There was an old man named Michael Finnegan He had whiskers on his chin again Along came the wind and blew them in again Poor old Michael Finnegan.... Begin again
There was an old man named Michael Finnegan He had whiskers on his chin again Along came the wind and blew them in again Poor old Michael Finnegan.... Begin again
When I was a callow youth I aspired to Elvis Presley sideburns - I reckoned that this was what girls expected their suitors to display in terms of facial hair. As with the majority of my peers such hirsute display was simply not a viable option we only bristled with indignation at how unfairly the Gods of love and happenstance demurred to afford us an outward display of maturity thereby reducing our opportunity to parade our cockiness before the clucking and apparently disinterested chickens, we wished to enthral. Much later I discovered that girls too, were obsessed by the size of their breasts, as they similarly believed that their chances of attracting a mate were amplified by representation of womanhood. Early developers therefore were more likely to 'score' and thus more likely to breed sooner so that their offspring would have a head start in the human 'race' - natural selection in fact the overriding process in making us lesser bearded tits unattractive - mind the pimples didn't help much either. We ride along in sublime ignorance of the most basic of instincts lusting after that which we cannot have and craving recognition of accomplishments which ultimately will have little or no impact upon future generations. The great achievers of our times serving as mere footnotes to the history books our grandchildren will read.
There was an old man named Michael Finnegan He kicked up an awful dinnegan Because they said he must not sing again Poor old Michael Finnegan.... Begin again
There was an old man named Michael Finnegan He kicked up an awful dinnegan Because they said he must not sing again Poor old Michael Finnegan.... Begin again
The school choir for Speech Day was made up of the second and third formers and some older who should have known better or perhaps they really did like music. I liked music but not the way it was taught - how can you start writing out staves and stuff when your total experience of music is limited to that which your parents listened to? We didn't 'do' music in our house. I fuckin hated ADA - A.D. Ashcroft our music teacher was a ginger bearded gnome with the social skills of a polar bear hunting seals - he could have played us accessible stuff on the school gramophone, he could have imbued our minds with lyrical resonance. Instead we ground out demi hemi semi quavers on faint blue lines redolent of his narrow straitened perceptions of how music could enrich our lives. Cheers!!
There was an old man called Michael Finnegan Ran a race and thought he'd win again Got so puffed that he had to go in again Poor old Michael Finnegan...Begin again
There was an old man called Michael Finnegan Ran a race and thought he'd win again Got so puffed that he had to go in again Poor old Michael Finnegan...Begin again
I liked running but I liked smoking too - I liked jumping over, along, on top of, down from, still do. I watched a father pushing his 3-year-old daughter on the park swings - you kind of want to bottle that glee. I built a swing for my daughter in her garden when she was 7 - we didn't live together by then and I don't recall seeing her use it on my albeit brief fortnightly visits to collect and return her after our weekends. It was our race against time to incorporate as much of what we felt for one another as we could - we didn't give voice to that though.
There was an old man named Michael Finnegan He drank all his good gin again And so he wasted all his tin again Poor old Michael Finnegan.... Begin again
There was an old man named Michael Finnegan He drank all his good gin again And so he wasted all his tin again Poor old Michael Finnegan.... Begin again
Karl Marx said, "religion is the opiate of the masses." Groucho Marx said, "The first thing which I can record concerning myself is, that I was born. These are wonderful words. This life, to which neither time nor eternity can bring diminution - this everlasting living soul, began. My mind loses itself in these depths." But he probably didn't mean it. Karl on the other hand definitely did. And there's the rub. I must stop drinking gin it makes me depressed.
There was an old man named Michael Finnegan He went fishing with a pin again Caught a fish and dropped it in again Poor old Michael Finnegan...Begin again
There was an old man named Michael Finnegan He went fishing with a pin again Caught a fish and dropped it in again Poor old Michael Finnegan...Begin again
Is it just me or do you trawl through your memories too? These days I spend as much time wondering why I do it - as actually reminiscing on some half remembered recollection. "Guests are like fish - after 3 days they stink!" These visitors to my brain cells arrive without introduction, a by your leave, intruding my consciousness, plucking at my conscience, questioning my stance on long since shipwrecked enchanted forays. Flotsam and jetsam, submerged logs awaiting the chance to upset my fragile craft.
There was an old man called Michael Finnegan Climbed a tree and barked his shin again Took off several yards of skin again Poor old Michael Finnegan.... Begin again.
