She smiled at me but I didn’t know it. I glanced behind me. Nobody. She continued to smile a great warm sort of sexy smile and I turned away and sat back down and wiped my slightly damp hands on my jeans under the table. A minute later as I pretended to take in the conversation, I realised that she must have confused me with somebody else, perhaps someone who looks sort of like me. That, I decided, was why she was smiling at me. It wasn’t really me that she had meant to smile at. That made sense. I carried on talking to my friends but my mind whirred away in the background. Something about this girl did seem familiar, I turned and caught her eye. Yes, I did recognise her. She was no longer smiling, she glared at me. I turned back to my pint. Yes, that I could understand.

For my children

This whole life death business has worn me out:
one day I’m running high just being here
and feel a crazy rush and want to flout
the anxious carefulness and dance the fear
right out of people’s kindly caring looks;
the next, I’m reading thinking making
meanings, ideas floating just above the books,
and wonder at the shapes this search creates,
without, of course, arriving: not attaching,
seems to help when stalking the unknown.
And other days, I find myself embalmed in
grief so sheer there’s no me there to be alone.
With flux prevalent, I hold what’s constant:
I love you fierce and always in this instant.

Have you ever had the feeling that having bungled something however slightly, that it should be destroyed? Maybe something you had been working delicately on but having made a mistake, you feel an urge to break. Perhaps a diet felled by a biscuit, that by itself would hardly have mattered but having broken the rule, was followed by another 10. It can feel like an all or nothing feeling. As if, accidentally stepping in a deep puddle and wetting your shoe, the only appropriate action to take is to jump in with both feet and roll in it, soaking the mud into your recently washed hair. 

If you have ever said too much in anger, or smashed a perfectly good phone or computer, you may have experienced this feeling and I hope that both of us find a way to turn down the exposure and eventually, our way out. 

you fought fate through the years like a boxer and came out hands high and no less bruised
a fighter to a fault you fought the inevitable

i want to shout. ‘what were you thinking
why did you do it?’
but I know why
everybody knows why

today you’ll be praised for your fight
but here you’re praised for your surrender

I write but rarely for others. I wonder what others would want to read. What do they want to read? Probably not this, I sigh and clamber on. Trying to write to a preconceived plan is a struggle for me! In fact trying to write anything that isn’t this is a struggle, so I write whatever this is. What is this? This, never that. That thing I should write. That, that others might want to read, but oh! Only this comes out (whatever this is). It is a monologue I suppose, and I suppose people do read monologues, don’t they? They do, don’t they? I can see you nod meekly, and I wonder if you feel trapped by my words! I might well feel trapped if I were reading this. I might think, ‘Hey! You aren’t leaving me very much room to manoeuvre here, buddy!’. I might even say something out loud. I might say, ‘ Fuck off! Leave me alone’. Is that what you are thinking?

Do you want me to leave you alone? To leave and close the door? I hope not, but I’ll keep on going just the same, though why anyone would want to read such claptrap is beyond me, there being so many things to do in this world after all. Surely this can’t be worth your time? On what do you place your value! Actually please, I implore you, put this down and get out of the house eh? Perhaps a nice ambling walk, surely that is a better use of your time. Well anyway, I’m here, and you’re here, we shall better get on with it. But hang on, now I think about it, what about you? What are you here for anyway? What are you asking of me, for you are surely asking something. A story perhaps? Maybe to stop asking so many questions of you, eh?! No, that won’t do I’m afraid. It’s part of my style.

Is it a style you detest? Don’t worry your answer won’t offend me, I’m not sure anything could offend me you see, I’m not sure that I could write any differently if I tried, It only seems to flow like this. And flowing it is! Look at all this spilling out across the page. Anyone would think that I must have something important to say, using up all this space. And here I am starting to wonder if I have said anything at all! Well, I’ll let you be the judge of that, I am perhaps too harsh a critic. ‘Are you?’ I hear you say, ‘If you were honestly critical, you never would have started writing such utter nonsense at all!’. Ah! Perhaps! But did you actually say anything, or did I just think it? It is impossible to say, though you may find I ask you again.

You might be thinking that I seem a little mad, but I assure you that I am no such thing. I am but taken with an idea. It is like a force inside me, have you ever experienced anything like that? Like a fire inside your chest that rages and propels you forward towards god knows what and on who knows what purpose? I’m sure you have, is it not after all the most normal thing in the world? Well? Oh, I’ve quite forgotten my manners, you must be quite done with this by now. These extravagant ramblings of self-absorption that they are, eh? Quite bored. Are you? No! You needn’t lie, I won’t take any offence, it’s really a matter of taste and as you can see I have a serious taste for it! I feel like a cannibal, now bored by the meats offered and accustomed to stranger delights, but I wonder dear reader how it is that you feel? After all, I am writing this for you, am I not? But I am not sure if I want to hear, yes, perhaps I had better not listen. I shall hum over you if you speak at all in fact as your words could well be discouraging and put me off entirely. But again no! I will listen, in fact I will stop talking completely to listen to what it is that you have been trying to say. I’ll put the kettle on, and you can begin. One moment please.

The intellect is nothing but a means to avoid dancing.

Martin awoke early with puffy eyes. He held the clock radio at arms length and squinted. He grimaced at the neon glare and placed it back down on the bedside table, turning the face back towards the wall. The green light reflected back at him in the tall mirror by the door and he turned over.
‘Margret, Margret,’ he shouted dully, his face half smothered in his duvet.
‘Margret, get us a smoke dear.’
A moments silence and then a rustling from behind the door preceded the clink of the latch as Margret stepped outside. She stood in the doorway in the cold morning light and felt the breeze on her face. She too was waking up but did so in a decidedly different manner to that of her husband. She awoke lithe and ready for the day, he slow and haltingly. She stood there a minute longer and then at the sound of the sparrows morning song she suddenly stretched out her arm and lay her hand flat open before her. Almost instantly a little bird flew down from somewhere in the half dark above the house and perched on her hand depositing a cigarette in the centre of her palm. She returned to the house.
‘Margret,’ Came a shout, still muffled by blankets.
‘Margret, fetch us a smoke wont you?’
‘Coming dear,’ She said as she closed the door and turned towards the darkened bedroom.
‘It’s a Camel.’
‘Oh, good,’ Came a clearer, fresher voice. ‘Oh good.’