clinging to the wreckage

The darkness of day filters grey into the black of night and the heart sinks like a sick sunset. Songs are sung and not heard by the heart that bleeds as blind and oblivious lovers feed on the cruel dripping fuel of their love. The temperature plunges well below zero and there is no hero who can save us now. Trump’s triumph has raised waves of hysteria and as some shout ‘holocaust’ others cling to their dollar, amazed by its resounding strength. In dreams they knock on the door and dance in fits of desire but, alas, the room is all but darkness and cold. Wintry winds howl and their sound is the music at the party of despair and oblivion. We fight for survival, we compete and we feast upon each other. We destroy what is good in the name of change for progress and we render ourselves unnecessary along the way. Our interactions have become tainted with shallow need. Men seek beauty and sex, they want a trophy they can show. Women want company and love but that must come with weal...

Nothing has changed. I still watch French films in foreign places and think of you. I’ve sat on my couch in England, Spain and now the USA and watched these films… forever making me think of you, forever making me feel a greater sense of distance from you. In this new life there is a sense of sadness in all I do and I don’t know if I am simply expecting too much or if time is flying by and leaving me behind. It’s a mess… life is a mess. I’ve thought about you perpetually since June 2013 and yet I no longer even believe in the possibility of love. Even if I did, there is nothing… we have nothing. You won’t even talk to me any more because of the fear of the threat you think that I pose. There have been complicated times in the past and we have not always been at ease but now there is a true and final silence. The inevitable end to every friendship that blossoms between a single person and one who is involved (if there is any form of attraction) because the partner of the involv...

The healing powers of music are immeasurably powerful. I awoke this morning, hungover, depressed, remembering critical and negative words from the night before and feeling the sting from their fresh cuts. Now I am lying in bed listening to No Use For a Name and I feel lifted, happy and strong. The joy of music stems from our ability to connect to it and relate to it on some level. For me, the most important aspect of music has always been the lyrics. Hence why I love the likes of Morrissey, Bad Religion, John K Samson and The Weakerthans, John Moreland, Blake Schwarzenbach, Tony Sly and so on and so forth. Many of these bands and others, like The Clash, have been with me throughout my life and shall remain. Fortified by music, the day ahead now seems manageable. sleeping in  

The suffocating darkness returned. Everything had passed and all that was left was stress, anxiety and fear. The pressure of study and musical creativity was replaced with the daily pressure of office life, and social occupation was replaced by an empty room filled with nothing but books and haunted by memories of  loves long lost. There were breakfast ghosts, dinner ghosts, lover ghosts and those that laughed and puffed clouds of smoke out of the window at the far end of the living room. It was empty and meaningless. In spite of the invites and the utterances of 'we have lots of time', Madrid life was in fact over and the remaining days were dwindling like the flames of an abandoned fire. Two more months would mean that Europe was no longer home and a new life would begin across the Atlantic Ocean. Loneliness and inaction awaited. It was uncertain if this was good or bad because life in Madrid had become a blur of non-reality. America would be a grounding, an opportunity to ge...

I awoke in the middle of the night, alone in that Boston hotel, and reached out for my phone to try to determine the time. My little finger struck the hotel room phone and it automatically started to dial reception on speaker. I leaped up and tried to end the call but it was too late, they answered before I could hang up. ‘I am sorry, I accidentally dialled.’ It was 4am, I was awake for the day. Fortunately, unlike yesterday, I had coffee cups this morning and was therefore able to make a cup of coffee. The morning before I’d had to go walking around the hotel in my pyjamas until I found a very helpful Mexican lady… I asked her for coffee cups in Spanish and she gave me 14. I suppose a British guy speaking Spanish in a hotel in the USA is not a very common event.             In the centre of Boston an Irish man hands me English Ale brewed with American ingredients and talks to me about football (European football). I get ...

I once knew a woman who was obsessed with things like men not believing women, men not trusting women, and so on. This woman lived with her husband but they were separated. She was seeing other men but lived with her husband because she didn’t work and had no other form of support. She said she couldn’t work because she had too many health issues… she was always seriously, critically ill. Always messaging to say that she had come close to death, she was in hospital, they didn’t know if she’d pull through. I always wondered how she managed to send such long, detailed messages from her deathbed whilst in a life threatening coma. Even more strange than this was the fact that she somehow would make it out of the hospital during the evenings and go drinking with her friends and would post photos on Facebook of herself holding a glass of wine and laughing in the street as she lifted her skirt to show her underwear. Then, the next day, the poor thing, she was back on her deathbed, ha...

Four or more days off and then the clocks change, the sun disappears, and Monday morning punches us in the face like an angry friend we once turned to for love and understanding. Hope is vanquished and every deadline is beyond urgent. It seems we are stranded in the place where Christ once lost his sandals.  A love letter, written to a lost lover, that was never sent, lies yellowing in the dust upon a dirty floor. You lie down, wondering why certain feelings that should be long since dead never relent. Finally you reach out and send text messages to someone who never responds. Unrequited love and a desire are not reciprocal.