There was an old man named Michael Finnegan He grew fat and then grew thin again Then he died and had to begin again Poor old Michael Finnegan.... Begin again
Of course we don't have several yards of skin - it's actually no more than 2 square metres: The body's largest organ. (ADA was an organist - he must have loved music so why could he not share it with us?) Am I comfortable in my skin? Well after duly considering the alternative, one has little option but to admit that you'll settle for what you have no matter how scrofulous you become. Stretched to breaking point we drum on.
There was an old man named Michael Finnegan He grew fat and then grew thin again Then he died and had to begin again Poor old Michael Finnegan.... Begin again
There was an old man named Michael Finnegan He grew fat and then grew thin again Then he died and had to begin again Poor old Michael Finnegan.... Begin again
Aye, there's the folly, Being again, Mr Finnegan. Thinking you still have more to contribute. Having drunk your fill.
Consumed your just desserts. And still harbouring the desire to...Begin again!!
Chameleon No Longer
"Now you see me". "Now you don't".
Childs' voices drift, through open window pane; Inconsequential game. Flexible rules sift Ghosts in the machine
It's not a question of whether you see me. It's more to do with how I see myself. Apparently tangible. Disarmingly so. (hidden agendas and lost weekends aside)
Open to interpretation, Hope Springs external, But in Autumn we internalise.
Run up the colours! Declare allegiance! Express an opinion! Stand up for your rights!
Focus on reality. Do not disguise your dream. Hidden lights under bushels; Apparently not, what they seem.
Amnesiac's Memoir
if I could recall the names of them all
the lovers I've lost and those that I crossed
life would be sweeter or perhaps just neater
memories indistinct of glasses chinked
to friends and foes whatever their woes
if I knew how I would remember them now
to anchor my past so all I amassed
could be defrayed in this last masquerade
if I only knew how I would remember them now
Tantric Gymnast
I'm confused And bemused
We've been at it for hours But the question now is
Are you coming or going? I've no way of knowing
The Tantric Gymnast - A Rebuttal In praise of the quickie
I'm a sprinter not a marathon man. It's hereditary; my grandfather didn't die in the Great War, because he managed to scoot across the sniper's field of vision before the gunman had time to zone in on him.
My other grandpa was a professional athlete in the days when if you weren't a gentleman you ran for money, but we don't talk about him.... No I mean we just don't talk about him.... he had ways, so we just don't talk about him. It's like he's dead. Well he is actually – fell over on an icy path on his way to the betting shop at 97, he was a dapper little bugger, had 2 suits made every year and used to take any woman who came to the house up to see his wardrobe - actually I picked up on that, done it myself, it's a good tip, you're in bed in no time, try it - helps if you got some clothes hung up mind, otherwise they cotton on a bit too quick. He had a race winner's medal on his watch chain, which the sly old git promised to all the grandsons, that way he figured we'd keep him in cigars.
Cupboard love? Put it this way, if there had been any cats around our way they could have learned from us, but what with Davy Crockett hats and in those days from September on, any kid who could hold money in their fist could get fireworks and filch a bit of string, so by 1960 in South Liverpool the domestic cat was virtually extinct, still we had the Beatles to look forward to and then we became all peace and love which of course required a lot of leisure time, the dole was very constructive in that sense, a topical pub conversation might run:
“Alright Makka wot’re ya’ havin’”
“No it’s alright Ace I’ll get dese, you’re workin’”
He used to smoke the cigars down to the last inch and then stuff em in his pipe to finish them off, the fire which burned all year long was constantly a sizzle with great gobs of phlegm - there were 6 of us fighting over that medal at his wake, but as only one of us was a barrister he got to keep it because he had a waistcoat. Plus he was going to sue the rest of us for aggravated assault.
I often used to think of Jim parading around the Old Bailey with his fob on display - I don't think he knew that grandpa nicked it. Anyway we don't talk about him... because well there's only me now who remembers him.
After him we stopped doing longevity in our family. We sprint through life too, there's nothing genetically wrong with us, just fast metabolism or perhaps we're easily disappointed and want to get it out of the way.
I've never seen the point of long distance running - mindless plodding with an unreasonable amount of opportunities for lavatorial considerations. Perhaps even a propensity for public displays of same.
What do they think about - how much it hurts, where's the next breath coming from, is that hedge high enough to duck behind? I tell you it's not healthy.
