ticket number ninety one for window three and ticket number four hundred and seventy five for window nine" - and: "You are all here as well... COME ON!!"

I am slitting my wrists inwardly. The first jobs of the day:  I am pulling out a pen and writing: Find Premises; Contact Insurers; Chase Printer.... wear a face that says: "I am bright I am here and I am alive; all my tickets have been handed in - try me?"

Ticket number ninety one for window three please

It's good that there's a different voice for every window, breaks the monotony a bit (why cant I help myself from thinking this?). A young father's voice behind me is saying: "Stop eating sweets, you're getting fat" and the kid says: "Can I get out now?" and the dad says "when we get some chips you can".

(Louder) Ticket number ninety one for window three please (pause)

Hello, I've got this bill and I think the amount is wrong...... (fades)

-----------

TWO
(narrator's voice is this time heard through a tannoy as in previous sequence)

This is me thinking. I talk to myself a lot. I am cycling along the ring road. I remember how I feel on a country lane. How relaxed and in time I am. There are no country lanes that take me where I want to go. Can ticket number ninety one please go to window three please. Can ticket number ninety one please go to window three please. Can ticket number ninety one please go to window three please? How can it possibly not be completely obvious to me that I am cycling along a ring road? Life has furniture. Not just houses....

THREE

outsider ins and...: outsider ins and...: Space Walking Repairmen?

outsider ins and...: outsider ins and...: Space Walking Repairmen?

outsider ins and...: Space Walking Repairmen?

outsider ins and...: Space Walking Repairmen?

Space Walking Repairmen?

I made some notes over a
Guardian article

Like a man making lists
for election campaigns

Twenty - ten; Space Odysseys
The Hubble Telescope

It was a bank holiday
rain then sun then rain then

Tim Walker, talking about
"Space Walking Repairmen"

Reminds me there are few things
which can never be fixed

In my notes I determined
to write about: Hans Blix;

The Child Support Agency;
A Hedgehog On a Spike;

Death (of Alan Sillitoe);
"Fuck off and get dive-bombed";

Organised trades and labour
in America - striking

For an eight hour working day
' hundred and twenty four

years ago to this moment;
winning: as my list ends,

My manifesto begins:
Weapons; Mass destruction;

Childhood; un-explained cruelty;
Death; sticking together.

The long and short of it all?
Back boys, against the wall

In Sillitoe's plain english,
Alan might have said:

"You didn't know me living,
but fucking love me dead".