Runway Lights. 7/4/2010.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDaQwATC9vI

IV

Whale Watching

My mouth was a minefield then
My head ached
Half of me was still in bed
with the pillow wrapped around my face
I ate cornflakes and drank beer for dinner,
or nothing at all
I was a king alone at night
I was a mess

You came round to love me
and compare scars
It was the afternoon
and there were things I was supposed to
but didn't want to do

The brighest light I saw for days
was a chip shop window
No one would talk to me in the queue

You got up to leave
I made a half-arsed effort to move
But you lay me back down
and told me to sleep

I wish every sleep could be like that one

An exhausted stillness
that comes up like the sea
and sinks everything else

All in good health

III

usually I love this

early morning looks like late afternoon

public house boilers wearily breathing

steam across foggy bus stops

the roads laying down like old men

scraps in their gutters

banks and shops are closed

and I feel alone on the pavement

for the first time in my life

as winter grumbles its way to a growl

I want to be somewhere else

somewhere warm

howler

this morning

when I was lost in the house,

outside somewhere

a dog was howling

I knew how he felt

This Strange Fog

This strange fog

is visiting again

Making my lungs flinch

but my heart leap

as it drifts across the moon

Like its cousin snow

it brings a new perspective to old things

Disappearing corners

and inventing dead ends

While it is hard to see,

this change clears my mind

Alfie

There is a storm coming,

gale and black

My body and its cloak both dubious,

this morning’s coffee making me shake

I am a frail kid

I look into the ever-lit bedroom of a stranger

(always passed at night, weaving

It is like a lighthouse

telling me I am near home)

feeling bad for a second

as there is a woman in the window

A perfect long blonde Alfie,

I am a pariah,

but she smiles

and pokes her wide pink tongue at me

I fill all up like the dirty shaded eternal burning bulb

and feel much better

Shadows

I remember my best friend,

who left when I was ten, said

“If you see a shadow

  and there’s no one around,

  you are in the presence of a ghost”

Well,

these days I see a lot of shadows

when there’s nobody home

II

Aberystwyth

This year, winter came barging in,

an unseemly brute with no care

In the grey of the morning

and the grey of the afternoon

and the glory of the rarer, clearer nights

I have been thinking

about a coastal chorus

rattling thin glass

in ancient flaking frames,

angels with their wings stretched to the tip

over groaning sea walls,

beaches being thrown

like so many rattles out of so many prams

to live lost in the roads,

cars crackling in their wake

like bonfires turning over,

a perfect mole hill of dusty green,

it’s drowsy, pale horses, old fellows in a quiet bar,

and a dream house observatory

surveying its braying sheep

under a low and sleepy sun

And me, a child before it all

slowed for once

in a moment

I

Big Yellow Candle

I used to have a picture of you next to my bed

that came from a photo booth

It’s lovely

but honestly

a little bland

The strange but kindly nothingness

we try to project

when in need of a photograph

that hundreds of judgemental strangers will see

in curious and unfriendly situations,

The suggestions we make

with our eyes and with our mouths

that we are not bad or ugly people,

merely doing our duty

Not one for a lover

Now though,

this small inoffensive thumbnail has been covered up

by a large black and white of you

blowing out your birthday candles

and smiling awkwardly at me

You hate it

but I like it much, much better

Prick Your Finger

A couple of weeks ago I hit the rush hour tubes with Mark as travelling companion/all round champion and some near-vomit-inducing nerves to play a solo set in the Bethnal Green haberdashery Prick Your Finger, with my good friends John and Lisa, musically known as Sleeps in Oysters. It was a really lovely night of totally unplugged back and forth between the three of us with a kind and friendly audience who managed not to let any tide of awkwardness throw them into fits of shouting or giggles in the midst of intense near-silence. For a first solo jaunt into London, not too bad. So thanks John and Lisa and Louise and Rachael.

Here is a link to the Prick Your Finger blog and their post about the gig:

http://prickyourfinger.blogspot.com/2010/11/sleeps-in-oysters-live.html

Jonny

I am very pleased to say that Ben and myself are supporting JONNY on the 5th February at Play (formerly Plug n Play) in Reading. For those who don't know, Jonny are a duo consisting of Euro Childs from Gorky's Zygotic Mynci and Norman Blake from Teenage Fanclub. As a fan of the music of both of these guys and their respective bands I am pleased as punch to be on this bill. Tickets are £7.50 in advance, but will be more like £9 or something on the door. Here is a web link to the promoter's website and a link from which tickets can be purchased:

http://www.bwmusic.co.uk/upcoming-shows/?lgig=1ec1595d-b937-49d1-a62d-691b98e111bc&performance=1

Hope to see some friendly faces there,

Mark x

Hello and how are you there? etc.

Since myspace has become near impossible and at the very least, bloody annoying to use, I have decided to take up web space here as well, for updating news and goings on and for posting poems and lyrics and things. The old myspace is still there, but I probably won't do much with it (does anybody even look at those things anymore anyway?) and this will be my 'main site' from now on I hope. So here's to this little thing! May you check back here and have a read occassionally. Happy winter everybody, Mark x