1. |
Birdsong I
03:34
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Tonight was the night that we first met
Laced in limbs and honeyed spit,
I listened to the pigeons sing
And kissed your back while you were sleeping.
In the dark I watched your skin
Shame the moon and tame the night,
Upstage the stars and darling sky
From out your council maisonette.
And in the drunken light of day
You brought me fruit and made me tea,
And I felt like a happy man
Waking to a boyish dream.
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2. |
Wearing Myself Well
05:06
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Without my depression I cannot be good.
For I am weak and that is my style;
A reckless ram raging limp
With the love of the flock and plenty of pasture.
Without my panic I cannot do.
For I am torpor and that is my style;
With lazy blood, barely warm,
I would wallow in the weight of things undone.
Without my doubt I cannot grow.
For I am dull and that is my style;
All one needs is milk and warmth,
Electric light, and the hum of the telly.
But without the night I cannot live.
For I am moonlight and that is my style;
Tonight I will smile saddened and silver,
Laying naked as death on a single bed.
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3. |
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Where have all the lovers gone?
They all got sick a while ago,
Buried in their burdened books
With broken backs and blunted sight.
But surely we know how to love?
All we know is cold and dead,
As placid as a drowning fish
As dulling as a latex glove.
Then what is all this fucking for?
To hide the holes where lovers lay,
To keep our minds on nothing else
But flesh and death and death and flesh.
So is it all a waste of time?
Yes, of course, you clever cunt,
For none can love in this wet world,
And who would want a love so damp?
But have you ever seen the thing?
I saw one once, a while ago,
(A lover in a seaside town)
Turned to me and asked:
‘Who here would want a love so bright?’
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4. |
Deeds
04:52
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Here I stood,
On our Pangaea,
Where everything is total
Everything is neat.
Bored as the dead and dead as the bored,
Sucking the dust out of my teeth.
Here I stood,
Looking my best,
With the rest of the desperate
In the deaf of the keen;
Waiting for someone other than you,
Picking the dirt from out my dreams.
Here I stood,
Thinking of sin,
At the end of the garden
In the spiralling light;
Setting afire the dandelions
And rubbing their ash into my skin.
Here I stood,
On the ebbing rift,
Where everything’s in transit
And nothing is complete;
Drifting towards all opened doors,
Resting myself upon their hinges.
But there I stood,
Fighting the sea,
On the brink of the world
Where the waters are weak:
I've never won a fight in my life,
Until the night I strangle the sea.
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5. |
Wife
03:00
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Their mallow skins were pale and see-through,
Preludes to the waiting wife,
Wasting time in time and dates
While waiting for my waiting wife.
Names and flesh and bones and I
Lay waiting for our waiting lives,
Passing time in arms and legs
To satisfy this weight, this life.
By fallen fruit and knotted ties,
Upon the cake there waits a knife
In gartered thighs and virgin light,
A happy Job, a waiting wife.
And now we’re old as sourdough,
With tepid loins and clement hearts,
And how our skins are slightly see-through
And how we’ve learnt to live with that.
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6. |
Birdsong III
02:20
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She smelt like tea and parchment
Or a Sunday morning in a dusty bed.
She tasted like the last of the lambs
Or a bramble left till the death of September.
She sounded like a village road
Or the hymns of the lorries that roll through the night.
She felt as old as honey bees
Or as brittle as their happy comb.
She didn’t think that much of me
But she was she, so I didn’t mind.
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7. |
Offspring & Insects
04:05
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In the winter months the bluebottles come,
Terribly fat and frightfully juicy,
Sapping the grease from off the walls
And feasting on skin in the bathroom sink.
In the winter months the parents will call
Full of love and rings of duty,
Sucking on brandy and annual leave
Whilst digging for dates in the back of my brain.
In the summer months the bluebottles fly
Terribly young and frightfully lonely
Flirting with every scrap of waste,
Licking the salt from out my pores.
In the summer months the parents are dumb
Sunning themselves in those empty places,
Leaving me, frightfully lonely,
Sucking my thumb and thinking of drugs.
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8. |
Deduction
02:58
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You were growing, like a culture,
Or some cress in tissue paper.
I was waiting, for the rapture,
Like a friend found out of favour.
You were learning, like a daughter,
I was dreaming, like a son;
In the dark of Miss’s cupboard,
Where the world is black and young.
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9. |
A Small Rider
04:11
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I would give up
The rubbing of heads,
The sharing of beds,
The stray strands of hair
And all the occasions
Left amiss and forgotten,
In the seams of our drunken nest.
I would give up
The dancing of fingers,
Bold and clandestine,
Known and unchartered,
Felt but unspoken
On dancehalls and buses,
Or anywhere that suited my purpose.
I would give up
All of these graces,
Dead and familiar,
Required and painful,
Futile but needed,
To be between your waking and sleeping
Amongst the daily nothings of everyday.
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10. |
Heybridge Basin
04:55
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We spent the day at Lincoln's Inn Fields
Where the lawyers eat and homeless drink
And students sit somewhere between,
Reminding me of me and you.
You were in bloom in Lincoln’s Inn Fields
With sandals on and new perfume
And all the grace my eyes did give you;
Erring me from me to you.
We spent the night in the bed of a dog
Where the dark was warmed by gentle hands
And the air we breathed was mostly breath,
Heavy with love and difficult questions.
But light was the weight of my body
And lightly it shook within the black,
Light as the dog hair that matted our sleep
Till the light of the morning fell heavy and black.
We spent the day at Heybridge Basin,
Where the light is thick with lonely bronze
And the air is cleansed by rising waters,
Which measure the day by the swell of the sea.
Bronze was the man with the parasol
And bronze was his wife in the shade;
For bronze was the light of Heybridge Basin,
The day I mistook East Essex for my home.
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Makeshift Family Brewery UK
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