Now running for the bus in your coat, plus laptop bag - since when by the way did homework become a permanent feature of our lives, what in hell are we revising for now - and those bloody shoes she wants you to get repaired banging against your knee - and making it, smiling through the pain and the bus driver's exasperation that another punter has not been left in his wake - I can see the sense of achievement in that.
What we need are more explosive physical moments not this constant, regular, eyes down metronomic shuffle, dodging turds and street furniture, and that's just in the bedroom.
I blame women, "It takes me time to get ready" "It takes me time to feel romantic" "It takes me time to reach orgasm"
I'm sorry!! Is an orgasm any better because you've had to wait an hour for it? No, of course it isn't, an orgasm is always a pleasure – an orgasm can't tell the time, it doesn't know how long it's taken to get here and it never stays around long enough to ask. By the time you've got the moaning over and done with you're living on memories, you may as well have been eating ice cream as far as most of your sensory organs are concerned. And afterwards, “you always roll over and fall fast asleep”, well of course we bloody do, we’ve waited for you long enough and what in any case might be in store? A curtsey to the applause of a flushing lavatory with an encore out of the question and the dreaded pillow talk "What colour - should my hair be, should the next car be", or the killer, "should we paint the nursery" and it was only last week you weren't even sure you were ready for a relationship.
I've watched Attenborough's programmes intently ---- the beasts you see shagging, aren't at it for hours on end - it's all over and done with in seconds - Why? Because it's dangerous, you can't see over your shoulder when thus involved and the trees aren't fitted with mirrors.
Mirrors! Look at the expression on your face twenty minutes in, I mean you can call it abandon, but you don't look well do you? Ruddy complexions are best suited to country folk. No wonder we find it difficult to concentrate in mixed gender meetings, all we can envisage are splayed legs, flailing arms, bared teeth, sweat, foul language and the all enveloping stink of musk-ox in season.
It's regression back to the stone age the moment an opportunity to get sticky arises. And then we get. "You don't treat me like a lady."
"Well I didn't think it was appropriate to the occasion." "Yes, but I mean now." "But usually your now doesn't mean now." "Well it does now."
So let's do away with all this stamina stuff it only leads to confusion and strife.
Let's make time for the more important things in life....
"Like?" -
"well I'd be happy to show you if you've got a couple of minutes."
Bleary eyed & famous
The phone rang, its insistent trill demanding attention.
After several attempts Michael discovered its location and eventually achieved a level of communication - "Nnnnaaaarrgh...."
A cut glass voice at the other end announced in a no nonsense manner that the time was 1230 and would Sir be requiring the room for a further day or did he need assistance with his baggage?
Michael thickly requested half an hour's extension and dropping the phone in its cradle stared wildly about the room trying to garner some information that would assist him in identifying his whereabouts.
Staggering like some infant child he made his way to the bathroom and unloaded the contents of his bladder in the general direction of some pristine white porcelain.
The female in the bath made no objection - nor indeed could she, as the murky water covered her mouth and nose - her matted hair and twisted limbs testament to a violent struggle.
Michael sat on the bed and took stock of his situation, the mini-bar afforded a cognac and champagne hit connecting a few brain receptors and various events from the previous evening assembled themselves into a roughly chronological order.
He recalled the party and he remembered old friends and some new faces, the collagen implanted lips of the hookers particularly fixed in his mind
He had won the bid for his girl of choice and was roundly applauded as he took his companion to the room.
Famous for fifteen minutes eh!? - All very well but how to spirit away the broken and abused body, He would need to find a knife, perhaps a saw and some laundry bags, no doubt leaking their contents on the carpet.
No the only practical solution was a large tip to room service, an abject apology to hotel management and stoic acceptance of the ribald laughter of his friends.
Well you only have one stag night - the ravaged blow-up doll in the bath, would have to sink or swim without him.
Pass Times
I was looking up an old climbing colleague and found a site where he was mentioned and me too, amongst the memoirs of an acquaintance who referred to the mid 60s in Llanberis, North Wales as the best time of his life "No Money No Cares No Worries"
There was no point in worrying that's for sure - the number of guys (it was mainly guys) who have deceased attached to their name indicative of a somewhat casual relationship to life - well you were either going to live forever or die in the attempt.
