I'll tell you something...

... if anyone thinks any opinion of mine is worth anything at all. And that is this: Bruce Springsteen is a fucking GOD. That is a F.A.C.T.

Illogical sports comment! Shock! Horror!..

I can't help thinking that commentators who are putting forward this notion that British athletics somehow does not merit a stadium such as the Olympic Stadium past the games themselves as the sport is not followed or participated in by numbers big enough to justify it, and so Tottenham should absolutely be able to just tear up the running track, have got it all the wrong way round. Surely the point of that horrible marketing speak LEGACY is that the new stadium, extra facilities and Olympic excitement will all hopefully re-generate the sport?
It all seems fairly simple to me. I have got to stop listening to Talk Sport.

Blessed rage for order...

i
Try and picture the inside of your own head. Does it have colour? If so, what colour ? What is it all made of? Not the brain itself, you understand, but all the stuff inside the brain. It is just out of your reach, no matter where you grasp, and you are like a drunk reaching vainly for a lampost to prop himself up. And all those half formed ideas that you barely understood loll out of the ooze. You read the page and it means nothing. It is all anger and fear. Headache stuff. There is no light in there - which is why you yearn for holidays in the sun.

ii
But try describing any of this to a friend. They will say, Ok, mate. They will not want to know and they will tell you that the inside of their head looks like a Disney cartoon, with animals anthropomorphized and gloriously congenial to one another. There is no hint at the murder and savagery of life here - females with big brown eyes and long eyelashes, and all rendered in solid blocks of colour, definite and easily understandable.

iii
Sometimes, though, it clears. And you feel like a Saturday night party.

Sideshow

I'm really pleased to have some poetry and short stories involved in this exhibition of paintings by a guy from Jersey called Jason Butler. His pictures are great, and I'm honoured to be working with them.

Anyway, the first exhibition event is at The Social for the opening night of Yarn literary festival, the paintings and poems will be up in the bar for a month, but on the 15th we will be having a launch night with music, readings and other good stuff, so go to the Sideshow Blog to find out details...

See you there.

What would Jesus do...

"Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own. They begin and end with the criminals who commit them..." Sarah Palin

I think this is one of the most dangerously misguided, and even downright stupid things I've ever read a politician say. While it is obvious that Sarah Palin was going to issue some kind of statement of defence, given the flack she's been getting in the last few days, I cannot believe the myopic, irresponsible bullshit coming out of the right wing media in America. Irresponsible is exactly the word - nothing "begins and ends" with individuals of any kind in a society; criminals, businesses, teachers, students... anyone. That is what society means.
But then, what the fuck am I expecting? Thatcher already told me that society doesn't exist. And then went about systematically destroying it, just to make herself correct.
Sometimes I actually pity myself for still thinking that anyone in positions of power, or aiming that way (pardon the pun), here or in the US might still, somewhere deep down, give a shit about actual human beings. And yes, that does include the perpetrators of criminal acts as well. Sorry, Sarah et al, but they too are under your jurisdiction. Or will be if you have your way. God fucking forbid. It may pain you to the core, but you have a responsibility to them as citizens as well.
Sarah Palin said she prayed for guidance, well how about this...

How about she reads the fucking Bible a bit closer, and asks herself, "What would Jesus do?"...

Not all that is wrong...

One of the things I hate most about the modern world in the west, with its technologies, TVs, computers, Iphones and the rest of that crap is that we never look each other in the eyes anymore. I'm sure there is a hugely important chunk of human nourishment that is missing from our lives since we stopped looking at each other - eating at a table together, drinking in pubs together or dancing together face to face. Now we sit on sofas, facing the fucking TV screen. I see the top of a head of hair. Fuck, it could be anybody there watching Poirot with me. Then at work we sit in rows, facing the same way. Long gone the days of interaction there, either.
I know there are all sorts of reasons why people feel so fucked and alienated and lost and miserable and able to meekly swallow the bullshit and worse that we are handed every day by the people entrusted with our welfare, but maybe this is just one little thing that we could change that might mean we start to remember what a human being actually is. We could start actually respecting that idea again, and not blithely accepting different human beings to ourselves being killed all over the world by and for our own Government.

The Ashes...

A piece on the cricket for Caught By The River...

One Saturday

One Saturday


Sat drinking in the pub, long
afternoon moves into short evening

and we are hazy and feel happy.
Cold bright winter sun,

shrill voice of laughter,
and pique of beauty in the starlings, even.

At the bar, you stand close to me and
we hold hands again, for a minute.

In bed, you come across something by Bukowski.

I wish I had written that for you, I say
Well? Why don’t you write me something?


And we are like before -
together in this great, beautiful, murderous city

and when you close your eyes to sleep,
I can again feel my breath upon your naked back.