the love epochal – stanza 5 – the sack of london

i have a new verse out today – the text was previously published in edge of humanity magazine, so please check that out if you haven’t already (see link below). now live on youtube, spotify, etc.

The Sack Of London

every coincidental couple share or will share a day
(assuming all live lives that lap over and aside)
when one is either twice or half as old as their partner.
we only live in relation to each other:
brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, children we are all
in second place again, lo siento, i feel your pain
then a vow: to talk much more on the telephone
hazy jane mountain range and a mouthful of blood
the chip shop salt and vinegar on the edge of the breeze
decline is the consequence of a millennium without conquest
bring all ye visigoths, only the sack of london can save us now
sometimes perspective illuminates
sunny convalescence; can i modify my betrayed reaction?
is there space for love without condition between event and response?
the universe is comprised of information thoughts are but ephemeral forms
deleted from the records for eternity, locked within an evanescent system
but are some things unforgivable?
let’s hope good souls can hold a grudge with compassion.

chorus

have you tried the toblerone, feckless bairn?
it’s abysmally pricey, but so is everything else
i have a theory that brexit is the effective sack of london, by hitler
different, but the same

this bipolar love hurts so much round infatuated hertz
bevvy bivouac, coke and jack in the sack
i read about his suicide on teletext in the 90s
a poet tortured, bill teller of the apple orchard
never socrates unsatisfied nor pig in shit:
we are socrates in pig shit, always and 4 real.
i cut a lana del rey tattoo into my arm, is that self harm?
each generation must make the material their own
smell tomato paste and cheddar, my da’s cooking, my home
a feeling of disconnection between body and homunculus
post-prandial down-dumpsy meek remainderman rain run
ink on scar tissue, perineum to the sun
this isn’t a cover up, the red rose, the guerilla’s fist
i am a loaf of bread, origami, a process
in purgatory every pain and every pleasure you caused will be inflicted back
and you will judge yourself
getting there—a tired prayer to monotony
four goes on the playstation then i eat the whole bloody toblerone
all that’s left is our dismal materiel
we all rely on the good souls who forgive us

chorus

have you tried the toblerone, feckless bairn?
it’s abysmally pricey, but so is everything else
i have a theory that brexit is the sack of london, by hitler
different, but the same

I have a theory we are overwhelmed by choice and will starve in paralysis / cornucopia or famine, different but the same

another month ends. tomorrow it will be may. it’s the best time of year. the sun is out, the days are long, and the whole summer is to come. and i’ve got a new verse out tomorrow. and its a little bit different. let’s just say that last may was tough. we are hoping better. come what may

the donkeys are a reference to the philosophical paradox of buridan’s ass – the donkey is equally starving and parched. fortunately, food and water are close to hand. in fact, plentiful supplies of each are just 1 metre away. in opposite directions. so the donkey is unable to rationally decide whether to first eat or drink, and as a result, it dies of thirst and starvation.

have you tried the choco lonely, graceful child? / it’s getting less expensive but you’ll still need a mortgage

i must be getting old. everything seems to expensive. £7 for a pint of beer? i remember when £2 was considered pricey. i don’t smoke any more, but i distinctly remember 10 packs of smokes for £1.36. they don’t even do ten packs any more and its most of £20 for a twenty deck. and the chocolate bars seem to have doubled in price in a mere couple of years.

i used to read about history, war, famine, strikes and all that, and think it was lucky i lived in the settled, modern world. sometimes now i wish i’d been born a million years ago. when human history does end, it will end with a bang, and not with the philosophy of francis fukuyama.

cycling down a road like the dream where i find another room in my house / moist stroll, jelly tower shuffle, cheesing postbox, very cruel

i used to always have this dream where i found another room in my flat. ‘all my problems are solved,’ i’d think to myself. how did neither i nor the previous owner or like the builder or the estate agent notice? but i haven’t had that dream in a while. life changed i guess. i got a bit smaller. need less space.

and the road is a real road. that runs near a road i know well. i am aphantastic. on some level, i don’t believe that the world that i can’t see exists. new places frighten and amaze me.

how vivid is the imagery of your mind’s eye?

shilling for a limited europe, my identity fading, delaminated / not drunk, just exuberant. and well nourished

so I was listening to a lot of the streets. shilling for a limited europe is a reference to european bob, from weak become heroes, while also being an ironical statement about brexit. and then my identity fading, delaminated, again, a statement about brexit, but also a reference to the fake student id card i had in 200x that sometimes got me into nightclubs and sometimes quite literally delaminated in the bouncer’s hands. and then the drunk / well nourished bit is basically a cryptic reference to an in-joke i was in-on in high school.

do you still ruminate on in-jokes from your days of underage drinking?

all stoned poets think they are funny—well i am funny / or unusual anyway

i saw an episode of the jerry seinfeld car programme were he said he knew a lot of comedians who smoked weed – a lot of broke comedians. it’s a good enough line for me to steal it anyway. i was listening to a lot of the streets at the time. original pirate material. come rain or snow the buddha flows. lock down your aerial.

are you an unsuccessful comedian? have you considered sobriety?

leaving a slugabed trapped in a pole vaulter’s libido / territorial, barking at my next door neighbour on the landing, hello / stand up for yourself, for [] sake / ah, woof! we all rely on the good souls who forgive us

this is the husk, the kernel of my character. a horny chasm, which forms the foundation that my superstructure of art, personality and lifestyle attempt to conceal. profoundly, inherently lazy, but driven to outrageous (solipsistic?) achievements in the pursuit of lovemaking.

and my girlfriend’s dog thinks i own the entire apartment building i live in. she is always alerting me to intruders. and this one time she barked at my neighbour for ages in the hall. i think that was the first day that i ever picked up a dog poo. and in that act, i understood love.

do you have a special canine in your life?

ebitdata scientists don’t budget for trauma: / cutting teeth. immersed in the pain pearlescent

i consider myself to be good with numbers and knowledgeable about business type stuff. i know about politics, law, finance, accountancy, tax. and i’ve read quite a lot of self help re self-management. absolutely useless at telling people what to do. panic and nasusea at the idea of writing my own to-do list on a monday and never plan more than like three days ahead. but nonetheless, confident that i understand business generally. and anytime i see ‘ebitda’ i wince. you may as well be telling me turnover. it’s an irrelevant metric. it means ‘earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation’ – but so what? apple computer’s ebitda may be 100 billion dollars. but it can’t achieve that without paying taxes, paying interest on its debt, replacing out of date hardware (depreciation) and developing new intellectual property (amortisation). apple needs to keep incurring all those costs or it will go bust.

do you suffer from executive dysfunction? how do you cope?

any task, i’ll find a way to do it / my first instinct may be wrong but given infinite time…

i actually said this in a job interview many months later. and got the offered the job. i am quite an anxious person. full of doubt. and things don’t tend to come easily to me. despite this, i do sort of believe i can do anything if i keep trying. hence i’m learning piano in midlife and recording an album of spoken word poetry and trying to find time to self publish several works of fiction while semi planning my first ski holiday.

what are your best and worst job interview experiences?

I have a theory that every generation knows completely different stuff / different, but the same

when i was younger, all my friends were my age. we shared a frame of reference. same teachers, food, tv shows. as you get older, you start to recognise differences that passed you by. different types of parent. differing wealth. different trajectories.

now i have friends of all ages and it has really struck me – everyone’s experience is unique. there are generational flavours of course. but in a way, we are trapped solitarily in our experience, knowing the things we know, being the people we are.