We lived an intense existence - my week began on Friday night driving the 100 odd miles from Liverpool to North Wales via the Mersey Tunnel down the Wirral Peninsula and then cutting through Mold, Ruthin and Betws y Coed to Capel Curig, thence over the Llanberis Pass the saddle in the encircling cliffs, Snowdon to the left, dropping like a stone into the valley and landing at the pub in around 2 hours.
Two days climbing or festering if the weather was bad - the OED does not do justice to our take on festering - truly an art form of doing nothing in a random and pointless manner - drinking mugs of tea in Wendy's café where on wet days the humidity level within was matched by the pouring rain outside - and then the return journey on Sunday night. I worked for a manufacturing company and was therefore blessed to receive the ministrations of the company nurse who would work on my cut and bloodied hands all week only for me to report to her with more damage the following Monday.
Monday night was spent sorting gear, drying tents and washing whatever smelt too bad. Tuesday was the climbing wall at Liverpool University, Wednesday the climbing club met at the Newington where we would drink Mild and Bitter and sing Irish rebel songs, Thursday was the sandstone outcrops at Frodsham.
I was a card carrying 'Hard Man' which given the milieu in which I operated was high praise - I had been ejected from one climbing club for inappropriate behaviour, the sensibilities of the members being offended by me herding a flock of sheep into our hut. 'The Vagabonds' Mountaineering Club', however, where such behaviour was commonplace, welcomed me with open arms and there I found a peer group of plumbers, shipyard workers, council officials, teachers and doctors, all of whom lived for climbing or being 'on the hill' as we referred to it - we were drawn to North Wales like moths to the flame. We were fixated by new challenges, harder routes - I recall finishing a long days climbing and stopping at a buttress on the way back to the pub and climbing 300 feet of virtually vertical rock, solo (without ropes or protection) in 10 minutes - totally exposed, high risk and not worthy of mention that evening - we didn't boast there was no need to impress - it was enough to engage with the rock and be accepted within our community.
Saturday night parties were probably more dangerous anyway - fuelled by Newcastle Brown Ale - gas cylinders were regularly chucked into bonfires and the flaming arsehole dance - a paraffin soaked rolled up newspaper shoved down the back of your pants a rite of passage - we would drunkenly climb the 40 foot boulders at the roadside hanging by pinch grips - finger and thumb pressure on miniscule ribs of rock - I remember going to a municipal swimming baths on a particularly wet Sunday and cheering on Brian who was barefoot climbing the internal brick lined wall up to the level of the roof 15 feet above the high diving board - the lifeguard was blowing her whistle incredulous that such activity could take place. Later they had a sign made stating 'climbing the walls is prohibited' not that that would have made any difference.
In those days we had time for everything - it was a time when time was unquantifiable - 'forever' a word hardly extant in our vocabulary, a word perhaps uttered 'under duress' to your girlfriend, only to be forgotten in no time at all.
I wish I was in Heaven, sitting down.
The Taboo was a one night a week club staged at a venue just off Leicester Square - it was run and promoted by Leigh Bowery for a year or so around 1985.
I was living in Highgate, North London with my secretary, Marva DeLisser, ten years my junior, she was 5'9", nicely constructed, of mixed race parentage so a constant glow emanated from her, great teeth and nails and western hair stitched on to a spiral plait which tightly encircled her skull, she was a delight to look at but God that woman sulked if I touched her head - however she was a trophy and for those you have to pay and anyway just that name was enough to make me salivate.
It was Marva's hairdresser's birthday and about 8 of us were going to the Taboo to celebrate, so on a cool Autumn evening we were queuing at midnight to gain entrance - no easy task as you had to look the part to get in - we never had a problem passing muster - Marva just smiled vaguely at the style police and they had me sussed as the wallet.
We knew Leigh through various connections in arts and media. Lucien Freud's daughter, Bella, would often be at our dealer's place and later Lucien painted Leigh in all his naked pomp - it always struck me as amusing that the 'beautiful people' could all be reduced to the common denominator of 'waiting for the man', whatever your drug of choice.
Leigh was an icon around then - his style was unique, a self invented freak I suppose, constructed from a damaged childhood in Melbourne, Australia. And becoming a performance artist was his way of confronting his demons rather than hide from them - London was his stage - you can either disappear in the Big City or you can make a hot fuss; Leigh chose the latter and lived a life on the edge questioning values and rearranging the status quo.
So it was his club night, the sounds aggressive and demanding of your attention and the crowd was there to look the part and consume whatever he had to offer together with copious amounts of mind-altering chemicals. Ecstasy made its first appearance around then and we were well used to Acid and Speed.
