Don't Phone Me

Well, not on my mobile phone, anyway. I left for the rehearsal last night in a bit of a rush - with the phone balanced on the bonnet of the car. I went to the post office and was just about to set off on the journey proper when I realised it wasn't safely sitting in its little holster. I drove home - and there it was, on the road - in two pieces.
I was amazed at how far I'd driven before it fell off.
It might have been okay - but from the state of it - it looked like another car had run over it.
Just down the road a bit from where a fox got hit a few weeks ago.

Wanted. Your Favourite Dylan Tracks.

I'm putting together a compilation of Bob Dylan tracks for a friend of mine. And I wondered...
what would be your top five choices? And what would be your favourite more obscure Dylan song?

Let There Be Drums

I set the drums up in the garden
Our neighbours were
A sympathetic lot
And found it amusing
On the whole
I imagine
People were more easy going then

Biscuit tins were the right shape, obviously
But a bit clangy
I didn’t use them
Likewise dustbin lids
Which looked like giant cymbals
But didn’t deliver
The body of an old red toy pram
Was at the kit’s heart
But most importantly
The discarded sticks
From the drummer
At the wedding
In the Co-op hall
Take these broken sticks
And learn to play
He might have said
But this was before the Beatles
When Lonnie Donegan was the rage
I like to think I had rhythm
I certainly made a lot of noise

Summer's Over

That was a very pleasant weekend. Visited James and family, ex-Killer Rabbits’ guitarist, currently exploring jazz-guitar. He’s going to put the lead guitar on the Mighty’s CD. And yesterday a visit from Joe’s girlfriend’s sister and her father, daughter and husband and his child. I cooked my nearly-famous nut roast.
Have now recorded the bass and drums for the Mighty Molecules CD. How about Mighty Microbes? Does that sound a better name? Have done a couple of rhythm guitar tracks but I'm having trouble getting a good sound.
Tonight rehearsals start up again for Damn Right I Got the Blues – so I’ll be loading up the car and driving up to London. Summer must be really over now. The children’s book still moving forward but at an astonishingly slow pace – school visits don’t start up again until the end of the month so hopefully I’ll have time to finish it by then. October’s nearly fully booked. It’s because of National Poetry Day in the UK. What will you be doing on that day?

Birmingham (Part 2)

A bomb scare
Hundreds of people
Men, women and children
Mill around
Watching the police cordon
No doubt hoping
To catch a shard of falling
Birmingham

Catch some falling glass
And put it in your pocket
Keep it for a ruined day

At last I find
A piece of Birmingham
I recognise
The road in front of New Street Station
Appears to still be there
A patch of wall
Shyly hides behind the signs
A new arcade swanks
Leads the traveller on
And through and all around the maze
Give thanks and praise
For Birmingham

I sit in Starbucks
Gulp my latte
Where forever there will always be
A tiny corner of a foreign land
That is the USA
The waiter says,
You’re not wrong. Yes, they’re paper cups
Real cups go missing at the rate of ten a day
Why?
Why oh why?
I do not understand
Birmingham

Beware

Beware
The inappropriateness of long stockings
When a short sharp sock will do

Headlights

It was possibly moths
Thrown into confusion
By my speed
And the halogen lights

Maybe it was drifting seeds

Perhaps tiny soft aliens
Landing on Beachy Head
Securing the high ground

Two in the morning
(and I hope you are sleeping by now
having conquered the nausea
caused by the antibiotics)

As we drive home
The car seems somehow reckless
And I have to hold it back.

The dog will be waiting
Anxious for news
And our bed will seem lifeless
As though composed
Only of pillows, a sheet and a duvet
Which, of course, it is.