Leigh was gay and at that time - as in many others - this was an entrée into a murky society where pretty much anything was on offer and predatory players from music and associated creative industries were constantly trawling for the next new thing - he was scary to look at - huge head shaved and strange goo artfully arranged to dribble over his bald pate and at the same time naïve, inexperienced in managing his career and just as importantly, holding on to the money. He aspired to be the Andy Warhol of London but didn't possess that killer instinct to manipulate.
Taboo was one of a number of clubs the demi monde frequented around then together with Blitz and of course the much more mainstream 'Heaven' which was just along the way on the corner of Shaftsbury Avenue by Leicester Square tube - as we were leaving around 4am (unlike most of the crowd we had to be at work by 8.30) Boy George was making an entrance - the place was heaving - our minicab ferried us the 3 miles North to our Highgate haven and I said to Marva as we stripped off our sodden finery "wasn't that great?" And she responded with a pout "I'd rather have been in Heaven-sitting down".
I muttered under my breath Dorothy Parker's famous aside "Well you can take a whore to culture, but you can't make her think" - apparently too loudly, I suppose my ears were still ringing - she returned to her previous lover a couple of weeks later and without her company, I knew my efforts to regain access to that particular Paradise would be strictly taboo.
The Digital Mind or Living Within the Machine
In 1970 I decided that the prospect of full time employment was not quite as demeaning as previously thought and anyway life on the dole albeit supplemented by various black economy activities was perhaps not terribly fulfilling. They wouldn't let me emigrate to Canada due to a slight misunderstanding regarding my application - the bastards checked my qualifications and my geophysics degree was found to be somewhat creatively modified from an O level in geography. And I really couldn't see myself surviving much longer as a mountaineer so there was nothing for it but a haircut, suit and an opportunity to test my skills at blagging as a career choice.
Sumlock Comptometer was based in a somewhat rabid office building on one of Liverpool's more upmarket streets and my interview was conducted in the branch manager's office where frankly my attentions were diverted by the constant stream of attractive women passing by the door. In those days a relatively bright girl who wished to work in an office and didn't fancy typing would choose to be a comptometer operator - you could find dozens of them in accounts departments all over the country hammering away in serried rows at a hundred plus keys calculating invoices and checking transactions.
So my new place of work held instant attraction because the training school adjoined the office and as the course was relatively short a new intake arrived for my delectation every 3 months - it was akin to working on a cruise liner. Which reminds me that the old saying about sailors - a girl in every port - was never truer than on Merseyside where it was once reported that a crewman on the Liverpool-Birkenhead ferry maintained two families on either side of the river a mere half mile apart for ten years without either wife suspecting anything amiss, because naturally when on duty he had to stay with his ship. Despite the fact that they stopped running at ten thirty and the night bus ran through the tunnel at 15-minute intervals.
My function as adding machine salesman was to persuade our user base to transfer from pounds, shillings and pence mechanisms to the new decimal units in preparation for the transfer on 15 February 1971. Well of course it was like shooting fish in a barrel, the clients had no choice and I made a sale every time - leaving aside the comptometer trainees who had a broader range of options and could be remarkably unresponsive to my blandishments.
Thus I found a rôle within the organisation and subsequent to the conversion to decimal currency was offered a position selling calculators, as metrication became the next digital target. This brought me riches beyond compare as I consistently hit sale levels and was making £5000 a year plus company car at 24 - the world was my oyster, so I gave it up and became a retailer - selling funky clothes to a generally naïve audience of girls with money to burn.
Dressing up has always had a fascination for me - I love to see people parade and respond to their environment like pigeons pouting - my early introduction to Chaucer and his reference to Chanticleer the cockerel being master of all he surveyed from the top of the dung heap no doubt triggering a certain cynicism. So while I adore the veneer I'm always looking for the cheap particle board below as in any staged event where budget is prime.
Which brings me to 1989 when I attended a disastrous musical production of Fritz Lang's Metropolis in London - Brian 'Bloody' Blessed had a starring role - if ever that man can be associated with those two words - however, the set was a masterpiece incorporating dozens of extras trundling treadmills and cranking handles to create power and so forth in the depths below and it was designed by a soon to be famous creative who made her name staging CATS - which was frankly crap - but who am I to denigrate a person made rich by accident rather than design?
Her name was Anita Truscott and in her youth was one of the few comptometer operators to succumb to my charms. Her mother had worked with Louis B. Mayer the infamous American film producer whose reported last words were "Nothing matters", well at that stage it wouldn't would it?
I recalled her because the calculators were also named ANITA a mnemonic for - A New Inspiration To Arithmetic
Where Knowledge is Free
Where knowledge is free there's no need of a tree
The mind can wander if appetite appeased
Our need and desire short lived, yet intense fulfilled in the sense of what we require to kindle the wisdom we so proudly profess
Yet all turns to ash when we reach the peak (to which we aspire) for all that remains, is dwindling fire.
Hollywood
Régine's salon door opened with a gentle push, "Bonjour Monsieur" - "Bonjour Madame"
She had the determined haircut of a Parisienne businesswoman and the unexpected red of a brunette of a certain age, slim, petite, her small breasts supported by an underwired bra. Perhaps she would be his accomplice, an épilator who could fulfil his requirements.
"Régine, I may be in love, I think of her constantly; but the bush! Ce n'est pas bien. I prefer her stripped of all extraneous growth, I can't pay lip service to a hedgerow. It distracts me, and to spend an hour clipping and shaving, only to receive a painful reminder of stray stubble, disturbs the equilibrium."
Régine, smiling, acknowledged the issue and an appointment was made for 'l'Anglaise qui arrive' to be received into her salon within an hour of their long awaited reunion. "But Régine, 'met a nu' s'il vous plaît, enleve totalement, and so that the soothing unguents awaken her loins, suggest she dispense with lingerie.
I should like to think of her wet and fresh, the early April chill trembling through her skirt, her mind distracted as we stroll back to the apartment, stopping in a little bar, drinking une coupe de champagne, her senses enriched. Vous comprenez?"
She nodded, the contract complete. "Madame", "Monsieur"
He returned to the street and lighting a cigarette in a doorway considered options for the evening, a visit to the traiteur, the cave and pick up a flute from the boulangerie and maybe a 1664 in the bar across the way. The tall Englishman already felt like a fixture in the quartier.
There was much to do, for now the appointment was made he had to email the story to a coterie of connections and see who would take the bait.
à Paris, au printemps! pas problème. The seduction never failed.
Tomorrow he would call Régine, there was something in her smile.....
Claire
The scone took up much of her attention.
A crisp outer giving way to a soft inner core enlivened by the odd juicy sultana, seemed
somehow emblematic of Claire’s character too.
Touch-typing her way through life,
dreaming of what might be,
unfulfilled.
Cork - Kerry Transition - Transcendence
Our bodies are in constant change – in 7 years each cell replaced.
Our journey a physical constant while our minds recollect distant pasts.
History is in these rocks, these hills, this sandstone, peat and insistent sea.
Man’s involvement is viewed as incidental – patchwork fields in an unconcerned landscape.
Standing stones a reflection of our need to be recalled.
Our imprint inimitable - imperfect.
the ties that bind
“Come Here”, the hectoring tone invasive and irritating.
He raised his eyes and was reminded of her beauty – typical of her to require he take the submissive role, but this was a new twist.
What could she need that he hadn’t already supplied?
Surely, he had conformed to her every whim?
What reserves did he have in store?
Their relationship attesting to the laws of supply and demand was becoming more tenuous as the seasons changed – what she needed he was desperate to provide – searching for the bond, that gordian knot which would keep her in his thrall, but it was he, who was her slave, she held all the cards and he loved her for it.
Nothing could surpass this ecstasy, this terminal purchase on the brink of the void.
“Oh, do come here darling”, a softer pitch, to which he complied.
She leaned into his chest, insinuating the raw silk against his throat, brushing his ear with a soft wrist, breathing, “ Mmm, oh my God, yes, Yes; that will do nicely.”
He knew better than to respond, the rules of their game were specific.
Her hand almost caressing his cheek, proffered plastic; “gift-wrap it, would you dear?”
Soft days
In Ireland it rains as if a petulant child,
incessantly returning to the same refrain,
like a suffering parent
you learn to ignore it
preferring to concentrate on the more positive aspects of the relationship.
The Dark Side of Anticipation (1)
We waited for the moon to rise
Cloud eclipsed the view
To pass the time we contrived
A diversion - hardly new
In the lee of a Ferguson tractor
Stained, dishevelled
Virgo no longer intacta
We revelled
As lunar shafts pierced the hedgerow
Tho
No
Rival to our post coital glow
The Dark Side of Anticipation (2)
Let's wait until we're married
was the eternal refrain
now superseded by
do it again and again
The pressures imposed
performance assessed
leads me to wonder if
the old days were best
Beauty Spot
Bella was a Great Dane puppy, with legs up to here, which she propped up against the wall while lying on the floor in a resigned manner having been tripped over so many times in the small living room of Elaine’s parent’s home in the genteel suburbs of a northern city.
When John first met Elaine or Big E as she came to be known, we were sharing a flat and working together so there weren’t too many hours when we were apart and I liked that, he was my brother or at least I saw him that way, after all we’d been born within a day of one another and in the same foreign country too. I loved him because he had the creative attributes I desired, plus shoulder length dark thick, wavy hair, an easy way with women and even slimmer hips than me. I remember my cousin referring to us as Japanese fighting snakes which at the time I took as a compliment but later discovered was an analogy for fit looking women and to be honest if John had ever made the approach I would not have found it difficult to consummate our relationship. As it happens he never did and the only time we mixed bodily fluids was when we shared the same woman - which seemed pretty adventurous back then.
We ran a clothes shop mainly selling loons - cotton drill flares with a lifecycle of about 6 weeks or 3 washes dependent on your level of hygiene – they were supposedly made to measure but we only had 3 pattern sizes and as I had spent a number of years as a rock climber and had developed very strong fingers and wrists it was my job to pick up our female clients by the waistband and using their weight allow them to sink into their pants until their lips were separated by the crotch seam – I was probably responsible for more cases of vaginal thrush ………
Anyway the business was something of a rollercoaster ride and finally I lost patience with his petulance and probably more importantly was jealous when he moved out to live with Jill, a woman a few years older but I seem to remember with a mysticism and sexuality which I hadn’t seen in the women/girls with whom I found myself, not that they didn’t have charm - I had good taste - but she exuded an air which he found irresistible and I was irritated that he wouldn’t share her with me.
It was the early seventies and we were the new cool, which in retrospect was fey in the extreme, dressed as camp as could be in huge platform boots made to order by Terry DeHavilland in Kensington Market, giant flares and skinny shirts - with patchwork leather jackets we made ourselves and as much hair as we could muster, though not beards or moustaches, probably as we stood no chance of growing them.
I remember running through the streets of Liverpool in this flamboyant gear with all the gay abandon of two young men who had absolutely no concern for anybody, either their opinion or indeed their well-being, we were living for the moment and totally unconcerned with the perception of anyone who was not part of our magic circle.
It was hardly an intellectual society but we touched upon a vibrance that still remained in our home town, post God knows how many eras in which that city had been pre-eminent, from slavery to Merseybeat.
We were princes in a post-renaissance environment, conscious of establishing trends wearing the newest stuff and focused on sounds and imagery which removed us totally from the realm our parents occupied.
I remember flats in Toxteth where the doors were barricaded against drug squad raids and electric light was substituted by the dim mystery of candlelight, of wearing headphones in the bath and different women visiting my bed through the night and I never thought of it as a rock’n’roll lifestyle simply a right which I deserved as compensation for the privations I endured as an adolescent.
The unpleasantness of school, the disappointments of education, the long wait for sexual maturity and the realisation that I could and would manipulate those around me to ensure that I achieved the self serving goals for which I aimed.
I heard recently someone - maybe Branson - say that entrepreneurialism was a dirty word in the seventies, that isn’t strictly true but we weren’t approved of and quite right too, because we cheated and lied and liquidated companies without much thought for the social and economic implications, it was the nascence of the black economy as a core trading element and coming from Liverpool we knew devious by osmosis.
Sex has always been in my head, I mean it’s the thought that counts, psychologically the eroticism of being inside someone’s head and vice versa has always been more of a charge emotionally than the physical act of penetration.
I saw John again the other day - in a fetish club which is why all this is finally being recounted. He looked older - still fanciable mind-and still wearing the heels although this time they were stilettos and not stacked, he must have been used to wearing them because he could move and dance in them better than many women I’ve watched.
I knew it was him because of the blemish on his cheek - although of course his hair was dyed. We didn’t talk, because he denied me the courtesy of admitting himself, but I knew it was him; because John and Bella had a mole in the selfsame place. It was the reason big E fancied him.
